Eating Like a Dog
It was perplexing: Why wouldn't my dog, DJ, eat out of a bowl like any other well-mannered graduate of private canine obedience school?
I noticed over a series of weekends that DJ's food consistently lay untouched in his bowl, forlorn and forgotten. friendless and forsaken. Inexplicable, thought I, those lovely but lonely jumbo burgers are DJ's fave.
Finally I plucked the abandoned burgers from the bowl, caressed them ever so lovingly between my callused paws and dropped them on the freshly-waxed vestibule floor. Much to my great misfortune however, my dear wife caught me red-handed thereupon whacking me over the head repeatedly with her cherished Swiffer. True, I deserved the whupping, but my mind was elsewhere, transfixed on the emerging scenario: DJ ravaging the burgers like a wolf on caribou butt.
"Giddy up!" I hollered in frabjous joy.
My wife whacked me again over the noggin with her battle axe, the Swiffer. The joke was on Wifey though - her weapon of massive head destruction was bent beyond recognition thanks to my thick skull.
After I regained consciousness, I hypothesized that it was my manipulation of the food that acted as the catalyst that whet my dog's appetite. Maybe a trace of my alluring and tantalizing scent left on the food triggered the "Okay to eat" instinct of the beast?
Maybe not.
The next day I rubbed the burgers between my callused paws and lovingly placed the food in the varmint's bowl. I sighed in despair however as the rejected burgers still lay there untouched, unwanted and unscathed. DJ wanted no part of them.
Hmmm, I thought in the form of a annoying emoji oft employed by that people with limited vocabularies.
So as soon as my wife left the house, (which seemed like an eternity), I dropped the shunned burgers on the freshly mopped vestibule floor and chuckled with devilish glee, "Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho!"
😂
As expected, DJ gobbled up the burgers without hesitation. It was obvious as a cancelled Air Canada flight that my dog preferred eating off the floor. Then it all made sense - it’s just easier, not to mention more natural for a dog to gobble off the ground. Messier too I might add.
I experienced an epiphany, a rare moment of clarity for the twenty-eighth time in my life. The concept of the dog bowl is yet another misguided attempt to humanize every part of a dog's domesticated life: The dog coat with matching booties, the beauty treatments at the spa, the play dates - need I say more?
And to this anthropomorphic charade I say, "Enough!"
My dog shall live the life he was created for: Chasing squirrels, barking at the most annoying times and you guessed it - eating off the ground. (Now I use a beach towel as a floor-buffer and am pleased to report that no more Swifter thrashings have occurred).
Nonetheless, if perchance DJ's burgers mess up a patch of freshly mopped vestibule floor, then so be it. I vow to mop up any offensive grime and gristle with glee and gusto and for the benefit of alliteration, using a disinfectant that starts with the letter G. (Know any?)
Because a dog should be a dog.
