Cold Canine Comforts

Ice Cubes? for dog? Yes. Even ice cubes, if apportioned fairly to canines, can keep them happy and contented. Is there a larger truth hidden somewhere here? All of our dogs instinctively come to atten...

Ice Cubes? for dog? Yes. Even ice cubes, if apportioned fairly to canines, can keep them happy and contented. Is there a larger truth hidden somewhere here?

All of our dogs instinctively come to attention at the sound of the refrigerator door opening - they never know when human might eye a left over , reject it, and then split it three ways, and none of them wants to miss the moments, however rare.

Why, though, does our young male hound fairly fly to my side at the sound of ice cubes popping from the tray?

What could be colder, more tasteless, or less satiating than ice to a canine fond of a bit of warm gravy over his dinner? Still, Allie insists of a cube of his own to crunch whenever we cool our drinks.

Our refrigerator is an older model purchased at an auction for a mere $5. It is, surprisingly, a wholly reliable appliance.

Once Allie became a member of our household, the one tray of ice that it used to make began to be shared three ways..... then four, and finally five as our other two dogs, who had never before looked twice at ice, demanded to receive a cube as a matter of principle.

And so this is how it goes - we cool our water or sodas with a few cubes each and toss one to Allie, standing agog with expectation.

As he shatters the cube with unbridled enthusiasm, our black Lab ambles to the scene. Susie sits stoically to receive her fair share, which she (equally stoically) crunches and ingests. Her pained visage shows that this is a burden to be borne for protocol's sake.

She seems to believe that if one dog gets something that the others don't share in all privileges could disappear down the slippery slope to favouritism.

Oscar, the eldest of the three and a border collie mix, stares expectantly from a throw, unwilling to move an inch towards such unrewarding largesse - but clearly invested in his due share.

Completely helpless before my animal's manipulations, I actually bring an ice cube to Oscar's rug, laying it by his side. He is satisfied as he jealously guards its melting.

The whole scene suddenly brought to mind one of my favourite literary passages - from Betty Smith's classic novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, about an impoverished couple and their two children.

It begins, "There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury." The text continues to describes how Mama Nolan makes one great pot of coffee in the morning to which her children are always welcome, although mild can be added only three times a day.

The boy, Neeley, merely sips at his coffee, and then spreads and enjoys his allotment of condensed mild on bread.

The novel's heroine, Francie, never drinks a bit of coffee. She simply pours her share luxuriantly down the drain.

As Mama Nolan explains, "Francie is entitled to one cup each meal like the rest. If it makes her feel better to throw it away than to drink it, all right."

Our rituals with the ice seem trivial against Nolan's poverty, not to mention the inequities of the world today.

Yet I can't get away from the idea that some kernel of a solution to larger problems could lie in the way scant resources come to be fairly apportioned and appreciated at the household level - even ice among canines.