Cooper

It started innocently enough. My wife and I would sit on the sofa, open the bag, and Cooper would materialise from wherever he'd been pretending not to listen. He'd put his chin on my knee, eyes locked on my hand, tail thumping the floor like a drum solo of Keith Moon.

I'm sharing it here, and I'm not too proud of it, but.. he gets a chip. Maybe two on a good week. He's a Lab, so food is his love language, and we're only human aren't we after all.

One evening I broke off a corner of a chip and held it out to him. Nothing fancy at all. No salt. Just a simple chip.

Cooper leaned in, sniffed it, and pulled back.

You should have seen his eyes when he looked at me. Then he looked at the bottle of ketchup on the coffee table. Then at me again. Then at the ketchup.

I laughed, because what else do you do? He wasn't begging. He wasn't whining. He was trying to tell me something, dare I say he was negotiating.

My wife said, "I think he wants you to dip it..."

So.. I dipped it.

He took it instantly, crunched it happily, and went back to watching the bag as if we'd never had a disagreement in our lives.

We've tried since then. Plain chip? Cold refuse. Chip with a tiny bit of ketchup? Accepted with dignity, lol

Friends say we've trained him. We haven't. We just learned the hard way that Cooper has preferences, and those preferences are non-negotiable.

The funniest part is how calm he is about it. No barking. No pawing. Just the stare, the glance at the ketchup, and the unspoken message: Dip it!

It's such a Lab thing, isn't it? Total obsession with food, paired with just enough personality to make you feel like you're dealing with a small, furry restaurant critic.

Cooper would sell his soul for a crust of bread, but for some reason he draws the line at undipped chips. I find that, let's say, weirdly respectable.

I've had many labs in my life and they all come with their own personality. That's half the joy of living with them.