I can't believe this!

It's snowing--finally!!! Yep, today we received our first sprinkling of snow for the season. It has felt like one long, retarded psuedo-winter without the fluffy white stuff around, although you can hardly call average temps of 65 "winter." Having been born in the middle of a blizzard, I think I just have a natural need for snow--I have to have my yearly dose of snow to even feel human!

The snow is not my primary reason for posting today, though...it is Jasper. We finally had him in for an allergy test right before Christmas and got the results back last week. The vet left a voicemail sort of summing up the report, and here is what she said (I swear I am not making this up!): "Hi, this is Dr. Daniel from Hillside vet, calling in regards to Jasper's allergy test. I would like to discuss this with you but briefly I can tell you what he is definitely allergic to. Um, lamb, beef, rabbit, potato, soy beans, salmon, venison, shellfish mix--although I don't know of any dog food that has shellfish in it. They also say he is borderline to duck and also to a berry mix. They did send a list of foods that would be acceptable for Jasper to eat..." and of course, at this point we are thinking that list must be quite small. We are also rolling on the floor in laughter because neither of us have ever heard of a dog having so many allergies, not to mention, how in the world can anyone be allergic to POTATOES??!??! Come on.

So this has helped somewhat, and we are now trying a new food that we actually purchased from the store (we had been buying specialty food online...lamb, no less), although it has chicken in it which he, technically, is also borderline allergic to, so we'll see how it goes. Nate made a good point yesterday, saying that it must be tons easier to deal with a dog with such severe allergies than it would be a child because with a dog, you just find a food that he can eat and you give that to him the rest of his life. With a child, you'd have to explain why he/she couldn't eat such and such and then spend a lot of time finding new foods and recipes that the child could eat. Plus, you'd have to make a billion people aware of the situation...babysitters, grandparents, neighbors, schools, the child's friends, the child's friend's parents, etc.

Jasper is enough child for us for now. :)