Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream on Top

Yes, that is the name of a Shih Tzu puppy I know.

And the story behind it is even better than the name! :-)

You see my clients went down to Mexico for vacation for Thanksgiving. They had a cat and had lost their dog about a year before so this was the first year they could really travel for the holiday. I had no idea at the time they were having marital problems.

Well, while they were down there trying to 'spark' the connection, they actually made the decision to break up... Um, until a tiny, scrawny, little rag-a-muffin puppy trotted into the resort then promptly collapsed.

Oh my gosh! They knew enough to give it some Karo syrup to get its blood sugar up, but since there wasn't a veterinarian for miles around they decided to just jump in the car and haul booty home to my clinic.

Now this pup had EVERYTHING you could have wrong with you. Parvo, parasites, mange, kennel cough. You name it. He had it.

I warned my clients that I had no idea if I could get the little guy through, but they wanted to try.

To make a very long medical story shorter, I helped the little guy through just about everything and he should have been on the mend, he would NOT eat. I mean we were feeding him through his vein, but he wouldn't even tolerate force feeding.

What were we going to do with the little guy? At some point I need him to well... eat!

Needless to say they both spent hours at the clinic keeping the puppy company and begging him to eat.

I told them to take a break, go get some dinner and come back so we could talk about our options.

They came back and had generously brought back a piece of pumpkin pie for me. So there we are, my clients tempting the puppy with baby food, and turkey and NutriCal and anything under the sun while I munch on the dessert. I leaned over to check his catheter when he jumped up and took a HUGE bite out of my pie!

It all happened so fast he downed the piece then jumped up for another one, getting a face full of whipped cream!

We all started to laugh. Little dogs will decide what little dogs want to eat. Or was it so much what I was eating as that I was eating it off a plate of my own?

We got another set of plates and each put 'our' food (baby food, turkey, NutriCal, you know all the stuff the puppy wouldn't eat a minute ago) and then pretended we were eating it.

Oh My Gosh! He couldn't get enough of it. We even 'tried' to keep it away from him. No way! It was HIS!!!!

So that is how Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream on Top got his name.

And in the course of caring for the puppy, my clients somehow realized why they fell in love in the first place. A few months later they renewed their vows... in Mexico. With Pumpkin Pie standing right between them!

Once again, 'Littleness' comes to the rescue!