My dog has nicer manners than your honors student

So it’s probably not news that my dog thinks he’s my second child. If my daughter is in my lap, he wants to be in my lap too. And both of them just barely fit. Especially when the cat joins in. I mean, Mommy’s lap is only so big, and that side of the couch can only hold so much weight. Really, is there something wrong with the other side of the couch? And let’s not talk about when I go to use the restroom… Sometimes I go to work just to be alone. It’s nice. And quiet.

But anyway. I feed the dog twice a day, once in the morning, and once at night. And apparently, he can’t eat if no one else is eating. I don’t eat breakfast at home in the morning (no time), but my daughter does. And he will wait until she’s eating breakfast to start eating. If she’s not there in the morning, he will leave the bowl full of food until I get home and have a snack before dinner to eat it. When I fill the bowl at dinner time, he waits until we are eating dinner at the table to eat. If he’s outside, he somehow knows when we are eating, and barks to come in. I used to think he could hear the timer on the microwave or the oven, and would use that “bell” to come in (my daughter wants his middle name to be ‘lunchbox’ and I want it to be ‘Pavlov.’ Seeing as he’s my dog, you would think I would win this argument, but my husband is on her side). But some nights I don’t use any timers, and he still knows when to come in and “eat” with us.

Of course, there's his disgusting habit of letting me know when he's eaten - he comes over to me, wherever I am, and burps at me (his bowl is in the kitchen, and we eat in the dining room). Then he rolls around on the floor on his back to help the food digest, or something. Yup, who would want to miss that twice a day, every day?