Petey & Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

John has a long standing tradition of making lemon poppy seed muffins for breakfast every Sunday morning. This tradition predates both Petey & me.

When we got married John started bringing me a warm muffin on Sunday mornings. It was a very nice way to wake up. I would have a leisurely breakfast in bed prior to getting up and getting ready for church.

When Petey moved in, it didn’t take him long to figure out the Sunday morning muffin routine. Instead of being awakened by the aroma of a warm lemon poppy seed muffin at my bedside, I was awakened by Petey galloping down the hall. This, as in everything else in the world, was all about Petey. He would jump on the bed and walk across me to John’s vacated spot. If I wasn’t sitting up in about 3 seconds, he would walk back across me to sniff the muffin because you can’t be too sure how long something that delicious would stick around. Then it was back to John's spot. John thought this was funny and would sometimes get Petey to walk across me 5 or 6 times before I was able to sit up.

I would give Petey little pinches from the muffin, once I was in a sitting position. I had a small throw pillow that I would put the little bites on to keep from getting crumbs in the bed. As time went by Petey began to demand more & more of the muffin. It was not acceptable for me to put a small pinch on the pillow every few bites. He wanted a bite for every one of mine. John, being concerned for my nutritional welfare, starting bringing Petey his own muffin. It was still on ‘my’ plate, but I would give Petey little bites of it on to the pillow as I ate mine. This worked for a time.

One Sunday, Petey galloped back to the bedroom with John, jumped on the bed, walked back & forth across me the requisite number of times, and then refused the muffin nibble when it was put on the pillow. In fact, he was highly offended. He got up and moved to the foot of the bed with his back to me. In true Petey fashion, he looked back every few seconds to make sure I knew he was mad. John couldn’t coax him in to the bite either.

We were stumped, although I must confess I wasn’t really upset. I didn’t care if he ate the muffin or not. It was just very surprising. I really don’t know why I did it, but I picked up my muffin in the napkin, and crumbled Petey’s on the plate. This alleviated his problem and he happily came over and gobbled up the rest of the muffin.

So…the next Sunday, John came in the bedroom with two plates! Once Petey got settled into his eating spot, I crumbled his muffin on to his plate, and ate my muffin in peace. This continued for quite some time as well.

Just like the plate pout mentioned earlier, one Sunday Petey wouldn’t eat the muffin even from the plate. We really didn’t know what else to do. Petey doesn’t use napkins or drink orange juice, which were the only differences between his breakfast and mine. As before, I really wasn’t worried about Petey not eating the muffins. It was a little sad to see the end of an era, but neither John nor I had any remedies. Who knows, maybe Petey was going to have to have random drug tests and heard that the poppy seeds would create a false positive. That is just as likely as anything else with that dog.

Here’s a shot of the lemon poppy seed muffin days…