Dogs on Pogo Sticks

Just finished feeding the dogs.  Always an experience with those two.  I know it is getting close to feeding time when Allie and Rum come up to me and just stare.  Regardless of what I'm doing, there are these four eyes, staring at me...intensely staring at me.  Boring a hole in the back of my head, so to speak.  If that doesn't work, they engage phase 2 of their feeding plan.  Allie begins to make this low moaning sound, almost a whine, but not quite.  More of a whimper.  I can ignore the four eyes staring at me, the noise she makes I can not.  Any movement I make is quickly interpreted as "Feeding Time!!!!!!" and off they run to the basement.  Sometimes I have fun with them, and hide.  They hate it.  No matter where I hide, I can hear them, bounding up and down the stairs, running into every room, sniffing, searching.  They always check the last place they found me, first.  This goes on for about five or ten minutes, then Allie begins to whimper again as she runs from one room to another, in desperation.  Problem is I'm running out of places to hide.  Rumbeau usually finds me anyways.  Allie comes close but she's too scatter-brained to stay on my trail long enough..but once in a while she does succeed.

Once hide-and-seek is over, they go barreling full speed down the stairs again, and begin their feeding dance.  I'm serious.  And it's hard to not pull one more hiding stunt on them, just because.  If I'm not down those stairs in three seconds, Allie flies back up to the top, with those intense eyes and that whimper.  I have to give in, and so I make my way down  while Allie flies down ahead of me.  I can hear her racing around the family room in a circle, while Rumbeau prances in front of his bowl and as soon as I appear at the bottom of the stairs, he bends over and touches his bowl with his nose.  Apparently after all these years, he doesn't trust my judgement enough to know where I'm supposed to put his food, he has to show me.  As I walk toward the bar where the desired doggy groceries are kept, the two of them turn into Mexican jumping beans, on pogo sticks.  Up and down they jump, non-stop.  Rumbeau gets some pretty serious air-time as he can just about clear the height of the bar with his back legs.

These two are chow hounds, literally.  Rumbeau, being the oldest, gets fed first (after he shows me one more time where the doggy groceries go), then Allie gets fed.  I have trained both of them to sit before I'll put the food in their bowl, out of necessity.  In case you haven't picked up on it yet, Allie is a little bit hyper.  Sometimes she can't stop the pogo stick routine.  She will jump just as I'm bending down, and she'll hit the food scoop with her head and knock the food all over. And she doesn't eat her food, she inhales it.  Rumbeau always has about a ten second head start on Allie, but somehow she finishes first; every time.  You can set your watch by it.  She may be hyper and a little strange, but she is consistent, I'll give her that.

And with their bellies full, they both collapse and slip away into doggy dream land, where they chase raccoons, squirrels, and an occasional skunk.  Now if I could just get them to quit drinking the water out of the toliet.