“Toby… do you want some CAT DINNERS?” My Mom calls Toby this way every night when it’s time for us to eat.

When Mom calls out CAT DINNERS, Toby comes running into the house at top speed to get his special treat. It’s kind of funny because Toby’s a DOG, but he eats CAT DINNERS!

Mom feeds Minnie Moo and I together, but Toby eats a tiny bit of cat food alongside the CATS. Why? Because our two cats are boys. And all of the boys in the house eat cat food together at one end of the kitchen, then we two girls eat proper dog food meals together at the other end.

Toby’s love of cat-food-eating started like this: Mom calls for the cats, “CAT DINNERS!” Teddy Cat and Tom Cat fly into the kitchen, legs moving quickly, tails high. Each of them get their own fancy little china plate with a tablespoon of wet cat food. It’s their daily treat! They LOVE IT. And it gives them something to eat while Minnie and I are eating our dinners. (Keeps them out of our way, too, because we girls EAT FAST and WITH GUSTO, and it’s impolite to get near our food while we’re eating.)

At some point, Toby started showing an interest in this CAT DINNERS phenomenon and began hanging around the kitchen at that time, too. (Normally, Toby eats much later than the rest of us, because he’s never hungry until after dark … what a weirdo, huh? Can you imagine NOT BEING HUNGRY? And waiting until after dark to eat? I think I would faint!)

So Toby is hanging around while the cats eat, and the cats finish and leave the kitchen licking their chops, and Toby steps right up to their china plates and licks them clean. The next night, he WAITS IN LINE behind the cats! Toby WAITS for them to walk away so he can have their plates when they’re done. Then he licks the plates clean and seems totally pleased.

From then on, every night he waits patiently behind the cats for the leftover cat dinners. Mom even made that meme because it cracked her up! Mom laughs even harder because Toby has to ASK every night if he can eat the leftovers! (He is such a polite and submissive fellow.)

Mom eventually felt bad for Toby that he was always waiting in line at treat time, so now he gets his own plate too, alongside the cats!! (And he finishes his CAT DINNERS first, and then still waits patiently until the cats are done so he can clean their plates.)