Our Puppy the Foodie

I think our puppy is the most precious thing on earth, I know, I’m biased. That being said, I believe she fancies herself a distinguished food critic. She is always there when there is food involved, and she will willingly try anything you put in front of her face. I have to be really careful to make sure that she doesn’t eat things that she isn’t supposed to have. She has been known to eat anything from rocks to onions. Both are no good for puppies, but luckily she only got a little sliver of onion, and she yakked the rocks. The strangest thing to me that I find her fond of is fresh lettuce and peppers. I can hardly believe it, but she will devour a slice of jalapeno and not think twice about it. I always watch her for symptoms of any kind of poisoning or adverse effects simply because she has gotten in to so much in the past. She is for the most part, now, a well behaved puppy. One of her favorite treats is a rawhide chew bone, and she understands perfectly the phrase “chew bone”. We keep her chew bones in a floor level drawer, and I have toyed with the idea of teaching her to pull it open and get one out herself, but since she was naturally good for once without having to be taught manners, and waited until she was actually given a treat instead of trying the snatch and grab, I have not had the heart to mess up that natural good behavior. Among other words that she fully understands are coffee, snack, tea, cookie, salad, chicken, pizza, and burger, and if you say one of these out loud you had better be prepared to deliver or hear about it for the next two hours via an assortment of low growls, warbles and whine like moans. She begs for coffee every morning, and we have finally given in and bought decaf just so that she could have a sip. By far her favorite food is pizza. If you have a pizza, she sits near you so that she is easily accessible in case you want to give her a bite, and she will watch you eat it longingly unless you look at her, then she quickly looks away, or my personal favorite, she looks at something over your shoulder giving you the impression that she wasn’t looking at you at all; this technique is one she has mastered. It took her ten minutes to learn to sit, but she learns words involving food after only a few repetitions, and if you want her to perform tasks that she has learned, just offer her a piece of one of her favorite snacks and she will do anything, however you now have to show it to her because she is getting much better at the art of negotiation and she will flat refuse if you do not “show her the money” per se. We have the greatest laugh at her when we have something that she is particularly fond of because her mouth literally waters. While she is sitting by and trying her very hardest to look uninterested, drool is pouring out both sides of her mouth in long streams. She recently got to try her first corn dog and she was in bliss. The look on her face was priceless. Now that she has gotten older and done some maturing, she has begun to savor flavors rather than swallowing them whole, and with the look of serene pleasure that crosses her face when she has something that she deems spectacular, we have a difficult time here in the household when we have to put our foot down and tell her that she cannot have anymore. For the most part she only gets one bite of foods that she shouldn’t necessarily have, but that won’t hurt her in small quantities, as being a larger breed I worry about problems that obesity might cause. Her interest in the way we do things around the house fascinates me on a daily basis, how this pertains to food first happened with dipping sauces and chicken nuggets. I dipped one, then took a bite, dipped it again, and she paid close attention to this and when offered a bite without sauce, instead of taking it, she looked at the sauce and then looked back at the food repeatedly until the food was dipped for her. Since she believes she is fully entitled to half of everything I eat, I try to give her the illusion that she is getting half by giving her a tiny piece of each of 6 nuggets when I get them, so far this has been working, but as she advances I highly doubt that she will overlook the fact that I am getting 75% of our snack. She likes lots of various foods, but she does occasionally run across things that she finds offensive, and when she does so, we get a very unladylike snort and she usually makes a request for something that she likes by touching the places where her good treats are kept with her nose. As I watch her palate get more and more sophisticated, at least for a dog, I can’t help but be amazed at the things our companions accomplish that should be completely out of their reach. I am reminded of dogs that save lives, dogs that count, ride bicycles, drive toy cars, work on farms, track criminals, and even dogs that make toast in the morning for their humans, and the list goes on; I stop to appreciate the sheer gravity of what that means to us as humans. Physically seeing her around different foods is so much more amazing than I can ever put into words, and I could see her taste testing restaurant foods and delivering an opinion, as she is very vocal about the things that she likes and if it isn’t up to par, well that snort says it all. Our companions are truly incredible. They do amazing things every day and with them I find life much more fulfilling and interesting and much more worthwhile.

Not a monkey at all, but a beautiful observation, ~Angie

#Companions #Foodie #Pets #Precious #Randomness