Dear Diary,

Those of us who are old enough, may remember a television commercial with the tag line of "It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature." Well my family is finding out the hard way that Mother Nature really does NOT have a sense of humor. Even if it is with the best of intentions, that woman does not want people messing with her "natural order of things".

One of our family dogs refused to eat. No type of food (with the exception of doggie raw hide treats and jelly beans (yes Virginia, the dog loved jelly beans), seemed to tempt her. We’d even resorted to hand feeding each piece of food separately, but to no avail. She would just sniff at it and look at us with an expression that said, "What is it?" If she did actually deign to taste the offering, she would more often than not, nibble it briefly before spitting it out and adopting a "I don’t want it" look.

In desperation, we took her to the vet to see what if anything could be done to help her. After some VERY expensive tests, we were told that the dog has a food allergy. She is allergic to any food made from animal products. She can only have special food and treats made from fruits and vegetables. In other words, the dog has to become a vegetarian. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who thought that dogs should be carnivores (which means that they eat MEAT). Mother Nature is not the least bit amused with our attempts to turn a dog into a vegetarian. And boy, is she letting us know about it.

Now don’t get me wrong, the food appears to be working (is it EVER working). The dog has gone from not wanting to eat anything to wanting to eat EVERYTHING. Instead of saying, "What is it?", she now asks "What WAS IT?" She inhales the food so quickly that she can’t have any idea of what she just ate. And don’t make the mistake of dropping anything on the floor (such as your food or a prescription tablet) because you’ll be scrambling like crazy to get it before the dog devours it. The vet said that her appetite might improve. (You think!)

But her trying to eat everything in sight, is not the worst part of Mother Nature’s revenge. Oh no, she had to include the extra potent weapon of giving the dog gas (and I mean POTENT). Rotten egg gas has nothing on the “wind” that this dog emits. She walks by and people start waving at the air or else turning blue from trying to hold their breath. And as with most things, the problem is worse at night. It is becoming a family tradition to wake in the middle of the night gasping for breath. It is pretty difficult to replenish our oxygen supply when we don’t dare breath deeply. Turning on our sides and trying to wave away the "aroma" doesn’t help either. I wonder where we can find a good buy on gas masks. And naturally we’re awake and suffering while the dog is snoozing soundly. Waking her up wouldn't help; she’d still be performing the air. Please understand that we love the dog dearly and we’re glad that she's doing better, but REALLY....

You know, the vet didn’t warn us about this side effect. Maybe we should ask him what other little "gems" he forgot to mention. On second thought, never mind.