Our Dog is Kind of An Asshole

But I love him anyway

This was the day Sodapop found a small paint roller cover on our walk. He didn’t want to drop it, I’m convinced, because he thought it looked and felt like a dog toy. I had to trade him for it with a treat, because food always wins in Sodapop’s world.

This dog. Sodapop is the sixth dog I’ve owned in my life, and while no two dogs have the same personality, this one is somehow extra different from the others.

For one thing, I thought all dogs were motivated by food in about the same way, with similar enthusiasm. Nope. There are levels. Our dogs have always sat and eyed us as we ate, hoping for a scrap off someone’s plate, and I’m a sucker for giving out scraps. This dog is the same, with the exception that if my attention wavers for a split second, he will snatch my napkin out of my lap in a flash before I even know what’s happening.

“God dammit,” I curse every single time he’s successful.

He’ll take the napkin, run off to a corner of the living room, and commence tearing it apart. If it smells enough like food, he’ll eat bits of it — sometimes the whole thing — before I can get it away from him. I don’t know if it’s because he was hungry while he was a stray, and I think about that a lot. He’s the first dog I’ve ever owned that steals and eats paper napkins obsessively.

“You’re a bad dog!” my husband will admonish, but I always defend Sodapop.

A few times, Soda has even been so bold as to take food off my plate, but I let him know — with my voice — that it is not okay for him…