My dog loves walnuts

In the shell. I'm sure she'd eat them already shelled, but that's not the way we get them around here. I don't remember exactly how it started. But it probably happened when one of us was cracking walnuts at the dining room table. Callie sat and begged. She got a (shelled) walnut to shut her up. Note to self: that never works.

Callie finishes up with a walnut. She'll want another.

Then a walnut in its shell probably fell on the floor and Callie went to work. She knew what was inside and deftly cracked the shell open and licked out the nut meat. She left the shell in pieces on the floor. Soon after that, she began to sit and beg for walnuts each time one of us cracked some. In no time she learned that we kept them in a bowl on the table. I caught her more than once with forepaws on the tabletop, looking longingly at the bowl of walnuts. After a sharp "No!" she would get down. But then she'd get a walnut rolled across the floor.

Now she stands and whimpers under the buffet where the bowl of walnuts sits. Every day. I try to resist, but I can't. I roll a walnut along the floor, Callie chases it down and cracks it open. She gobbles down the nut and leaves the shells on the floor.

For now she's getting the tiny nuts we collected this fall from under the tree in the vineyard. Callie began to stop under that tree during every walk and eat one or two fallen walnuts while either Ken or I was busy stuffing our pockets. She always cracked them open and left the shells behind. But while she's slowly eating up the nuts we collected, we're not without walnuts for cooking; a friend of ours who has a walnut tree in her yard gave us a good supply of nice big walnuts and we are still using them.

I don't know what we're going to do when we run out of walnuts. I refuse to buy walnuts for the dog. I simply refuse. Stop that snickering, Callie.

*****
I just did some internet research and found a lot of sites that say walnuts, especially shells that have gotten wet and grow mold, are poisonous to dogs. They cause all kinds of gastrointestinal problems that lead to vomiting, excessive drooling, and loss of appetite. Callie has shown none of these symptoms. She's not vomited and she eats very healthily. And she's been eating walnuts (sans shells) for months. But still, apparently there's a lot of phosphorous in walnuts that can lead to kidney stones.

You know, it's just like with humans. Everything is bad for you. Every week some study is misrepresented in the news, and many people (especially now with the internet) can get all panicky and go overboard with things, magnifying the risks of anything and everything until they're afraid to step out their front doors.

Dogs have been around for a long time. And so have walnut trees. And, I dare say, dogs and walnut trees have coexisted without great harm to either for thousands of years. The town across the river from us is called Noyers-sur-Cher, which means "Walnut-trees-on-the-Cher." And there are plenty of healthy dogs over there.

So, I'm not going to worry too much.

But I'm also going to stop giving walnuts to Callie. There aren't many left anyway, as I said. I'll give her a doggy treat instead. This isn't going to be easy for either of us.