Jack can be an ornery little cus. He's not a bad dog. He's just smart enough to get his way. Especially now that new puppy Pepper is loose. Pepper torments Jack by jumping on him. His favorite move is to wrap his front legs around Jack's head, in a headlock. And hang on, while Jack walks away, resigned, dragging Pepper along for a ride.
Pepper almost knocked Jack off the side porch the other day. Which is quite a feat, what with Jack being so low to the ground, and a bit... ahem... portly right now, due to Farmer H's overfeeding. We'll get to that in a moment.
I can't get a good picture of Pepper because he's so bouncy. He leaps like a sheep sometimes. He's full of puppy energy. Farmer H captured a photo on March 9. Back before Pepper was allowed loose all the time. And when he was not eating anything but his special packets of puppy food.
It helped Farmer H that Pepper had ventured over to Shackytown Boulevard, and was tired out from an hour of play, and ready for a nap. Of course this is a zoom-in on Farmer H's original photo, which showed a whole lot of the Mansion grounds, and little bitty Pepper in the center.
Anyhoo... the point is that when they greet me as I return from town, it's hard for Jack to get petted, because Pepper jumps all over him. Pepper himself has fallen off the side porch a couple times, in his hyper excitement.
The other day, Jack just walked off towards the kitchen. I thought he might be going to get a drink, and come back to meet me as I got to the kitchen door to dole out treats. But no. Jack came walking back. He had an empty plastic water bottle in his mouth. He stopped over behind the metal chair on the side porch where Farmer H sits to wait for me to get home with groceries.
Jack dropped the water bottle, and looked at Pepper. "Oh, sweet. They're going to play." I thought. But no. Pepper gallumped over to the water bottle, and Jack sidestepped him and came to me for uninterrupted petting. He's a clever one, I tell you!
Last week was warm. Farmer H was always sitting on the side porch when I got home. He started a habit of feeding the dogs in a big metal pan. Pepper is now eating a can of moist food these days, as well as his pouch food, which he gets in the morning. I was there to see Farmer H's feeding technique. It's not very efficient!
Farmer H pulls the lid off a can of food. Rather than turning it upside down and shaking until it falls out in a blob, he holds the big metal pan in the left hand, and with the right hand he whacks the open can on the rim of the pan. The can is at a 45-degree angle at best. Sometimes it's parallel to the ground! I don't know how Farmer H expects gravity to assist him with this technique. It takes 15 or more whacks to get that log of dog food to plop out into the pan.
Farmer H sat down and put the pan at his feet. Pepper rushed over to start gobbling the food he previously distained. Jack stood back behind the chair, watching.
"I give Pepper a can of food first. He eats it all! Then I open another can, and Pepper eats what he wants. Then Jack finishes it."
Indeed. Jack was quite the gentleman. Not crowding in. Just watching, biding his time. The second can got stuck. Half plopped out, then the other half. Pepper nibbled away at one of the lumps. Then he left the pan and came to me to bite my wrist be petted.
Jack walked calmly to the food pan. How polite! Just taking his turn now. But wait! Jack picked up the half-log of dog food in his mouth, and trotted back behind Farmer H's chair to drop it on the porch and start eating. Pepper went back and started licking the crumbs left from his already-eaten portion.
Jack is nobody's fool!
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