My Dog Life

Caught redhanded eating my brother Joey’s food. Note the licked clean bowl.

I am a bit of a finicky eater. I’m picky about my meals and even picky when it comes to treats. I prefer moist treats over dry biscuits, okay? When I first got adopted, my parents fed me my meals stuffed in a Kong in order to get me excited about my grub. They’d been told dogs like to work for their food and Kong feeding was the “new thing”. But after a couple months of Kong feeding, I got tired of working so hard for my dinner and stopped finishing my meals. This led to a very annoying routine — for my mom — of half finished Kongs being rotated about in the fridge and refilled and losing track of how much I ate. Suffice it to say, I won that battle and my meals came served up in a bowl once again.

But even when my food went back into the bowl, I wasn’t always finishing my meals. This stressed my mom out because the vet told her it’s really important for dogs to eat the same amount of food every day, and she likes to do everything the vet says (hello, torturous-every-other-day-teeth-brushing). So, in a happy — no pun intended — accident, my parents discovered I’m simply a midnight snacker. My mom started bringing my half finished dinners into the bedroom with us at night and lo and behold I started finishing my meal and licking my bowl clean around midnight. 

So if we ever have a sleepover together, don’t be alarmed if I hop out of bed around midnight and gobble down the rest of my kibble. It’s just part of my routine. And for good measure, be aware of these other “odd” Happy eating characteristics: preferring to eat on carpet, carrying food piece-by-piece from my bowl to a separate room to chew on, consistently leaving several pieces of kibble strewn around the floor after I’ve eaten, etc. etc. 

Let’s eat!