Tucker is a fruitivore. One of the most common things I hear in the kitchen now is, "Does Tucker want a mango?" (Tucker likes posing rhetorical questions.) One day last week I went to the store solo and bought some mangoes unbeknownst to Tucker. Tucker woke up from his rest time, came downstairs and he was like a bloodhound, he instantly knew there were mangoes in the house, even though they were completely out of sight (waiting to get ripe). We finally convinced him that they were not ripe and that we would have to wait for them to ripen... he ceased and desisted from his militant campaigning for one, but magically sensed the exact day (several days later) when they would be just barely soft enough to be able to convince us to give him one.
Recently Tucker went missing outside for a couple of minutes while Austin was working out. Austin found him behind the garden, picking raspberries on the outside of the garden fence. He has a knack for picking a berry and then holding it up to ask if it's ripe (by then, of course, the only answer we can give is "sure, why don't you eat it?"). Not that Tucker is super concerned with whether something is ripe or not. He definitely would eat all of the (still green) blueberries on the bushes in our garden if given the opportunity.
The lesson behind all this is that it's not possible to grow too much fruit, especially berries. The raspberries are on their way out, but the blackberries are about to start and it looks like it's a bumper crop. Unfortunately, Ben has learned that he has access to some of the berries if he peruses the garden fence near the berry patch... he may not be the smartest dog in the gene pool, but he is very committed to his causes.
