The Little Pack

Just call me Pet Mom of the Year. Again. Jackson badly tore his dewclaw over the weekend–the nail sheath was completely torn away from the nail bud. It was super painful for him and I knew the vet would need to put him under anesthesia to cut the nail back. I decided we may as well get his teeth cleaned at the same time. Unfortunately, he had a cracked tooth with an exposed, infected root. I am sure that this has been causing him considerable pain, especially when eating. So, turns out, the reason he acted as though eating his dinner was pure torture was because… it is. Every night he would look at me with agony as though to say, Please don’t make me eat..and every night I would sternly say, Jackson, this is ridiculous, eat your dinner. The end of his tail would wag: thunk, thunk, thunk, and then I would give him The Look. You know, the I-Mean-Business-Boy-and-Don’t-Make-Me-Come-Over-There Look. And because he is such a good boy, he would comply.

Soo Shy amidst all her piles of food. If you look closely you will see 4 piles of food, plus crumbs all around her dish. This particular night was pretty tame compared to past nights. And in case you are wondering, each piece of rejected food is sopping wet as though she sampled it, decided it wasn’t to her liking and spit it back out.

I think by now we’ve established that Cheyenne is a little weirdo. Should you need proof, please visit here and here. I’ve written in the past about how she has started to play odd little games with her dinner. She is beginning to “save” most of her dinner so she can herd the other animals-dogs and cats, away from her food dish. The herding thing is quite new, this used to only happen outside. Perhaps she is part Australian cattle dog after all.

Apparently merely herding the other animals away from her dish lacked challenge and excitement. While she has always been a messy eater, she has begun to leave food everywhere. This began 2 days ago and I really hoped it was a fluke. It wasn’t. We now have the standard half-chewed pieces not only around her dish but in at least 4 additional piles throughout the entire house, often with a trail between the piles. Was she afraid she might lose her way? IO thinks this is the best thing ever, and follows the trail of crumbs, quickly inhaling the food along the way. I can just see her thinking, “Pinch me, I must be dreaming!”

We went out for a little while tonight. Jack hadn’t finished his dinner–shocking, I know–so we picked it up and left it on the dining room table. Big mistake. We came home to a chair pulled away from the table and half chewed dog food spit all over the table. Which means:

1. One of the dogs is capable of pulling out the chair.
2. Which means one of the dogs is smart enough to use said chair to climb up on the table.
3. Which means one of the dogs was on top of the table. Eating.
4. One dog in particular spits half chewed pieces of dog food around her bowl while eating.
5. That dog, unsurprising, is Cheyenne.

So we think that she was on top of the table eating and watching out the window and when we came home, she quick spit it all out and came to greet us. Sigh… will she ever cease to amaze us?

Cheyenne guarded her dish all night and delighted in taunting Dixie with her food. When Dixie walked by, Cheyenne took a few pieces in her mouth, laid down facing Dixie, and spit the pieces out of her mouth. Concerned that Dixie couldn’t actually see said pieces of food, She made a point of picking them up in her mouth again, tossing her head around several times, and then, you guessed it, spitting the pieces of food out directly in front of Dixie but out of Dixie’s reach. She didn’t need English to convey her message–it was crystal clear: this is mine and not yours and don’t you wish you could have what is mine? I could practically hear her singing “nah nah nah nah nah.” This went on for several minutes, and at one point Cheyenne became insecure and began nibbling on her leg (“corncobbing”) to try and relax. Dixie began woofing. Woofing soon escalates to barking, which only gets louder and louder, so I removed the dish. We were laughing so hard, we were almost crying.