It has not been a great 30 Days for Lucy the Lunatic. May featured record breaking amounts of rain along with accompanying thunder and lightening, which sends our girl into bouts of emotional and psychological torment. During these storms there are only two locations in our house that offer even the slightest fig leaf of security...the small gap between our sofa and coffee table, and the space between the pillows on our bed. Generally speaking, around ten minutes before the arrival of a storm, Lucy will deposit herself in one of these safe spaces to ride out the horror. When the storms occur in the middle of the night, Pam and I will be awakened by the sudden presence of Lucy, jamming her nose as far under the space between our pillows as possible. Then, our bed is transformed into what feels like one of those vibrating beds in cheap motels where you pop a quarter into the box for five minutes of...well, of...never mind. Anyway, Lucy’s entire body endures one shaking wave after another until the storm passes. Occasionally, we will find evidence the next morning of urinary malfunction in usually obscure locations.
But, Lucy’s fear of thunderstorms is not what this blog is about. No, no...Lucy’s psychoses are much deeper and varied than that. Her new thing is her bizarre mealtime ritual. It started several months ago for no apparent reason that either of us can think of. Out of nowhere she started being spooked by her food bowl, or something. Pam experimented with several new locations for the terrifying bowl and finally settled on a weird location that allows her to eat while looking out the windows of the back door. This particular view seemed to cure the jitters. But, a new pathology has now arrived on the scene whereby she refuses to eat until at least one of us, ideally both of us are in a seated position. Yes, you heard that right. Lucy now requires a rapt audience in order to eat.
Ok...here’s the thing. I have had dogs literally all of my life, and the one thing they have all had in common was a combination of voracious appetite and atrocious manners. You’ve all seen it...every meal you give your dog they act like they haven’t eaten in weeks, kibble flying all over the place as they inhale the entire bowl in five seconds! Lucy, on the other hand, acts like she’s doing us a favor by eating. She will pause grandly and gaze down upon her kibble with barely concealed contempt, then let out a plaintive sigh of resignation before daintily placing a single morsel into her mouth. Then she takes a leaisurely stroll to the nearest rug where she deposits the morsel, as if inspecting it for defects, before finally taking it up again, reluctantly. Then there’s an indifferent return to the food bowl, one more disappointed inspection, and finally she will partake. In what I consider to be deliberate defiance, she almost always leaves a couple of morsels in the bottom of the bowl just to let us know of her official ambivalence. And now, she is insisting that we both sit down while she eats.
If Lucy were a person, she would be our 10th grade teenage daughter!!
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