So, in the ongoing saga of doggy diarrhea, we had a bit of a setback at the beginning of this week, after the dogs finished their antibiotics. I've had a few friends contact me with suggestions and remedies: there's a possibility that they dogs have giardia, a tenacious yet relatively benign and common parasite. Before trekking back to the vet to discuss that eventuality, I started them on a probiotic recommended by a friend (thanks Sheryl) aptly called perfect form. The vet had said not to start them on probiotics until the antibiotics were done, because each would basically cancel the other out.

I gave them their first dose of it a couple of nights ago, on their evening meal. It's a powdered product, and the recommended amount for dogs their size is 1 teaspoon, twice a day. The stuff has the colour and odour of a combination of dried lawn clippings and your local health food store. Even so, these Labs, true to their character, never refuse anything that could potentially be considered food.

Or so I thought.

I put their bowls down and they dove in, in their usual voracious, slavering way, only to screech to a stop and look up in confusion and disgust as they tried to rid their tongues of this horrible, dry, green condiment. 

I'll give them points for going back in and gingerly yet determinedly eating their dinner, because, well, principles.

We've now devised a delivery method that we all approve of: mix the powder into a huge dollop of peanut butter with a little water, then glop that in the centre of their regular meal. And as you can see, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak (they're on a wait in the first photo (notice Arwen's trademark ''hover'' sit, and if you look closely, the long, white lines are not in fact a camera problem; it's drool). The shutter release on the camera is their own ad hoc ''release'' - you can tell from the blur how quickly they set into eating!)

Let's hope that it works...