Even Well Trained Dogs

In a lot of ways Ranger is like another grown child in my family. He respects the rules: he isn't a teenager who wants to test them or a toddler who is figuring them out and looking for boundaries. If Ranger thinks I'm wrong he'll tell me so very clearly but he'll still defer to me if I insist. I trust Ranger to behave as an adult. I don't think twice about leaving him alone with food that he's not supposed to eat. He has adult-like self-control.

Finna is very much the toddler, into everything, figuring out where the boundaries are, testing them. I don't trust her any further than I would any toddler. With Finna I'm careful to never leave her alone with food that she shouldn't eat. If there's anything tasty left within her reach I anticipate that she will eat it. She has virtually no self-control especially around anything as valuable as food.

This has been a rather crazy week at my house. Tuesday morning my husband called moments after he left for work to say his car had died. The timing belt had broken, fortunately it's a Toyota so all that happens is that the car ceases to function; the engine remains intact. A visit with the mechanic later we learned that his elderly Celica needed parts that would have to be special ordered. We were going to be down to one car for most of the week. Wednesday I got up and took Finna out for some play time as usual but instead of being able to come inside and have a nice breakfast I brought her in and hopped in the car to drive my husband to work. By the time I'd dropped him off I was starving so pulled into a McDonald's drive through and got a sausage McMuffin and a couple of hashbrowns. I'd eaten the hashbrowns by the time I got home but hadn't eaten the sausage muffin yet. Wednesday is also the day the dairy delivers to our house. I parked the car, grabbed the rest of my breakfast and a couple half gallons of milk. I brought those in through the gate and set them on the porch and went back to get the rest of the dairy delivery. Ranger was in the yard but he doesn't go out the gate without permission and he doesn't take food he hasn't been given. Two more trips with more items from the dairy and I could close the gate and start taking things inside. I picked up milk, opened the door and Finna dashed outside immediately sticking her nose into my McDonald's bag. I growled a leave it to which she obediently abandoned the bag and followed me inside.

When I came back out for the second load I had to laugh. Ranger was in the middle of the yard with the McDonald's bag lying abandoned beside him and the sausage muffin carefully unwrapped between his paws. Before I could even open my mouth to say anything one side of the muffin and the sausage had disappeared in a gulp. As Finna ran to see what Ranger had the other half of the muffin similarly vanished. Ranger, being a dog and not the adult child that I sometimes consider him, had fixed things so that Finna couldn't get the sausage muffin I'd forbidden her. He was very satisfied with himself and I found something else to have for the rest of my breakfast. Dogs, gotta love them.