Sunday, October 25, 2009

Tyssen's Mealtime Saga

I think Jada and I eat pretty great around here. I think most dogs would be downright envious of us! Joni feeds us pretty well....but has this unhealthy obsession with making us wait until the big hand of the clock is pointing straight up, and the little hand is pointing straight down for our dinner. Jada and I generally start bugging her a long while before that, but she holds her ground and makes us wait. What a sadist she is.

I get to eat lots more than Jada. No, it's not a sexist thing, but she just tends to get fat and I don't. HA! In fact, I have a hard time keeping the weight normal. Yeah, she balloons out like a blimp and I struggle to maintain my amazing 6-pack set of abs looking their most fabulous. But I move around alot....I keep hearing people say that I have two speeds: standing still and 100 miles an hour. Not much in between. And boy, do you burn alot of calories cranking it up that fast in a seconds time! Now Jada does have a perfect trim figure now, but last winter she was starting to blimp out a bit. Someone told us that when you feel for our ribs, it's supposed to feel like there is a t-shirt between your fingers and our ribs.....and Jada had a "sweatshirt" between their fingers and her ribs. Ha! Fatty fatty fatty! But a good analogy. I know some dogs that have a friggin' comforter between their ribs and their outsides! (some have two comforters! Ha!)

We both usually eat around 8am. Joni gets up a bit earlier...and sometimes as early as 3 or 4am when she's working. I see her getting up at that time and just refuse to get out of bed. I like to stay in bed until I see LIGHT coming in the window! So when she does that ridiculous early thing, she'll let us out to go bathroom, then I head immediately back to bed when I come in and stay there until it's officially morning. Even better - I get the whole bed to myself now!
But even when she gets up early, she makes us wait till 8am to eat. I sure don't get this schedule thing....

I'm a pretty picky eater. It has to be pretty incredible before I make myself eat it. I realize that's not typical for a Keeshond....but I kinda like being different. Jada, on the other hand, should have the middle name of "Hoover". She just inhales anything that looks like food - even some stuff that isn't food. She could clean the floor pretty easily if our vacuum cleaner ever breaks down. Frankly, she's simply embarrassing to be around when there's food out. Jada tells me all the time that it's been at least a month since our last meal and you know, I honestly think she believes that. No matter how many times I tell her to be patient, that it's only been a few hours, she just looks scornfully at me as if I'm so clueless she can't believe I have sense enough to keep breathing from one second to the next. She's never actually said this...but I can read it in her eyes.

We eat some pretty great food for breakfast and dinner. We eat "Wellness" - the chicken formula. Jada is on the "Green Bean" diet - which means she gets green beans with her kibble. I wasn't too crazy about these green things when they were offered to me, but they're sorta growing on me now. I have to be very sure about something before I eat it....if it's suspicious smelling - I want no part of it. Joni has laughed at me recently because for the longest time I refused to eat spaghetti noodles that she offers a few of when she makes it. Jada, naturally, will grab a dangling noodle out of Joni's hands and slurp it up. She takes the laughter as some sort of applause and really seems to ham it up with those wormy looking things. I smelled one that was offered to me and decided it wasn't for me. The next time I did try it, but immediately spit it out as soon as that slimy thing got in my mouth. What the hell was she trying to give me - rubber bands? Blech. But after watching the obvious enjoyment that Jada seemed to get out of them, I recently tried chewing it up...and much to my surprise, it wasn't bad. They're actually kinda fun to slurp up now. Too bad she only gives us a couple of noodles...I think I could eat a whole bowl of them up now! Anyway....I digress.....

