Hubby got called away from dinner tonight. He’d been eating off a TV tray in the living room. When he returned, he found his plate innocent of food. All that remained to assure him that he had not hallucinated his dinner was a tiny shred of onion on the rim of the plate.
Polaris, she of the Indefatiguable Digestion, had used her astonishing agilty to steal his dinner. She stood on her back legs, perfectly balanced*, and chowed down. How do I know this? She had not noticed he had re-entered the room, and stood back up to get that last bit.
She had eaten half of an ultra-gooey cheeseburger, topped with masses of onions fried in butter. I was certain that this would bring on a bout of diarrhea-- hell, that meal would send many of us rushing for the Immodium (or commodium.) But not Our Heroine, the Acrobat With a Cast-Iron gut.
Last week, she got into the trash and ate God-knows what. (All I know is that whatever it was, it stank and it was messy.) Surely, a dog who eats only premium dog food won’t be able to tolerate rotten food, I thought, but no, she napped peaceably for the rest of the evening and only asked to go outside at her appointed time. I was duly impressed.
My eldest dog, Bean, who was Queen Victoria in her former life, has a very delicate stomach and ralphs at the drop of a hat. This little bugger can seemingly eat anything without problem. She dines upon grass with impunity! It’s amazing. I’m thinking about putting together a circus act: See The Amazing Dog Who Can Eat Anything And Will Stand On Two Legs To Do It!
Nevertheless, I have to stop her life of crime before Something Bad happens. She’s just so damn sneaky and graceful that it’s hard to catch her doing it. Other dogs would have knocked the TV tray over in persuit of the burger, alerting their fur-less overlords with the crashing china, but not Polaris. You only find out what she’s been up to when you find the kitchen littered with trash (and how she gets into the tall, lidded bin I have yet to discover) or find your dinner has been stolen. You can’t punish a dog unless you catch them in the act, but I can tell from her smug grin that she knows exactly what she’s done and she’s just exploiting my new-agey dog raising techniques.
*I’ve seen this dog do some amazingly agile shit. She can put her back legs on the sofa and lower her torso to the ground to get a treat and then bring herself back up without touching the ground. (She was stealing a coveted toy from her sleeping sister at the time.) She’s also the only dog I’ve ever seen sleep on her stomach with her legs extended straight back like a human.