Things around our house have been completely unsettled for more than a month with our kitchen renovation, with everything that had been in our kitchen now piled up in our dining room. The process has been stressful for the entire family, but it's been particularly unsettling for our scruffy old Westie Harry, who was never really all that well-balanced when things were settled.

Harry doesn't like having strange men show up at the house every day, and he spends a lot of time huddled by the front door waiting for Grandma to take him over to her house, where he can at least sleep in peace. Having his food in another room, however, has freaked him out more than anything. He's begun guarding his food, a behavior I found puzzling at first. Evidently, this behavior means that he doesn't trust us, thinking we're trying to take his stash of foul-smelling kibble. Whatever the reason, every time one of us walks toward the dining room, he scurries underfoot, running interference. More than once, I've tripped over the paranoid little furball.

With our schedules screwed up we've been forgetting to feed him twice a day, and so I went out and bought him a continuous feeder bowl, kind of like a water cooler jug filled with dog food. I thought this would make him more secure, but instead it just increased his stress level. He now had a week's worth of food to guard.

This past weekend, I was, yet again, vacuuming up construction dust. Every time I looked like I was heading toward the dining room, Harry would jump past me and stand guard at the door. When I crossed the threshold, he went crazy, snarling at the vacuum and trying to bite the nozzle.

For a minute or two, I thought this was pretty funny, and started jabbing the nozzle at him. Harry's not usually a very fun dog, and can't (or won't) play fetch or even sit on command. If you throw him a toy, he will pick it up, walk away with it, and you'll never see it again. He's a perfect dog if your hobbies are being left alone and picking up dog dirt.

After a while, though, I got tired of it all, and tried to push past him. That infuriated him even more, as I was edging closer to his precious dog dish, and he jumped all over the nozzle.

"Harry!" I yelled over the roar of the vacuum, "I am NOT trying to steal your food!"

At that, he ran to his bowl, sure that I was going to suck his stash of kibbles up in the wand, and began trying to wolf it down. He'd grab a big mouthful, raise his head up toward the ceiling and, because his food consists of little kibbles about the texture and firmness of road gravel, he'd be unable to swallow, dropping it all over the floor. In a panic, he'd run back to the bowl, grab another mouthful, and do the same thing. Of course he was still trying to bark at me while shoving kibble down his gullet. At some point, I'd have to give him a little mini Heimlich Maneuver.

"KNOCK IT OFF!" I yelled. At this point, our entire dining room floor was covered in scattered kibble. Seeing as I started this whole process in order to clean the floor, I started to see red.

"FINE!" I said to the dog, "You think I'm trying to vacuum up your food? Well, get a load of this!" I took the wand, put it over his bowl, and started vacuuming up his food.

I stood there over his bowl, gleefully sucking the food out of his bowl, calling out "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!" while he barked at me. Somehow, though, over the roar of the vacuum and the dog barking, I felt a presence behind me.

I looked over my shoulder to find my wife, who was staring at the mess all over the dining room floor. I froze.

"This idiotic animal," I said, pointing to the barking little mutt, "Is crazy! He thinks I'm trying to steal his food with the vacuum!"

My wife stared at me, then at the dog, for a moment.

"And you ... " she said, pointing at me, "you were doing ... whaaat?"

"I was ...," I shrugged, looking down at the vacuum wand in the dog's bowl, still sucking up kibble. I didn't really have anything good to say at this point. My wife looked at me, shook her head, and went upstairs. I looked down at Harry.

"You stupid dog!" I said.