Hazardous Duty

Feeding six hungry Siberians can be a challenge.  We have a very specific routine.

1)  The dogs are each in their place – Natasha and Rusty in the dog room; Kodiak, Kiska and Qannik in the den; and Cheoah in her crate (food aggression issue that has to be contained).

2)  Each dog must sit before their bowl is placed on the ground and must wait until verbally released to eat.

3)  No dog may bother another dog until everyone is done eating.

Now despite rule #2, much vigor is applied to the Happy Dance that occurs before dinner is served.  Howling, dancing, running in circles – all allowed until I am ready to start feeding.

So, I enter the dog room and feed Natasha and Rusty – both sit and wait on their bowls.  I enter the den and Kodiak, Kiska and Qannik are racing around the room in Happy Dance mode.  I am instructing Qannik to go sit in his spot, then Kiska and finally Kodiak – all before any of the three are fed.  

Only Kodiak is doing a phenomenal Happy Dance.  As I am backing away from the now sitting Qannik and Kiska, Kodiak does a final spin on his back legs and starts to plant his front legs so he can sit.  Only I am wearing sweat pants and the string that holds them on is hanging out the front.  Yep, Kodiak’s paw perfectly hooks right through the loop.

Now I am faced with a choice.  Drop the dog bowls and save the sweat pants (and the chaos of dog food slung throughout the den), or hold onto the dog bowls.  I did what any dog owner does – I held onto the bowls.

So Kodiak goes all the way into a sit mode – with my sweat pants under his front paws and I am noticing a significant draft.

Ok, he’s sitting, right?  So I place the bowl, release him to eat, and recover the sweat pants.  And then feed Kiska and Qannik who are calmly sitting and waiting on their food.

Good thing I don’t have any neighbors.

8 Comments

  1. Wild Dingo on July 10, 2009 at 2:32 am

    I laughed so hard, i cried. damn husky. i allow the happy dance too. but they both have to go down and stay down before i release to eat. the happy dance is like saying GRACE! who could resist it?

  2. Huffle Mawson on January 1, 2009 at 7:11 pm

    I want to laugh really really hard about that!

    Huffle Mawson, Honorary Husky and Explorer Cat

  3. Princess on January 1, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    Aroo aroo!!! Got a good laugh out of that one!!! Go through the same process with my pack!!! Only have one pure Husky, me, Princess!!

  4. Khyra on January 1, 2009 at 11:40 am

    Dang!

    Where was the SibeManKham when we needed it?

    Hugz&Khysses,
    Khyra

  5. Ozzie on January 1, 2009 at 9:11 am

    Betcha you were cold!

    Brrrrrr!

    And like we dogs learn, so does the human.

    Happy New Year

    Oz

  6. Kayla and Maebe on December 31, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO… good thing the camera wasn’t rolling!! heeheehee…
    Betcha tuck that string in from now on!
    Kayla and Maebe

  7. Steve & Kat on December 31, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    Great story!! We do the pre-dinner happy dance, but we also have to sit and stay until we get the “OK” to go eat. Luckily we haven’t had to be put in separate rooms to eat though. When we were little, we had to eat in our crates for a while because we didn’t understand to eat out of our own bowls, but we have that down now, so we just eat side by side.

    Kat

  8. The OP Pack on December 31, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    Ha roooooooooo – too bad we can’t have a video of THAT!!!

    Happy New Year to all of woo!!!

    Woos, the OP Pack

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