The Great Chicken Incident

It started with a rotisserie chicken and ended with a hostage negotiation.

I had just arrived home from the grocery store, arms full of bags, and made the rookie mistake of setting the rotisserie chicken on the kitchen counter while I went back to the car for the second load. I was gone approximately forty-five seconds.

When I returned, my Löwchen, Sir Reginald Fluffington III — Reggie to his friends, which apparently no longer included me — was standing on the kitchen table with the entire chicken between his front paws, staring at me with the expression of a Victorian gentleman who had just won a duel.

He was 15 pounds. The chicken was nearly four.

I said "Reggie, no." He said nothing, but his eyes said everything. He had planned this. The grocery run, the second trip to the car — he had been waiting for exactly this moment, possibly for months.

I tried reason. I tried bribery. I produced a piece of cheese from my pocket — actual cheese, good cheese — and he looked at it, looked at me, looked back at the chicken, and returned his gaze to me with an expression of profound disappointment.

It took seventeen minutes, two more pieces of cheese, his favourite squeaky hedgehog, and a small piece of actual chicken breast — surrendered under duress — before Reggie agreed to step down from the table.

He slept like a king that night. He always does.

— Submitted by a founding member of the "My Löwchen Runs This House" support group, location withheld