When it comes to my dog鈥檚 favorite humans, I will never be number one. In fact, if you handed him a piece of paper and a pen, asked him to make a list of his favorite humans, and he were capable of such a thing, he would probably do something like this:
If you said, 鈥淥K, but who else?鈥 he might then say something like, 鈥淚 guess what鈥檚-his-name, the guy who lives here, he鈥檚 all right.鈥
I am fine with this. Dogs need an alpha in their lives, and Hilary is Rowlf鈥檚. It is settled, and it is not a contest. But I still see it as my job to help Rowlf live his best life, so I try to do that when and where I can.
Which is why he has been eating so well for the past six months or so. We kept his diet to just kibble for almost the first two years we had him, but every once in a while we gave him a little bit of wet food, the expensive stuff in a can that resembles something a human might actually eat. Rowlf is not what you鈥檇 call a food-motivated dog, and many times I have hand-fed him kibble while sitting on the floor, out of a sense of duty that he will not starve to death on my watch.
But he seemed to really like the wet food when we added it to his kibble, an upgrade that seemed to me equivalent to sitting at a restaurant and letting someone order for you in a different language and having a plate of raw carrots set in front of you鈥攂ut then two minutes later having the server drop two slices of pizza atop the carrots.
Hilary, who is鈥攁nd I cannot stress this enough鈥擱owlf鈥檚 favorite human, was of the opinion that we should use the wet food sparingly, partly to keep Rowlf from expecting it and then walking all over us, and partly to keep him from gaining too much weight and putting stress on his joints. I casually lobbied, every once in a while, for more wet food, more regularly, maybe even every day.
At some point, after maybe a dozen conversations about the dog鈥檚 food, I presented my case thusly:
鈥淲hen we adopted Rowlf, a veterinarian estimated his age at seven or eight years old, based on his teeth. That was two years ago, and who knows how accurate that sort of age estimate is? We really don鈥檛 know how old he is鈥攈e seems to be getting more and more white fur around his mouth. Wet food seems to make him happy, and if we have no problem affording food financially, we should give the dog the food that brings him joy as often as we can.鈥
And then, swinging for the emotional fence, I said, 鈥淲e just don鈥檛 know how long he鈥檚 going to be with us.鈥
Hilary nodded, and in her infinite wisdom said, 鈥淚 guess you could say the same thing about you, or me, couldn鈥檛 you?鈥
Our dog currently eats one-third of a can of wet food with every meal. Sometimes a half can.
Brendan Leonard鈥檚 new book, , is available now.