Well, it didn't even take a week...

for me to fuck up and give Murphy Smooch's food. It's entirely my fault. I went crazy with Two Dog Cuteness Shopping, and bought the same style dinner dishes in different colors - both are steel lined, so the colors on the outside aren't that visible from above. And I carefully prepared two dishes with Smooch dry food and Murphy dry food, and topped both with chopped boiled chicken, and then didn't notice that I put them down in front of the wrong dogs. Yeah.

Smooch noticed, bless her little food loving heart. She ate the chopped chicken breast and got to the dry stuff, realized it was not HER dry stuff, and looked over at Murphy (I was doing other kitchen stuff, and not watching as closely tonight). She came over to his dish and poked her nose in - and he snarled and snapped and chased her off! Of COURSE he did - for the first time in a year, he had non-special diet food in front of him! Food with Fat and Flavor! I yelled, and the conflict broke up instantly. I switched the dishes, and that was that. But I don't know how much "normal food" Murphy ingested - I did hear him crunching with enthusiasm - before Smooch pointed out my error, and got snarled at by the Bossy One. I feel for her - she was absolutely right to snitch, and was brave to do it.

Tomorrow, Murphy's meals are served in a totally different dish - white ceramic for him, steel for her - can't really confuse the two. I don't think this will be a huge deal. He didn't eat more than a few bites, so we may have to deal with a couple of days of high gas and runny poop, but he's been pretty darn consistent for months, with rounds of normal/gassy/runny/normal, repeat, repeat, repeat, I'll just watch for anything beyond the norm.

It's easy to forget that Smooch is barely a year old - 13 months - and when she's a Good Baby and tells me that I made a mistake with dinner, it's humbling. She's a smart little girl. Oh, and there were no hard feelings at all after their skirmish - it lasted 15 seconds and was forgotten instantly. Dogs are wise.