Miss Barley (I mean Bailey)

Our daily lives at the Inn revolve around our guests... and Bailey. Somehow the two are so intertwined. Since the day we arrived in Asheville, Bailey tends to be the center of attention at Hill House. And she loves every minute of it.

As we've previously posted, Bailey has developed some recent kidney issues so we needed to reformulate her home-cooked diet (yes, we've been cooking for her for about a year)! Her previous diet was too high in protein and potassium, which is not good for her situation. The new diet called for a fairly high volume of white rice to mix with a small portion of pork, which we gradually introduced over a 10 day period. At first she LOVED the rice.

We purchased a nice-sized rice cooker, and she would just stare at the cooker and drool as the rice was being prepared. We bought a huge bag of rice from Sam's and started our new daily routine. She loved it and gobbled it up, and each day we increased the amount to the vet's suggested ration. That is, she loved it until about DAY 11... At that point she decided she didn't really like rice, or anything it touched. She would stare at her full dish at mealtime, look up at us and walk away. She wouldn't take a bite. She'd whine and cry and drill us with her piercing eyes as if so say 'got anything else in that fridge?'.

Given Bailey's allergies, there's not a lot of options of what we can feed her, but we knew we needed to get her to eat something. We shared our dilemma with one of our guests, and she suggested to add some baby food to her meal. Sounded like a plan. So off to the grocery store I go. Up and down the aisles looking and looking -- I have no clue where the baby food is. I saw a woman with her toddler shopping and almost asked her, but I was determined to find the baby food myself. I think it's similar to how men don't like to ask directions when driving. I finally discovered the section (next to greeting cards?!), but the prices have certainly gone up since I was a new mom 27 years ago. Found the baby peas, the baby carrots and applesauce thinking she will love this. Well, not the applesauce.

Now the vet has suggested incorporating barley in her diet, instead of any rice or potato. Barley is not a common shelf item, but I found a small box. To us it seemed to make sense that barley could be prepared in the rice-cooker. Okay, it needs some baby-sitting since it boiled to the point it almost displaced the lid, but we are determined to use our new rice cooker. And yes, Bailey LOVES her barley... for now at least.