My Yogurt Passes The Dog Test

I guess you can call me Pavlov.

If I go into the Kitchen, Rack may follow.  If Yogurt is involved, Rack is relentless.

It is my fault.

I make a lot of my own food from scratch.  It saves a lot of money.  It gives me food that has no preservatives.  It tastes better because it is fresh.  It also tastes better because it co-evolves - I make it to my own tastes.

Rack has learned if he follows me around and stares me down, eventually I will cave.

There is one exception.  If I say "Not For Dogs" the ears go down immediately, the eyes go into "avoidance mode" and he slinks out of the kitchen.

I need to use that tactic more often.

We do have a routine.  On a morning I will walk into the kitchen and get my second mug of coffee.  As I begin to prepare my breakfast, Rack springs to action.

He walks into the gap between the kitchen and the dining room and stares at me.  Eventually I'll take notice.

"Rack, show me what you want!"

Usually I get out "Rack, Show" and he has already turned toward the glass door that leads out to the Lanai and the backyard beyond.

Fine, I can get my breakfast in but it is a race.  Letting my boy outside with bowl of cereal in hand, I start the first course with my hand on the door to let him out.

Final course usually is some homemade plain yogurt with some whole fruit cranberry sauce all mushed into the bowl and stirred into a pink milkshake.

I went about my business that day puttering with getting my laundry done so I was delayed. 

Walking past the kitchen window, I'm being stared at from outside.  Rack was bored with being outside alone having "watered" the light pole, the big palm tree, three or so plant pots, the giant philodendron and you get the picture.

While he was ready to come in, I absentmindedly hadn't finished the yogurt.  The washer called for attention, the sheets and blankets needed to be moved to the dryer.

They tell you do to one thing at a time when you're cooking.  I think that works with breakfast as well.

Going back into the kitchen I grab the bowl with the pink yogurt and begin to eat.

I'm being stared down from afar.

"Rack, what is it?"
Steps forward, gingerly.  I think he knows that I don't like being stared at.
Taking a couple spoonfuls, I ask again.  "Show Me".

That's it, I'm done.

Rack walks over to where I was standing and sits down.  Laser beams are being stared through the Corelle bowl full of yogurt-y goodness as if to melt the thing and have the yogurt pour forth from the hole.

"Aww!  Where did I put that camera?"

I hold onto the bowl while I do a perimeter search.   "Someone" tidied up after me and put the camera's chip away.   I had put the camera elsewhere, and it slid out of sight.

All the while that I am searching for the camera I am being followed.  From room to room, Rack continues staring at that bowl.

I give him no inkling that he's going to get what he wants.

The search takes at least five, if not ten minutes.   Say what you want about dogs, a Mc Nab Dog will keep his mind on a task and not break until you tell him to.

Standing back in the kitchen gap, I take another spoonful of the pink goodness.

"Ok, Rack, what is it?"

He walks back over to me and sits down at my feet staring up at the bowl.

I quickly power on my camera and take the picture I wanted plus two more just in case the original didn't work out.

"Fine, boy, you deserve it.  Have some yogurt!"

By the time he was done, the bowl that is made from the same material as the tiles on the outside of the Space Shuttle has been licked clean.  So clean that I swear he licked some of the glass off of that bowl.

This dog really does love that yogurt.  No wonder why I make the stuff by the quart!