The wrapper crinkles once, three rooms away, and the dog who has been asleep since noon is standing in the kitchen doorway. My own dog has never come when I called her from the backyard. She wakes from a dead sleep the moment plastic moves and looks mildly offended that I expected anything else.
These six are all on duty, and no two of them work the same way.

The floor crew is patient. Mostly eye contact and posture, and it produces more food than begging ever has. A beagle on my street has appointed himself head of grocery inspection for the same reason. The kitchen is where the important mail arrives.


The floor is step one. A chair is step two. After that it is whatever surface you were foolish enough to leave reachable. A border collie will solve that problem with a stool left out once, and from then on it counts as infrastructure.



None of this is really naughty. A dog who monitors the kitchen is doing the job the house handed him. Food is the most interesting thing that happens indoors, and he has decided to be present for it. Dinner is a meeting he should have been copied on.
Feed him before you sit down, or accept the audience. Both work. Only one of them lets you finish a sandwich in peace.