It has on occasion occurred to us that there could be some mountain goat in Jackie's genealogy, quite unlike his sister. Even his gait has a balletic grace. He is light on his feet, and his legs are extraordinarily long for such a small fellow. His elegant movements resemble those of a gazelle, as well. Making his sister's locomotion look clumsy in comparison. Best not to compare since they have little in common respecting personality and habit.

He prefers heights and she any comfortable place which doesn't require too much energy to attain. So she snuggles up on the seating portion of a sofa, while he leaps effortlessly up to its back where he settles down in supreme comfort. Mind, if we had sofas of a different design that would create a bit of a dilemma for him in achieving the goal of  height plus comfort.

From where he sits in sublime comfort at the top/back of the large sofa in our family room, he has a birdseye view of the desktop computer I work on. He's always on the alert for any videos I might happen upon on Twitter, featuring animals. That excites him to re-position himself so he rests his little head directly over my right shoulder, avidly peering so he can respond immediately any of those videos appear. He sends his verbal messages unmistakable in their capacity to instill caution in the minds of the animals appearing on video, because Jackie takes his self-assigned task as protector of our home seriously.

Seriously, though, we're concerned about him. At least once weekly he will refuse his breakfast, and when that happens, he usually expresses complete disinterest in his dinner, as well. This, from a little dog who the evening before was ravenous and couldn't wait to have his meal presented. As it is, we've had to resort to giving him a special-formula dog kibble designed for dogs with digestive problems. With it, his bouts of food intolerance have been much relieved.

But he still frequently undergoes these periods of feeling ill and being turned off his food. This morning, after a full day yesterday of eating nothing, despite our usual vigorous ravine walk, he also refused his breakfast. We know that he enjoys and even craves fruits and vegetables over any kind of manufactured kibble. Even the chicken that I cook for Jackie and Jillie in a chicken soup takes second fiddle for him to the vegetables. Truth told, both he and h is sister enjoy a daily salad, more excited over it than their regular food.

And this morning, my husband decided to cut up a peach, red bell pepper and sugar snap peas into a salad for Jackie (a much smaller one for Jillie who had, as usual, eaten everything put before her; she will never refuse any kind of food) because when we sat down for breakfast, Jackie approached my husband to obviously appeal for something from the table (forbidden).

He went at that salad with great appetite, to our relief. Isn't it amazing how susceptible we mere humans are to being manipulated by our little companion-dependents?