When I was growing up on a farm in Iowa, the standard rule concerning edible livestock was that any critter that has a name is safe from becoming Sunday dinner.
My sister and I had a pet turkey named “Tom” (how original...hey, we were kids) that we raised from a ‘chick’ and he was imprinted with the image of us being his mom.
He followed us around constantly like a spare shadow and always came out to meet us, getting off the school bus each afternoon. He’d come out and fan out his feathers and strut around a bit. It was his main, possibly only, talent.
In early November, word leaked out to us that he was going to be the main course for Thanksgiving dinner. The old rule had been over-ridden and Tom was about to be “axed” literally.
Come the day before Thanksgiving, we all dreaded what was about to happen and nobody would volunteer to be his executioner. Just thinking about it spread through the family to where we were all nearly in tears.
Happy ending:
We couldn’t bear to kill Tom for dinner, so we ate the dog.
In retrospect, perhaps we should have named the dog...
“ that any critter that has a name is safe from becoming Sunday dinner.”
My Iowa farm experience was different .
My daughter had a bottle calf we bought her to raise and exhibit at the county fair.
She did a good job with “Blackie” ( he was black angus )
Blackie grew well and the next summer he went to the locker plant and was turned into steak and hamburger.
I must have been a terrible dad !
During her declining years when she no longer wanted to cook
my mom would always order us a bunch of Chinese food.
So we likely ate some dog too.
LOL - didn’t see that one coming...