Jada only gets 1/3 of a cup of kibble in the morning....and 2/3 cup of green beans. She also gets a tablespoon of cottage cheese on it in the mornings - and then all mixed up. I can live without the cottage cheese. I've had it several times and it's okay, but after a few meals of it I'm ready for a cottage cheese-less meal again! I get a whole cup of kibble, mixed in with a tablespoon of tuna fish and some tuna fish juices. Yeah, real "chicken of the sea" tuna. I've tried several different types of canned dog food, but they pale in comparison to a little tuna fish. By the time Joni is done fiddling around with all these ingredients, we're both a little impatient. Well, Jada is VERY impatient and I'm beginning to wonder if she'll ever be done playing up there. Our favorite stunt is a couple of fast loud furious sounding impatient barks, then immediately fall to the ground with our face between our paws so that when she looks down to tell us to be quiet, it looks as if it was some other dogs making all the racket. We're pretty good at this! We both think she's fooled by this!

When she's finally done, we like to get our morning calisthenics out of the way be jumping up and down furiously like jumping beans. I'm mildly embarrassed at resorting to this behavior so I don't put as much enthusiasm in it as Jada does. I'll jump up once or twice, then just sorta jump - making only my front feet leave the ground an inch or two. More of a cute bunny hop. Jada goes out of her mind jumping up as far as she can over and over. She's perfected the jumping while walking/jumping backwards 10 feet to where she gets her meal. I keep telling her that she'd get her food faster if she just ran in there and waited for it and that this jumping act adds about 10 seconds to receiving her food....but she thinks it works for her.

This is what Jada looks like bouncing up and down:



About 30 seconds after the food is down, Jada is done inhaling her food. I doubt she even tastes it. I like to take my time and savor each and every bite. Partly because it tastes so good, and partly because it drives Jada insane. Usually Joni puts up the dog gate so that I can be protected from Jada when she's done eating. I think she needs to put up a barb wire fence sometimes! But I also hate the gate. For one thing, she can forget I'm in there and if I don't let her know I'm done, I might be in the kitchen by myself for what feels like hours. So as soon as I'm done I immediately DEMAND in my loudest bossiest sounding bark to LET ME OUT OF HERE N O W !!! She used to ignore this bark and make me be quiet for awhile before she let me out, but I kept it up, and have her trained now! Now all it takes is that bossy demanding bark and she immediately jumps up and lets me out! So let that be a lesson to you all....don't let human attempts to change your behavior work ALL the time! You gotta have a few times you win out and control their behavior!

Sometimes Joni doesn't put up the gate. I have to watch out then, because Jada will come in and watch me eat. And boy, does she ever watch me eat. She just glares at that bowl as if she thinks she's got some telepathic ability to make it slide over to her. She watches each and every kibble that I pick up and chew. She really watches every piece of kibble that falls to the floor. She really makes me scared sometimes. Who can eat under these conditions? Sometimes I just move to the other side of the kitchen and lean against the cabinets and bark at her until Joni comes in and rescues my bowl. Now she won't EAT the food when I leave it - she just sits there and looks at it or lays down next to the bowl and looks at it. But she's smart enough to know she's not supposed to be doing this, so she only takes it so far. Sometimes I just get full and leave some food in there and it also drives her crazy. I find it amazing that she can be that frantic over wanting the food, yet restrain herself from actually eating it. She's gonna give herself an ulcer someday! Joni picks up the bowl for me to nibble on for lunch when I do this. She will then let Jada eat any pieces of kibble that have fallen on the floor, though. And this is what Jada lives for in the morning! That she'll get two or three EXTRA pieces of kibble. Sheesh. Sure doesn't take much to make Jada's day! One time she started eating up a few pieces of kibble on the floor before Joni said "okay" and she just froze when Joni said "HEY!". She actually looked up at Joni and spit it out! That's right - she just SPIT IT OUT! Even I was astonished at her self control!

I seem to be digressing alot here tonight.

Dinner time is similar. Same antics by Jada and me, that is. Jada gets another 1/3 cup of kibble and 2/3 cup of green beans - but no cottage cheese this time. I get a cup of kibble only, which is fine by me...but only in the evening. I want my tuna fish in the mornings! Sometimes Joni gives me some green beans in my food in the evening, which I appreciate occasionally. I don't need or want them every single night..but it's a nice surprise sometimes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very well done TY,your Joni takes very good care of you guys,and feeds you a variety of food. You guys are lucky my Katie don't get that T L C.

Jim