That's why they call 'em bitches....

The sweet dog beside the flowers, though you wouldn't know it, has learned to drive her anxious companion (lurking in the doorway) to distraction when it comes to mealtime. The routine goes something like this:

1. Take Elky into the laundry room and closes the door, leaving Tass in the den.

2. Refill water bowl and prepare the kibble.

3. Give Elky her bowl and hurry out the door, hopefully closing it before Elky devours her kibble. Listen to Elky start to whine.

4. Put Tassel's bowl down near the back door (about where Elky is sitting in the photo).

5. Go back and let Elky out of the laundry room and keep her from charging Tassel's bowl. (Tassel at this point is standing at her bowl, but not eating.)

6. Put Elky in the next room so Tass can have her breakfast in peace.

The problem is that Tassel shows little interest in her food unless Elky is staring at the bowl from 4 or 5 feet away. (Closer than that and we have an intense interlude of the snarly-growlies, which I discourage.) Tass wanders away from the bowl, seemingly in search of her antagonist, and will often return to it only when it looks/sounds like I'm about to release Elky the kibble-hoover from her mealtime confinement.

And I swear there are times when Tass seems to bait Elky the Tapeworm; it goes like this: I put E in a down-stay beside my chair in the dining room, say, while we wait for Tass to dine in the den. Elky grudgingly holds the stay, though she remains ever vigilant for my attention to lapse, whereat she sneaks around the corner to see if there might be a morsel left in T's bowl. Tassel leaves her bowl to come peek around the corner at Elky. Elky stirs and gets a "no!", and Tass hurries back to her bowl. Rinse & repeat several times until either Tass has inadvertently eaten her kibble or I have become exasperated and set her bowl aside until dinner time.

What a soap opera....