The dreaded puffer fish!

A local dog died recently after eating a puffer fish on the beach. As a consequence I, and many other dog owners, have become fish-phobic.

A dog after eating a puffer fish?

Now Pip, as regular readers might know, is a connoisseur of all things gross. So guess what he picked up at the beach today?

Ok, so it may not have been a puffer fish – but it was a fish - and you can never be too careful, right? And do you think he wanted to ‘drop it’ for a few bits of dry dog food – no siree! I even tried that time-honoured parent routine of pretending to leave without him. Do you think he cared? No, he just found a spot under the beach stairs where he could enjoy his smelly fish in peace. I even tried dropping dog food on his head – from above the stairs – but he wasn’t interested.

In the end, I went back on to the beach, lured him out with a bit of dry dog food and then grabbed him between my legs while I put his lead on.

But this brings me to the weird photo above. Decided to find a pic of a puffer fish to go with this post and stumbled upon these wonderful mash-up photos of puffer fish and other things.

Although it looks a bit like a puffer fish and a dog (to my eyes anyway), it’s actually a puffer fish and a pig. This won a photo competition which was prompted by a site after a Glasgow restaurant started a petition to lift the EU ban on puffer fish.

Now according to this site (http://www.freakingnews.com/Puffer-Fish-Pictures--1642.asp) the fish – which is a delicacy in Japan – is banned in the EU because, if not cooked properly, it has enough poison to kill 30 people. Chefs in Japan have to train for three years before they’re allowed to prepare it.

Sounds like something our friends the Brave Foodies might be up for...