Ninja Counter-Surfer

For years I’ve been hearing about my friend’s kitchen counter-surfing Beagle-Jack Russell mix. The story always starts with “I heard nails skittering on cupboards” and usually ends with heirloom china taking a fall.

Tippi on the other hand has the height to be a professional and apparently has been in training for years.

It started about a week ago when our cat Spice decided that perhaps he was in the mood for wet food again. I put it out for him as usual (on top of our washing machine, which is actually in our kitchen) and he actually cleaned up every bit of it. So I gave him some more that evening. Tippi seemed pretty interested in it even though she had just finished her own dinner, but I didn’t pay much mind.

The next morning, the same thing … except … I realized that Tippi wasn’t in the office with me while I was checking my email. I called for her and she came in and lay down on her towel. As I went to pet her I thought “Man, she reeks.” And as a woman’s way of “stringing thoughts together,” I wondered, “Could she smell like a mixture of dog & cat urine?” No, this was the earthy scent that reminds me of Snips that I like when Spice eats his food on my desk. His salmon food… SALMON!

Explanation – yes, the smell of Spice eating his dry food on my computer desk reminds me of Snips. Its key ingredient is salmon, and when he eats it there is an “earthy” scent. Snips always sat under my desk while I worked (or surfed the Internet), and I realized after Snips was gone how much that earthy scent brings his memory to me.

I ran in to the kitchen and sure enough, Spice’s little food dish was on the floor and his placemat was pulled into a funny angle. But that was it, nothing extra on the floor and nothing broken. Ninja Counter-Surfing Dog had struck! After that we started being a little more aware of where Tippi was and what she was up to in the house.

Another day I filled her Kong with treats for the day and set it on my jewelry armoire. Dang if she didn’t pull it down and eat half the treats before I caught her. And just this morning she snatched a cookie from the same place without knocking over my perfume bottles or moving any of the jewelry lying on top of the armoire.

This afternoon had to be her best yet, though. Tippi snagged Spice’s can of salmon food out of the little container on the kitchen counter. If we hadn’t caught her with the half-eaten can of food on the floor in front of her we never would have known from how she left things … it was pristine.

And with that I think she very much deserves a “Black Belt in Ninja Counter-Surfing”.