Keep Your Paws Outta My Food...

(Pic:-) Kerri is a VNS seizure response dog and she now lives with her handler in California. She was trained by Seizure Alert Dogs for Life, Inc.

German Shepherd "Kerri" can levitate.

Note: This article is fictional.

With the surprisingly smooth grace of an Olympic gymnast, she can rise on her back legs in a stunningly swift movement. Turkey sandwich on the counter? Gone. English muffin on the sideboard? Vanished. Bowl of ice cream on the kitchen table? Clattered to the floor and inhaled in a single gulp.

Wait a second here.

Do we humans catapult, swan dive, or otherwise vault, into our dogs’ bowls? I don’t think so.

We might ask our canine companions for a polite sit before we set the dish down, but we leave them in peace to eat at their own pace, untroubled. We don’t surreptitiously watch them while they eat, waiting for them to answer the phone so we can sneak a mouthful of Black Gold Dog Food while they are thus otherwise engaged.

From the human’s – and the dog’s – perspective, the counter and the table are OUR dog dishes.

We respect the dog’s dish. The dog should respect ours.

So it is NOT okay for Kerri to perform acrobatic feats to reach our food.

And even though we know that dogs are opportunistic and we also know that dogs can learn boundaries, even when food is involved.

It’s time to pick a spot for your dog to camp while you prepare a meal, eat a meal, or clean up after a meal.

Don’t send your dog to his spot as if it were Alcatraz and your kitchen is the parole board. His spot is a nice place to be.

It might even have a treat-filled Kong associated with it.

Assign one family member to keep an eye on the dog, reinforcing a solid Stay.

It will take a few days of practice to get him accustomed to staying on his spot, especially when the aroma of medium rare ribeye wafts beneath his quivering nostrils.

Don’t give up, or give in. Every dog deserves his own dog dish, and so does every human.

Rachel Baum contributed to this article.