Feeding Time at Home

One of the difficulties of having so many dogs is the fact that they like to eat.

Every day.

Day after day.

Vets say that it’s best for dogs to be fed twice a day, so that’s what we do. It’s not easy, and each feeding takes probably forty-five minutes or so, depending on how many dogs we have at the particular time. But it is truly something to behold.

The dishes are spread out all over the house, and each dog knows exactly where his or her dish is going to be. Some of them inhale their food and then go on the prowl to find those who they know are not going to finish. Others just hang out with their food, not showing any interest at all until I start to pick up the dishes, at which point they spring into eating action.

We separate from the group those that might be on special diets for reasons of health. They go into rooms by themselves, behind closed doors, to eat in peace.

The only one to always be separated not for reasons of health is Wanda, the mastiff. After a month or so of her chowing down on everyone else’s food, we started putting her in the laundry room, separated by a half door, open at the top. When she’d finish she’d stand with her head at the open area, looking down at the others eating, wishing she could have their food.

But Wanda couldn’t get to them; and she wasn’t happy about it. At times I thought she was going to eat the door.

In ten years at our house in Orange County, I don’t think there were three occasions, outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas, that Debbie and I ate at a table.

It was just too much of a hassle. First of all, once any food was put on the table, it then had to be guarded. Therefore, one of us would have to bring all the courses in while the other stayed vigilant. Wanda, for instance, would need about thirty seconds to clear off and suck down the entire meal.

The eating itself was no easier. Dogs would completely surround us, pleading looks on their faces, wanting some of our food. Then, of course, there were the non-silent beggars, barking angrily at not being invited to dine at the people table.

Of course, Debbie would make it worse by slipping some of them tastes of the food. Very rarely did they react by barking, “OK. Thanks for that … enjoy the rest of your meal.” Instead it obviously got them even more eager for even more food, and pissed off the ones that hadn’t had a sample.

It wasn’t an atmosphere conducive to fine dining, and as you can imagine, we didn’t throw a hell of a lot of dinner parties. Instead we ate standing up, in the kitchen.

In addition to the dogs’ meals, there were other things we did that could best be described as unusual. We used to get two dozen bagels each morning, and the dogs would surround us in the kitchen. Debbie and I would break up the bagels into bite-sized pieces and drop them into the waiting mouths of the dogs.

But on Thanksgiving and Christmas, we would up the ante. We’d buy a half-dozen large London broils and cook them on the grill. That was the easy part; it was the cutting of the meat that was hard. Because of that experience, if there was a London-broil-cutting competition in the Olympics, I could go for the gold.

It would take two or three hours from beginning to end, but each dog wound up with a dishful of meat, and not a single piece went uneaten.

Ever.

I used to imagine that at London broil time, veteran dogs in the house probably nodded to the newcomers that had never experienced it and knowingly barked, “I told you so. Is this a cool place, or what?”