Zorro is pouting.

Zorro has been pouting since last night, when we brought home pizza as part of our dinner, and then refused to give him any, until after he’d finished his dinner.

Please understand…Zorro and Cleo are not plebian dogs, forced to exist on bland kibble and water that comes from the tap. Oh no! Zorro and Cleo have hand-cut chunks of meat and bone delivered to their front door on alternate Wednesdays. A cooler full of it: chicken, pork, lamb, ostritch, turkey, and pureed vegetables and offal twice a week for roughage and essential vitamins.

So, you’d think, that given the choice between, say, pureed turkey mixed with lots of green leafy things, or dry, icky, pizza crust, he’d go for option a.

Well, you’d think that if you don’t own a dog.

But if you do, you’ll understand how frustrating it is when your eight-pound chihuahua refuses to eat his own food because he has seen the Magic Cardboard Box that the pizza lives in.

(Cleo doesn’t have as much of a taste for people-food. She never has these issues.)

You’d think that after 24 hours, Zorro would have stopped pouting about this. Especially since he ultimately received some pizza crust.

You’d be wrong.

You see, I had macaroni and cheese tonight, and my dog flips for cheese.

And I wouldn’t let him lick the dish when I was done, because that’s just…iewwww. (Also, it leads to messy ‘presents’ being left in the laundry room.)

So, he’s pouting.
He gives me that slitty-eyed look when I walk by.
And even though he’s in the room with me as I write this, he’s pointedly ignoring me, and finding endless fascination in the grooming of his toes.

And even though he’s insanely cute when he does this…

He’s not getting my chocolate chip cookie.

(No, he really isn’t. Chocolate is toxic to dogs, and one of the foods that sometimes triggers seizures in epileptic animals.)