In our household our big dog Ali, 70 pounds of pure muscle, will turn up her nose and walk away if we try to feed her any type of commercial dog food; once, in a war of wills in which I was clearly outmatched, she did not eat for two and a half days until, frantic, I liberally slathered her food with whipped cream – after which she cleaned her plate. And thus began a trend.
At the other extreme is Parker, our six month old kitten, who will eat anything, including hummus, cocktail olives, rutabaga, grapefruit, cantaloupe, lizards, palmetto bugs, stale bread and most of our Christmas tree, all with no discernable ill effects.
Maintaining harmony at dinnertime is harder than you may expect. My partner, a retired veterinarian, has very strong ideas about what animals should and should not eat and he gets annoyed because he suspects that as soon as his back is turned I slather Ali’s food liberally with whipped cream to get her to eat, which indeed I do, although I deny it.
Over the years, feeding time at our house has become more and more stressful and over the holidays I was complaining to my sisters and my brother about Ali’s finicky eating habits.
“Sounds like Bruno,” said my brother. Bruno was the German Shepard we had in high school.
“What about him?” I asked.
“Don’t you remember?” said my brother. He reminded me that Bruno was a very picky eater too and the only way he would eat is if my middle sister got on the floor on her hands and knees and put her face over Bruno’s bowl and made chewing sounds.
I’m not sure how I could forget a story like this, but my middle sister corroborated. “Don’t you remember?” she said glumly. “Mom would tell me to get on the floor so Bruno would eat.”
“Yep,” said my brother, “and Bruno would snarl at you but then he’d clean his plate.” He paused. “He didn’t want his food but he didn’t want you to have it either.”
My older sister jumped in; significantly she had no trouble believing that our Mother would make my sister get on the floor and pretend to eat the dog’s food, but she was amazed that my middle sister would obey. “You were like 22,” she said. “Why would you do it?”
“Did you ever try to say ‘no’ to Mom?” asked my middle sister, adding, “And you wonder why I have issues?” and the rest of us shook our heads sadly.
Later that night I told this story to my partner. Since he came from a very straight-laced environment where dogs ate dog food on the floor and people ate people food at the table he was both fascinated and repulsed by the story. He was silent for a long time and then he said, “You know, if you had told me that story on our first date there would have never been a second date.”
“Then I’m sorry I didn’t,” I said snarkily, but I got to thinking and the next night, at suppertime, I moved Parker’s bowl right next to Ali’s. I filled Parker’s bowl with kitten chow and Ali’s with the dry dog food she hates, with no whip cream in sight. Predictably, Ali looked at her bowl, sighed and laid down, a tragic look on her face.
Parker, as usual, gobbled his food and then, never missing a beat, moved on to Ali’s bowl, crunching noisily. Wondering, Ali got up and went to investigate. She saw Parker eating her food and looked at me as if to say, “Really?”
I just shrugged as Parker kept eating. A second later Ali gently pushed Parker away and began to eat, unhappily, and occasionally looking back at me reproachfully. Soon, under Parker’s watchful gaze, Ali’s bowl was licked clean and my partner, who had witnessed the whole scene, was standing with his mouth open.
“What just happened?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Survival of the fittest?” I asked.
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