“Can you dog sit while we take Ella to Myrtle Beach for her track meet?” What my daughter Samantha really meant was: Will you be in town next week while we go the shore? As it happened, I had a few COVID vaccination events scheduled, but I would be home and was more than willing to watch Maggie and Lucy, my family’s Great Dane and teapot yorkie respectively.
They eat twice a day. Maggie gets her food in a bright purple slow feeder dog bowl in the kitchen, while Lucy gets hers in a small plastic cereal bowl in the living room. What I never noticed before was that Maggie ate with one eye on Lucy’s food. When she finished her meal, she would stand behind Lucy and wait patiently for Lucy to finish and walk away. Within seconds of Lucy’s leaving, Maggie was licking up anything that remained in that small bowl.
Without a doubt, Maggie could have bullied, shoved, or scared Lucy away and stolen her food—but she did not. Instead, she would stand a few feet back, although occasionally moving up to assure herself that there was still something in Lucy’s bowl.
Russia and China are big and do not hesitate to bully, shove, and scare anything smaller than them to get what they want. Maybe they need to go to dog obedience school.
Carole J. Garrison 