Is Ray spoiled?

We feel pretty confident that many people would say that Ray is spoiled.

We certainly take care of him as best we can and include him in our lives. We take him to stores and other businesses that are dog friendly. We take him to visit his human friends at the Humane Society quite regularly. We give him his fair share of attention, ear strokes and tummy rubs and, even in inclement weather, we make sure that he gets out in order to at least exercise his nose! In good weather we take him for long trail walks in our conservation areas. We even allow him onto the sofa with us, as long as we are not eating.

We really don’t see all that as spoiling, but rather as simply taking care of him, and acknowledging the fact that even dogs have needs which should be respected if an all-round harmonious relationship is desired!

We did have a situation a long time ago when Ray would position himself in the most inconvenient locations (i.e. up against the refrigerator door), and a trainer at our Humane Society suggested we simply teach him “Excuse me please” (with an arm wave) which would dictate that he moved. We followed it with “Thank you”, after he had moved, just out of courtesy. It all worked very well and is still necessary on a regular basis.

This morning I made Carol and I some tea and, after letting mine “brew” for a short while, I removed the tea bag and was going to open a cupboard under our sink so that the tea bag could go into the recycle bin… but Ray was laying there against the cupboard door! Oh well… I’ll just put it on the edge of the sink and take care of it later.

Not long after that, Carol removed the tea bag from her cup and was going to drop it into the recycle bin, but saw Ray and put her tea bag next to mine.

Then the conversation started about whether Ray is spoiled. We had the perfect instruction to get him to move, but chose not to disturb him. From my perspective, it was a question of priorities. Did the immediate disposal of a tea bag into a recycle bin (a function which could always be done later) carry a higher or lower priority than disturbing Ray when he was clearly very settled? My answer was that Ray was more important than the tea bag, but then one has to ask the question “Is Ray spoiled?”

26 thoughts on “Is Ray spoiled?”

  1. You all were being considerate, dogs deserve to not have their slumber interrupted 🙂 But I will also say spoiled, for hey isn’t that what dogs are for. Not to be overly spoiled, but a little. YUP!

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  5. I don’t see the tea bag thing as spoiled. I cater to my pets in the same way and very often choose not to disturb them unless it’s a must. I will let a cat have my chair or a let one of the dogs lie on the mat by the door and just step over or go around. I feel our pets give us so much and I feel they deserve kindness and a bit of pampering. After all that is how we want our fellow humans to behave toward us.

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  6. Hi Colin. No I don’t believe Ray is spoiled. I think that he is just being treated fairly as a member of the family, which in my view of pets, they should be! Ray has shown that he receives and responds to everything you do…from caring for him to training him…and I think it is only because of the wonderful love and care towards him that he has been able to make such wonderful progress! 🙂

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  7. From so many things you have told us about Ray, it is very clear that he gives you so much more than he ever takes. You spoil him with an abundance of love. Carry on. You deserve each other in a lovely way.

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  8. We all take care of our pets and spoil them rotten most of the time.
    Maggie is definitely spoilt. She lies on her blanket on the bench alongside us, sleeps on the bed most of the night, though we do make up a ‘bed’ on the bench for her with her blanket spread out fully, she gets titbits of whatever we’re eating (with curries etc she gets hers before I add the other ingredients), she gets regular rides in the car, and this week even had chauffeur service to the avenue to do her business as she’d hurt her foot and didn’t want to go on the dog walk!
    For what they give us back, unconditionally, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. 🙂

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  9. Mom says what good are we if we aren’t at least a little spoiled It would mean her whole perspective of me was different. Is being courteous or thoughtful of extra nice spoiling? Me don’t think so. We are companions for each other with love and respect and a desire to make the other one happy. Now, spoiled rotten to where one of us tries to bite or some other unacceptable behavior, that is very bad and quite different, don’t you think? I know I still have to listen. Well, most of the time, he, he. Eh? What’s that you say? My hearing’s not as good as it used to be. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

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  11. For sure my Ginny is spoiled…I have to be strict about some things such as going up and down the stairs. She has to wait at either end until I give her the OK. The love & comfort she gives me are immeasurable.

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  12. I go through this conundrum with my cats occasionally especially when Jake was alive. He needed two shots a day spaced close to 12 hours apart. We had some leeway with the timing. We sometimes left a function because of the shot timing. Then I started to wonder if we did it for Jake or to get away for an overlong social event. Like you if a cat is settled somewhere I will sit somewhere else unless there is a compelling reason. There rarely is. Ray isn’t any more spoiled than you or Carol.

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