Good things happen in the kitchen

When we took Dieter home with us, Mike told us: Anytime you wonder where your German Shepherd is, just look down. That's really been the case--and especially so when one of us goes to the kitchen. There's food and good smells; and if a guy's lucky, maybe the human will drop something or forget and leave food unattended. 

Ice for me?

The kitchen makes good sounds, too. The ice comes from the refriger-ba-dator. It makes a wonderful sound as it clinks into mom's glass. Dieter always runs over and begs for some ice. "It's so refreshing, especially in the Summer, mom." 

I've taken to referring to Dieter as my four-legged sous chef. He helps me in many ways. Once when I was preparing a pork and pinto bean crockpot dish, I glanced over and there was the sous chef attempting to defrost the (luckily!) sealed frozen pork roast with his tongue. 

The sous chef also discovered that Lloyd had left a stick of butter on the counter. No sense in letting it go to waste, so into Dieter's mouth it went. Luckily when he does things like this it gets ominously quiet and I'll go to investigate. One has to get very quiet when attempting to steal food. 

I ended up sticking my hand into Dieter's mouth to retrieve the butter. Add that to my list of things I didn't think I'd ever be doing. Pilling cats? Yes. Thrusting my hand into a dog's gaping maw? Who'da thunk it. But it's better grabbing the butter from the pointy end of the dog instead of dealing with the aftermath of butter traversing the dog's digestive tract. I like the pointy end better than the back end!

I've taken to leaving little notes in the kitchen so Lloyd won't leave food withing Dieter's reach. Dieter has been known to show up in the family room with an orange in his mouth or a chunk of cucumber. And he helped once by moving the open bag of bag of oyster crackers. "They look good on the floor, mom."  

He (the human) is getting better about putting stuff away. The dog training is definitely easier than the human male training! Clicker training maybe?