Observations of a dog owner

Weekends. My poodle, Tessa, knows I like to sleep in. She, however, likes her food too much. Weekends mean that I do the feeding. I have to admit, she does let me sleep 2 hours longer than a weekday. She doesn't take into account that I stayed up longer the night before and really I have had less sleep than during the week.

It's hard to ignore a 7kg poodle jumping onto the bed, rubbing herself up and down your back or arm, whinging and whining to wake you up. She isn't persistent though and by that I mean, she will annoy for a minute and then run off in the hopes of finding someone else. This gives me at least another 5 minutes of dozing before she comes back for the second, third and sometimes 10th round.

There are a couple of things you need to know about Tessa before I proceed. Firstly she is one of those "see food" eaters. Even when it's not food, if it smells good enough to eat, she will try. Consequently I had a slightly overweight dog on my hands. She went to the vet for another issue and came home on a diet and also on cortisone (which will make her hungry) for her other ailment. Diet and cortisone ... not good bed fellows in a dog that already thinks she is being starved.

During this last week, we found a big bone in the freezer that we had forgotten about. It was decided that Tessa would have it, so yesterday morning I did the honours and presented her with this bone, in recognition of being very good on her diet and the appearance of her waist line.

Tessa was in Heaven but the other dog Bo (half Tessa's size) was jealous. Oh she got a treat, it just wasn't a bone. When Bo wants food she will bark at us. After a while I heard Bo barking and went to see what she was barking at.

There she was, looking at Tessa chewing away happily, and barking at her. I am sorry Bo but Tessa is not like us. She doesn't get sick of your barking and give in. LOL it was like she was telling Tessa she needed to share.

Both dogs saw me at the door, and in anticipation of more food, came running over. A large crow took advantage of the bone alone and sidled up to it. I walked out to scare it off, but the stupid thing just looked at me. It decided to move 2m away and watch.

In the mean time, Tessa is still convinced I have something in my hand for her, so with her attention on me, and my attention on the crow, Bo seizes the moment, grabs the bone (twice the size of her head) and runs to her bed with it.

Through out the morning the bone swapped between Tess and Bo. When Tessa had it, Bo would bark, when Bo had it, Tess would be inside begging for something else. The large crow stayed and whinged and whined like the dogs do when they want food.

Eventually the bone disappeared, so whether or not the crow got it, who knows!