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A few weeks ago, my son, Christopher, and I were preparing to eat some sandwich meat for a snack.

Christopher sat the plates on the end of the bed and returned to the kitchen to get a drink.

Our dog, Bayley, quickly made his move; snatching and swallowing all the meat off Christopher’s plate before we could stop him.

Bayley 1, People 0 — at least for this round.

It’s rare that Bayley has been able to succeed at snatching food like this.

Like most dogs, Bayley is food obsessed. We affectionately call him our mooch.

Our dog’s relationship with food has been a reoccurring theme over the past 10½ years. When we are ready to eat, Bayley will be right there, alternating who he is going to stare down first.

He adjusts his position depending whose food he can get a better view of. Sometimes he pushes the limits, as he inches forward, sniffing the aroma floating through the air.

If we have something he really likes (like fish crackers), he will begin to rotate through his repertoire of tricks in attempts to earn a taste. All of a sudden, he’ll either flip “over” to his back, “paw” at our legs, or “sit and speak” in front of us with those sad, feed-me, puppy dog eyes.

Suckers for his cuteness, sometimes we’ll comply.

My husband is stronger at resisting than the kids and I. It drives him nuts to have Bayley so close up and personal while we are eating. He’ll wave Bayley away, only to find Bayley sneaking back to a spot in the hallway where he can keep watch on what’s happening to our food.

It’s not like Bayley doesn’t like his Beneful dog food. He knows what the bag looks like and gets excited to see a new bag enter the house.

He also eats healthful food; he enjoys crunching on fresh produce such as apples, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower. He also is not a dog prone to overeating. He eats until he is full and then walks away, whatever the food may be.

One time during his first autumn as our puppy, I bought some particularly nice-looking apples and placed them in a basket on our kitchen table. The whole scene really looked nice.

The kids and I went out for a bit and returned to find one or two of the apples in the floor with the rest sitting around the basket — each with a tooth mark planted firmly in the apple peel. Guess he was trying them all out to see which he wanted most.

Bayley loves chicken, ham and bacon. In fact, the smell of those particular foods will drive him crazy, inducing him to walk in circles around the kitchen sniffing the air while the food cooks, hoping to catch a scrap that might fall to the floor, or even better, into his mouth.

We know better than to leave serving dishes of food on the edge of the counter. We know how crafty Bayley is in his attempts to help himself to our dinner.

Recently, we came home from running errands to find our toothbrushes, which we had thrown away, chewed up. I guess he was lured in by the smell of peppermint toothpaste that lingered.

His attempts at helping himself to people food probably peaked a few years ago when Bayley discovered the kitchen trash can under the sink.

We found chewed, nonedible contents of our trash all over the kitchen floor. Anything that had touched food was licked clean.
About the same time, Bayley also made himself at home one day in a bottom cabinet, helping himself to peanut butter, one of those big containers from Sam’s Club. Bayley just pried off the plastic lid and ate half of it.

My husband, normally not amused by Bayley’s mooching, could not help but laugh when he discovered this.

I never needed child protective locks for my kids, but for my dog, we had to install them to prevent further exploration by a very food-motivated dog.

His food obsession does have a positive for me. Whenever I want to take photos of Bayley, I encourage him to pose holding a treat. I’ve been able to get some really nice pictures of him, wearing bunny ears or reindeer antlers, that way.

When we first met and picked out our dog, his head was covered in bacon grease. We considered calling him Bacon, which in retrospect would have really suited him.

He can be sweet when he wants to be and even gives us kisses from time to time. If I could just be convinced that he really does love us when he licks our faces and isn’t just hinting that his food dish is empty!

Linda Vestal is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend living in Gibsonville. Contact her at lindavestal@triad.rr.com.