Power shift

Normally in our house it is the dogs that terrorize the cat. As a general rule, Dexter stays as far away from the dogs as possible. However, recently Dexter learned how he can terrorize the dogs.

Our dogs have been trained not to go after food until we give them the command. They will sit there for 5 minutes with food in their dish, waiting to go after it. In fact, once I walked away to do something and forgot all about the dogs -- 15 minutes later I notice them outside, with a big puddle of drool on the ground and food in their dish, waiting for mommy to say they can eat.

Of course anyone who has ever had a cat knows that it's very difficult to train one, and waiting for food is just not in their nature. Dexter is using this to his advantage with the dogs. The other night Doug and I were having ice cream and placed the empty bowl on the floor for the dogs to lick. As they were waiting for us to let them go at it, Dexter comes up between them -- which is normally like Odysseus trying to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis. Feeling confident, the cat licked the ice cream bowl while the dogs looked at us with big, sad eyes. "Why is kitty getting the bowl and we can't have it," they seemed to say.

Dexter had his fill and went back to his lair, knowing that at least momentarily, he had the power over the dogs.