Zora is in the Bitch House (she’s supposed to be kept quiet), which has a small yard with a doggy door to the bitch room, and a larger yard attached to the small yard. I usually feed her in the large yard, ushering any other bitches into the small yard and closing the gate.

Last night, I offered Zora some nice cooked ground beef for her final meal. She’s been pretty good about eating ground beef over the last week or so. (Yesterday she had a jar of baby food to wash down her morning meeds, a cup of cooked steak, a few bites of raw chicken, and most of a can of Mighty Dog. She completely refused her mush.) I put the bowl down, and waited for her to inspect it. Passing food gets eaten, failing food gets a snort and then she’ll walk away. Evidently this beef was so very fail that she didn’t even need to get up to check it out. I put it closer to her, she lifted her head and took a sniff, then flopped back down, sighing dramatically. As if she was so disappointed by my complete failure to give her the proper food, she couldn’t be bothered to even get up and walk away from it.

I put the beef away, grabbed a jar of meat baby food, and put the empty bowl on the ground. Zora watched but didn’t pick her head up. I opened the jar of baby food and plopped it into the bowl. (If you plop it just right, it comes out of the jar clean and then you don’t have to scrape the rest out with a spoon.)

Damned if Zora didn’t pop up like a jack-in-the-box and gobble down that baby food. Plopped another jar into the bowl, and she ate that, too. She ate three and a half jars before she turned away, signaling that she was done.

I crouched down to pet her after she ate, and she rooted her head up under my chin, something she doesn’t usually do. Zora is not a terribly demonstrative dog. I’m not sure if she was thanking me for the baby food, or grateful that I’m such a sucker.