A problem that we’re having right now is that B feeds half of every meal to Martha, the dog. He’s trained her, now, better than she’s been trained in most things. Martha sleeps a lot of the day: she’s a rescue, I don’t know how old she is, but it seems possible from her sleep patterns that she might be quite old. Sometimes she is happy to play with B and sometimes she seems to find him quite antagonizing. But when one of us starts carrying B to his high chair she animates into a gray-and-white streak and shoots under the table to assume her position.

When B is really hungry the first few mouthfuls are just for him, but then as the meal progresses he starts sharing: one for her, one for him, and so on. No, we say, not for Martha! This is your food! but B just smiles and continues, and it’s hard to know what to do.

He shouldn’t be feeding the dog, but also it’s very sweet that he feeds the dog, that he’s already learning to share, that when he is enjoying his meal he wants to make sure that she’s not hungry.

Each time it happens I think: I should work on changing this behavior, it’s bad manners and it’s not good for Martha to eat all of this human food. 

But then I also think: When will we be free to come and go again? What will the world look like when we do?

And then I think: Perhaps this is a problem I don’t need to solve right now. Perhaps this is a time to choose battles.

JHE