Wednesday, January 24, 2018

The Adventures of Omega Dog

Life must be a bitch when you have to ask the kitten for permission to eat your own food.

Teddy is patient. After much pacing and generally standing in front of the sink where I need to be most often, I fill his dish with kibbles. Then he stands there, about three feet from his bowl, while Seth saunters over and takes a couple of bites. It's a demonstration of power. I can tell that Seth doesn't relish the taste. Teddy sighs when Seth walks away but Blitz steps in front of him, rubs against his ankles, and grabs a kibble from the bowl and begins to bat it back and forth, staying between Teddy and his bowl.

"Ha, ha! You can't eat until I let you," Blitz seems to say. He is that kid on the playground, playing keep-away.

It's bad when you can't eat your own food because someone else wants to play with it.

"Go on, Blitzie. Let Teddy eat his food."

Blitzie has learned what that means. It really means, 'Get the hell away from that dog dish or the squirt bottle comes out and remember that I aim for the butt.'

He strolls away, batting his stolen kibble as he goes. I am positive that nonchalance is a term that can be applied to animals. I've seen it.

"There you go, Teddy. Eat your food."

He stands there. He looks back and forth between me and his bowl. Maybe I want his food first. I've been grousing about it.

"Go eat your food, Teddy."

Teddy is learning what that means. It means, "Do you need an engraved invitation? I'm tired of begging you to eat your own food. If you're hungry, you'll eat that shit or I'll put it out of reach for the next four hours so the kitten batting kibbles under the stove won't drive me bat-shit crazy. And somehow, if I go bat-shit crazy, it will be your fault.'

Too late. I'm already bat-shit crazy. I'm trying to understand the nuance of Omega Dog, the lowest guy on the ladder of dominance. Poor Omega Dog. He's on his blanket on the couch now, recovering.

Thank you for listening, jb

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