My mother probably won’t like today’s column. She was always big on my brother and me not playing with our food.
We couldn’t build mountains out of mashed potatoes. We couldn’t blow bubble in our soup. We couldn’t throw green beans to see if the dog could catch them.
On the other hand, she actually might enjoy the column. It’s about her granddog, who you know as Milly, the liver and white springer spaniel who lives at my house, and we all know the rules are different for the grands.
For the last several months, Milly has begun a habit of playing with her food. Specifically, she plays with her treats.
“Milly, do you want a treat?” I’ll ask.
She will come running from wherever she is in the house, then sit dutifully in front of me as I get her a treat.
Most dogs, when given a treat, will, you know, actually eat the treat. Glory, my previous dog, often barely chewed her treats, swallowing it quickly on the outside chance there was a second treat coming.
On rare occasions, Glory would take the treat and hide it someplace – like under the sofa or the bed – and save it for later. I discovered this one time when I was vacuuming. I moved the sofa to vacuum underneath it and found her stash.
For the longest time, Milly would take her treat and run into another room, where she would eat it in private. I found this very strange, considering it’s the opposite of how she eat dinner.
Her food dish is in the kitchen. Usually, when I feed her, I go back into the living room while she eats. But instead of eating at the bowl, she gets a mouthful of food, brings it next to me in the living room, drops it on the floor, and eats it one kibble at a time. Then she goes back to the kitchen and repeats the process.
The only way she will eat in the kitchen is if I stay in the kitchen with her.
But back to the treats.
Now when I ask Milly if she wants a treat, she still runs to me and sits. But when I give her the treat, she takes off in a frenzy, treating the treat like it’s a hockey puck.
She runs full speed out of the kitchen and into the living room. Just before she reaches the wall, she drops the treat and skids to a stop. She immediately reverses course and takes off running in the opposite direction, picking up the treat as she does.
She runs down the hall, dropping the treat at my bedroom door, then runs into the bedroom and onto the bed, where she skids to another stop. (You should see my bedspread after this. It’s usually ends up bunched up at the headboard.)
She will repeat this for a good three or four minutes before she finally stops and eats the treat.
I can’t help but laugh at her. But I love the little games she comes up with to entertain herself. For instance, she has learned that she can push a ball off the bed and then chase it. She also loves knocking things under the bed because she is able to wriggle her way underneath the bed to retrieve it.
But playing with her treats may be the funniest thing she does. She better hope my mother finds it entertaining, too.
