Blondie and I are full-time house dogs.  We go outside when we need to, but we eat and sleep indoors with our peoples.  When foster dogs have learned the basic behavior lessons and can act in a civilized manner, they too are invited to stay in our house.  Usually, one at a time: it’s not a very big house and our foster dogs are generally 40 to 60 pounders. Blondie and I are 90 pounds each.  Three of us fill up a small house pretty quickly, especially at meal time.

Fosters start out being fed in their crate, which is in the food room so they can watch our meal time routine.  Then their blanket is moved outside the crate door and they eat on that.  If they prove they will not try to raid our dishes (Blondie and I prefer to dine leisurely; fosters often wolf their food then seek more) their blanket is moved to a position around the table with the rest of us.

Lancelot learned the meal time routine quickly.  He also learned that Blondie gets excited and tends to leave her blanket and pace around when the food starts arriving at the table.  She knows if she wants a dish she must be sitting on her blanket, but lacks my sage-like patience.

Eventually she does settle on her blanket to receive her dish, but sometimes she sits on the wrong blanket.  This causes all manner of confusion for the dog assigned to that blanket, unless it’s mine: I know she will move, so I just sit nearby and glare at her until she does.  Lance decided the best way to prevent encroachment is to reserve his seat well ahead of time: just camp out on it during meal prep so Blondie can’t horn in on his turf.

He’s a clever boy, that one!