Rufus and Dino seem better; Birthdays and Anniversaries – not my fault; Ragù and Bolognese Sauce

The good news is that the dogs seem much better. But now I have a couple of bags of expensive food to use up and I hate to see things going to waste so now I’m mixing it with the cheaper food and we shall see what happens. However, Rufus has developed something on his tail – this may be a result of the food since he developed a problem with his skin when we first came here – all because of food.  So my experiment with the more expensive dog food will end with the end of these two bags. We shall go back to the cheapest available.

In the UK, we often had cheese and the dogs always loved cheddar cheese. When we came here we started eating Italian cheeses (such as Assiago) and, any bits would be given to Rufus. He started licking all his fur off one leg. We didn’t know what the problem was so took him to the vet who asked, immediately, if we had been feeding him cheese. He explained that cheeses was not good for dogs! So Italian cheeses are not good whereas English cheddar is fine! Who knew?

And, yesterday, was a friend’s birthday. When you’ve been together for a long time, there are roles in your life that are taken on by one or the other. One of them was birthdays and anniversaries, etc. V always did that. Sure, I have a record of some of them (and I never forgot ours, of course) but not all. V would tell me ‘It’s so-and-so’s birthday on Tuesday’ or whatever and buy the card and do the things that were necessary.

And, like most things, when I know I can rely on a source to tell me something, I don’t even try to remember it. So, it’s not like I’ve forgotten (if it’s your birthday or anniversary) – it’s more like I never knew! I apologise in advance but you’ll have to tell me and I will add it to my calendar!

Spaghetti Bolognese. Still my favourite pasta dish. Today, at lunch we had pasta (fusilli) with a Bolognese sauce. Of course, here, they don’t call it Bolgnese sauce but rather ragù. Those of you from the UK may remember (indeed, you may still have it) there was a Bolognese sauce made with a trademark of Ragu that you could buy in the supermarkets in jars. I seem to remember it was made in Belgium or Holland or some such place. Anyway, when you come to Italy, if you see a pasta with ragù you know that, if you order it, the chances are, you will get Bolognese sauce (although ragù is also used to mean any kind of ‘gravy’ so it’s not always guaranteed to be like Bolognese).

Buon appetito!

4 thoughts on “Rufus and Dino seem better; Birthdays and Anniversaries – not my fault; Ragù and Bolognese Sauce

  1. Me again

    I always was told that dogs cannot digest cheese.

    And I so understand about ‘roles’, things we can count on another to do and/or remember – and then all of a sudden, when that person/role leaves we realize we have a big void of whatever it is that person always did – it is amazing to me how you are experiencing your loss – and how it is impacting your life – and it just flows out in to your posts – I feel ya!

    Love Gail
    peace…..

  2. Hi you again. I never knew there was a problem until we came here. Perhaps it’s the way English cheddar is made that makes it digestible?

    I guess there will be many, many of these things. Most of them will be slightly weird, I think, in that we never did the masculine/feminine roles thing so the roles got very mixed up!

  3. Last summer, I had big troubles with my dog. His fur was falling, and he continued to scratch himself. It tooked me two months to see him ok again. It was the food. It is strange, because I gave him that kind of food (dry and wet) for years without any problem.
    Luckily, the second vet (I was forced to change…the original one did not understand the problem) caught the problem. But I was forced to clean his skin every day and give him medicines.
    Now, with a very expensive food (…) he’s ok. But sometimes he does not eat. I have two alternatives, so I take them one after the other, so that periodically he changes and continue to eat. Of course, after several days of the same “diet” he stops, so I understand it’s time to change…
    The cats are different: they continue to eat the different variety of their food and never refuse!

  4. Hi Pietro,
    The really strange thing was that they used to give out small packets of this food in the park and the dogs loved it. However, after feeding them this constantly for about 2 weeks, they went for 2 days without eating, they just wouldn’t eat the food! So I knew that something was really wrong.
    BTW, it’s the correct use of refuse!

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