“Nina?”
      One black head, two brown eyes tilt and freeze. Floppy ears swivel and pause.
      A stare.
      She knows something– something– is coming, and even though this act has, of course, been repeated time and time again, it is like the total Mecca of anticipation. As if she were a starving man smelling a hot pizza after having had no food for days.  The scent would be simply maddening.
     So it is for our dog; that eats her meals twice a day, once in the morning and once in the early evening. Maybe she thinks about food all day as she lolls and sleeps around the house when no one is home. Her dreams imagining that somehow, the entire refrigerator and all the cupboards bow to her and release all of their goodness. Or maybe she stares at the place on the floor where last night, two clumps of chicken dropped while I was carrying my plate to the table.
    “Oh, floor tile. I sit humbly before you in delicious memory of the one time I will never forget. Though I am only a regular canine, I knowingly believe…”
     It may be none of this at all; she might only think in spurts, and not have the ability to either remember or fantasize. The immediacy of situations may very well be all she sees.
     “Cat! Noise outside that MIGHT BE THE PIZZA DELIVERY GUY WHO WAS HERE LAST THURSDAY! An airplane!”
     In these, her mind might be a piston, hammering up and down to every new stimulus which comes into hearing. If it involves food, the possibility of food, and most definitely the sight or smell of food, those pistons overheat and blow up.
     I can’t help but think of my own childhood, in those few minutes (or sometimes hours) before dinner, pestering my mother about when the meal would finally be ready. “Oh, look! Here is a starving child! Someone please help him!” she would reply in her motherly sarcastic way.
     I behold my own “child” for the moment, sitting expectantly. The time is 6:30, otherwise known as “go time.”
     She knows it. I know it.
     “Nina! You want some f—”
     The springy elephant is awakened.
     She circles around and offers a final inquisitive glance. “Did you just say… what I think you said?”
     “–ood?”
     “YOU DID!”

      Then a loud, desperate BARK, a LEAP in a full 180, another BARK, a piteous moan, and those brown eyes trained on me like I was myself a giant slab of raw meat, or simply the most incredible sight in the world. She could be sound asleep, curled in a tight ball on the couch, against a pile of the coziest blankets any dog could want, and the emitting of that slight syllable will cause at the least, a raise of the ears, and at the most, a rampage.
     The fever reaches its climax as the first scoop of food rattles in the metal dish. And heaven help me and my bare feet should one single morsel, one tiny pebble, fall out and hit the ground. A literal dive of her black nose into the dark, between the boxes and recycle bin; all obstacles be darned for that one bit. A few wet chomps, and it’s back to fixating on the path of my hand carrying the dish toward her feeding tray. The huntress stalking, ready to pounce, wanting with all energy to explode upon the helpess Iams Healthy Naturals. 
     Now, this is the key point. Her mother makes her sit and wait before eating, making her like to chew her foot off or eat the refrigerator; shaking like a drooling baby dinosaur.
     “Sit! Wait! Nina! Sit! Wait! Wait!”
     Any lunge or movement earns another reproach. A truly agonizing process. Even after the food is already set down–
     “Waaiiit!”
     Niagara Falls begins to run from her jaws, a torrent of froth amidst the most torturous battle with self-control imaginable. Finally, after what must seem like days, she is allowed to eat.
     I, on the other hand, require only a bona-fide sit, and then I make a deft toss at risk of life and fingers into the tray, and the devour is on. Why delay a good thing?
     I can’t make a dog that licks the bowl clean long after the food is gone just wait like a petulant child. It’s heartless. Plus, like I mentioned, she eats only twice a day. Those times are precious few and very important. 
     There’s a reason she deposits herself under anyone’s feet when they’re cooking or chopping, because something inevitably just has to fall down. And often, it does. Just yesterday, outside of the chicken chunks, she gained a tortilla chip and a piece of rhubarb.
     “That has to be cooked first! You can’t just eat it!” my wife admonishes from the next room.
     “Sorry, honey. It’s all over, now.”
     “Sigh.”
     “Chomp, chomp, smack, smack, chomp. Tart and salty! Chomp, chomp, slap, smack.”
     The day before, it was a blue peanut M&M. It would’ve been a red one also, but it rolled under the fridge and hopelessly out of reach. No, a dog nose won’t fit there, although she tried for a good minute or two. If I could have gotten it out and “passed” it to her, I most likely would have.
     There’s a reason why she would drink the toilet dry if given the chance, or why she ate five pounds of fresh cat food out of my in-laws’ closet— it’s endless, after all, and she thinks NO ONE CAN TELL ME TO ST—
     “Nina!”
     There’s a reason she chomps ice cubes like candy when it’s hot. Short of jumping into the lake, this is the next best example of an out-and-out ravenous display.
     I guess there’s even a reason she dives headlong into the cat’s litter box, first thing in the morning. In goes her head, and away leaps the cat, just trying not to get impaled into the floor. Ditto previous reason, I suppose.
     She’s a dog, and we love her. And no, her dad most likely doesn’t help much, but he does clean up the froth.
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EPILOGUE
I do adhere to the two-scoop limit, however, when it comes to the food. There must be boundaries here. I did almost drop the bag once, and what must have looked like 1,000 pounds of delicious heaven to our unbelieving dog as she watched it fall… and fall… just a little closer! Oh, please! — fortunately was scooped up into my hand at the last moment. Whew. You never saw such a combination of dejection and relief in your life.