~*~ For some reason, the large photos at the beginning of my posts are getting distorted. Until I can resolve the problem, if you click on the photo, you will see it the way it is supposed to be. ~*~
To really get 2011 off to a good start, I think a new Pascal story is in order~ Though he turned eleven in July, (4th,) Pascal hasn’t lost any of his funny quirks; if anything, he’s been busy adding new ones & refining the old ones. Last night was a perfect example of a classic “Pascal” maneuver~
Every night, I prepare his dinner when I prepare mine, so we both eat dinner at the same time. He eats very slowly for a dog, but being a slow-eater myself, he always finishes eating before I do. Every night as soon as he’s finished his dinner, he comes over to where I’m sitting at the table to let me know he’s finished so I can wipe his face- ( I discovered early-on that he really likes to be clean, so if I don’t wipe his face when he’s finished eating, he’ll wipe it himself- by running his chin along the cushion of the couch!) Once I’ve cleaned his face I finish my dinner while he sits on the floor at my feet, patiently waiting for me to finish eating.
Because he’s always been such a “picky” eater I have to have something I can use as a bribe to make sure he eats his dinner, as his medicine is mixed into his food. Once I’ve finished eating, I take both of our plates into the kitchen & if he’s eaten, give him a treat to eat in the other room while I wash dishes. Normally his treat is potato, but occasionally I’ll give him a small dish of sherbet, which is what I usually eat while I do dishes, however he doesn’t usually see me, because he’s in the other room eating his potato.
Last night I brought him his potato & went back to the kitchen to wash dishes. I had taken sherbet out of the freezer but hadn’t put it into a dish yet. Standing at the sink while it filled with water, I had the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I turned around, and guess who was standing there staring at me? “What are you doing?” I asked. I had just given him his potato, he couldn’t possibly have finished it! He continued to stare at me. I thought maybe he needed to go out, so I asked~ No- that wasn’t it. He wouldn’t follow me to the door. He just stood where he was, not moving . I walked into the dining room where I had given him his potato.
At first I didn’t see his dish where I had left it. I walked closer to take a better look. Nope! No dish. No potato! BUT I saw the plastic bag that I lay under his cloth placemat, & his placemat- both were pushed way back under the wooden stand that holds his water dish, carefully arranged in a lump- over the dish with his potato in it! He had done a great job! He hadn’t left one bit of dish sticking out from underneath the placemat & plastic bag! I lifted the placemat. There was the dish with his potato- completely untouched!
While I was in the dining room looking for his dish, Pascal sat totally still in the kitchen. He hadn’t budged- I knew what this trick was about, he’d done it before, but I pretended that I didn’t. With his dish in my hands, I walked up to him & said, ” No potato tonight, huh? What do you want?” He stared at me~ “What, Pascal? Show me what you want! Do you want ice cream?” Suddenly the statue broke it’s silent stance! He stood up, tail wagging in circles excitedly- I showed the carton of ice cream to him and asked, “This? Is this what you want?” I got a chorus of barks & a fanfare of tail wags. Clearly, I was on to something- something good!
Pascal got a small dish of ice cream~ and oh! Life was good!
Nice job, Pascal!