To Catch a Thief

I’ve had a few dogs over the years. From noble German Shepherds to wilful terriers, from the super obedient to the downright delinquent, and from the haughty I’m-not-eating-that-muck to the gimme-gimme-gimme-I’m-starving.
          My last pooch, a beagle with a stomach that continually rumbled, was renowned to steal food.  Whether it was morning toast to a Sunday roast, she wasn’t fussy.  If you walked away from your plate for a nano-second, she was in there, wolfing it down and woofing with delight.
          My latest canine family member is an orphaned pup from Crete.  She comes from a line of street dogs programmed to survive, so whether it’s digging up beetles in the garden (ewwww!) to swallowing spiders that venture into the house, Molly isn’t fussy.  Every mealtime she quietly stations herself at my side, hoping a dropped morsel will land at her feet.  She is a polite dog, and always gently taps my arm when the knife and fork are put together, asking if it would be okay to lick my plate clean.  She has never stolen my dinner before – until this week.
          In an attempt to shed a few pounds before the Christmas feasting begins, I’ve been on a salad binge.  Like most people, I love to ‘mindlessly eat’. What better way to get through a mountain of rabbit food than prop your latest read against the pepper pot as you chomp your way through lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, grated carrot, alfalfa and all manner of strange sounding stuff.  The hero I was reading about was definitely tastier than my salad.
          Having spent fifteen minutes washing and prepping lunch, I topped it off with a couple of slices of thick ham, then looked around for my kindle. Ah, I’d left it by my bed. Leaving my lunch on the worktop, I nipped upstairs and was gone for half a minute.
          When I returned, the salad looked pretty much as I’d left it, although slightly re-arranged.  Something was different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it and was far more interested in immersing myself in a world of fiction than considering facts about my lunch.  Five minutes into chewing carrot sticks that looked, well, tatty is probably the best way to describe them, I realised what was missing.  The ham.  I could have sworn I’d put some on the plate.  No matter.  My memory is appalling.  I must have thought I’d put meat on the plate.  I went to the fridge to get the ham – but there wasn’t any.  That was when the dawn came up.
          Have you ever looked at a dog that can’t meet you in the eye?  Molly’s eyes were suddenly slithering all over the place. She let out a whimper of shame and slunk off.  I regarded my lunch in bemusement.  Great.  How much doggy slobber had I just eaten? Cue remainder of dinner in the bin and much gargling with mouthwash.
          As if this wasn’t bad enough, in an absent-minded moment I went and did exactly the same thing the following day.  Except this time Molly scoffed my boiled eggs too.  On the third day, I looked at my pooch and said, ‘Ha! You’re not getting the better of me today,’ and shoved my lunch right to the back of the worktop where she couldn’t reach it, before hastening off to fetch my kindle.
          When I returned it was to find the cat delicately picking out pieces of chopped chicken from the beansprouts.  The moral of this story is, never leave your book upstairs and never leave your lunch unattended.  Which reminds me.
          What do you get when you cross a hungry street dog with a computer? Mega-bites …