Feeding & Nutrition

The fish tank was my son's project, a ten-litre thing on the kitchen counter with two guppies and an ambition problem. The shop sold him dried shrimp as a treat, tiny pink curls in a clear bag, and he sprinkled them in with the solemnity of a chef. The guppies went wild. So did the dog.

Our terrier, Pip, is small and relentless and believes any food not actively defended is his by right. The first time a shrimp fell to the worktop during a clumsy sprinkle, he was there before it stopped moving. He crunched it, looked surprised, and then stationed himself under the tank like a sentry with a plan.

I bought the bag thinking it was for the fish. Pip evidently disagreed. He learned the rustle of the clear packet from two rooms away, the way he'd once learned the cheese drawer, and would appear, vibrating, whenever my son reached for the tank supplies. The guppies, oblivious, kept swimming.

I checked it was safe. Dried shrimp for aquarium use is just shrimp, freeze-dried, no salt or seasoning, and a single tiny curl is a negligible snack for a terrier. The risk wasn't the shrimp, it was the begging, and the risk that my son, who is eight and generous, would keep sharing his fish's treats with the dog who'd trained him.

We made a rule. The shrimp are for the tank, Pip gets his own biscuits, and the bag lives in the high cupboard the dog cannot reach, which in our house means above shoulder height and behind a clip. He still tries. He will always try. That's the terrier contract.

What surprised me was how little he needed. One fallen curl and he was committed for life. Dogs assign enormous meaning to a single positive experience, and Pip had decided the fish tank was a vending machine that occasionally paid out in pink. I can't entirely blame him. The guppies eat better than he does some days.

The tank is still going, the shrimp bag is still up high, and Pip still appears at the rustle, hoping. He never gets one now, but he hasn't given up, and I suppose there's a lesson in that about optimism, or about terriers, which amount to the same thing.

The guppies, for their part, thrived on the shrimp, growing fat and bold, and my son took to the feeding ritual with the seriousness of a small keeper. He'd measure a pinch, announce 'dinner for the fish,' and Pip would materialise, because Pip materialises for any word that has ever preceded food, including 'dinner' and 'fish' and, bafflingly, 'shoes.'

There was a second incident, worse than the first. My son, generous as ever, tipped a whole spoonful in at once, the shrimp rained down, the guppies went into a frenzy, and a few curls bounced onto the worktop where Pip, waiting, caught two before I could intervene. He looked supremely satisfied, as if he'd earned them through patience, which he had, in his terrier logic, sort of.

I explained to my son, again, that the fish food is for the fish, and he nodded with the vague commitment of an eight-year-old, and the next day I found the bag on the floor by the tank, a small tear, and a terrier with pink crumbs on his whiskers. We've moved the bag to a locked cupboard since. Pip has not given up trying to learn the combination.

The tank, against the odds, became a small family project, the guppies the excuse, the shrimp the source of mild chaos, and Pip the unpaid security guard who never catches anything but believes he might. I can't say the dried shrimp improved his life in any measurable way. But it gave us a story, and the dog a hobby, and the fish a treat, and sometimes that's the right maths.

I've made my peace with the fact that Pip will never understand the shrimp are the guppies', not his. He's a terrier, built for the conviction that anything edible within reach is a gift addressed to him. The locked cupboard is my surrender to that truth. He patrols it daily, a small pink-crumbed sentinel, and I let him, because a dog needs a hobby, and guarding an empty cupboard is a harmless one.

The guppies, for what it's worth, have no idea they're the cause of any of this. They swim, they eat, they multiply, and the terrier watches them with the focus of a gambler studying a machine that owes him. We all have our unwinnable games. Pip's just happens to smell of the sea.

Some afternoons I catch him there, nose to the cupboard, and I shake my head, and he wags the tip of his tail, certain the next rustle will be his. It won't be. But he'll keep the faith, and I'll keep the cupboard shut, and that's the deal we've struck.