Friday, August 14, 2009

Home Fries

I'll never get over how weird Leeloo is. It's the simple everyday weirdness that amuses me most but occasionally she'll pull a weird bunny out of her hat.

Since I've lived here the cat litter and food have been secured in what will eventually be the dining room - there is a gate across the door that the cats can jump over and the dogs could but don't. The cats get fed on the dining chairs instead of the floor because it means less bending down for me - yes I am the pinnacle of lazy. Since the dishes are high up and the cats are not careful they tend to knock pieces of the food onto the floor which they eventually scrounge and eat.

For whatever reason, a few days ago, Leeloo heard the tell tale 'plink' of a piece of cat food hitting the floor of the dining room and went to investigate. I followed her wondering why the sudden interest. She stood at the door of the dining room, gazing longingly over the gate at the cat on a dining chair partaking in a little afternoon snack.

She stood for some time and when another kibble hit the floor she tensed, her eyes got big and her ears got ridiculous. She kept staring at the floor where the kibble had landed a mere 10 feet out of her reach. She shifted from foot to foot and then the whining began.

Leeloo doesn't whine like a normal dog. She emits a low moaning sound that is reserved specifically for food related frustrations. She has an internal clock that would rival the best Rolex - she can tell almost to the minute when it's time to get fed again. I have to keep a pretty strict feeding schedule (as in take food with me if I think I'm going to have the dogs out past their regular feeding time) otherwise she gets creative in her frustration at not being fed precisely 12 hours after the last time she was fed. The whining, if not satiated in a timely manner, turns into woo-wooing and eventually barking - this of course is directed at me because I am 100% responsible for feeding her and if late, am 100% responsible for her distress.

So the cat kibble lay uneaten at the foot of the dining chair and to Leeloo this was sacrilege. I left her to ponder the lonely dusty cat food, eventually she gave up her vigil but I noticed through out the day that she kept going back to check that the food was still uneaten. The cats do get around to finding the food and eat it but for Leeloo food is meant to be eaten and not left to its own devices on the floor of the dining room.

What has come of this initial revelation for Leeloo is that she now checks the dining room on a regular basis to see if there is any abandoned cat food that may have fallen close enough for her to snap up. Since it's on the other side of the gate, across the room and under some chairs I'm pretty sure that is an impossibility but you never know - cats can be messy. She has taken to making these checks at odd hours of the night as well because you never know ... cat kibble could be nocturnal and only wander at night.

1 comment:

Steven and Kimberly said...

She has quite the personality. That would keep be entertained all day.