And they said it couldn’t be done.
Brandy is a shepherd mix we got from the pound back in 2001 when she was about a year-and-a-half old. So in dog years, she’s pushing 70. One of the au pairs we had when the kids were little trained her to know that, when we gave her a Milk Bone, she should eat it down on the landing by the back door. You see, she leaves crumbs and no matter how many times we tell her she never vacuums after herself.
She’ll often try and sneak past me when I’m not looking because for some reason she enjoys having her snack on the carpet in the living room. She’ll even hold it in her mouth, looking like she’s smoking a cigar, and wait for me to look away or leave the room. Usually a glance will do to make her turn around and go back where she’s supposed to be. Other times I might have to mutter “Brandy…” to turn her back.
Yesterday I reached into the box and pulled out a broken half and gave it to her. She put the whole thing in her mouth and held it there without eating it, hiding it from me, and tried to go into the living room — about eight times. Looking me right in the eye.
If she could talk she’d have been saying, “Milk Bone? I don’t have a Milk Bone. What makes you think I have a Milk Bone?”