Waiting For Falling Food

The summer between my sophomore and Junior year I adopted my dog Beau. He was a sweet mixed terrier mutt and was eternally grateful to be saved from the shelter. I did not want a dog who begged for food from the table so I trained Beau to sit quietly while my three roommates and I ate at our dining room table.

Being a college student I certainly was not the best dog Mom I could be. Beau’s food was nothing more than kibble and he longed for whatever the humans were eating.

The nicest room in my college house was our dining room. We bought a used Victorian dining room set from the local used furniture store. We had a side board, table and four matching chairs. Dinners were about the only time all four of us might be home. We had a rotating schedule where one of us was in charge of cooking dinner for the house Monday-Thursday.

When we sat down for dinner Beau would come and sit in the dining room with us. As the dinner conversation would get underway we noticed that Beau would move around the table and stand beside the person who was laughing the hardest. We came to understand that Beau was doing this in hopes of having some food fall out of the laugher’s mouth. Begging was forbidden, but Beau was allowed to be our canine vacuum so any food that fell off the table, or out of your mouth was fair game.

I can’t remember much food falling out of anyone’s mouth, but it must have happened at least twice since the Beau could be counted on to be the laughers sidekick. That trait stayed with Beau his whole life and thus he especially liked when I had parties because that was his only chance for laughing food loss. Who says dogs are not brilliant?