The Bagel expects me to hold any potential food so he can determine if it is worthy of his palate! If I offered him a potato peel, he’d sniff it and stare at me like “What do you want me to do with that” . If he does decide yes, he, like a gentledog should, politely takes the offered food from my hand, OTHERWISE, I am left holding a now throughly smelled piece of food.
The Bagel is kind a discerning connoisseur who rejects generic dog biscuits but selects “Milk Bone” brand, rejects french fries and waits for a piece of hamburger. The first time I gave him a Begin Strip, he smelled it for over a minute, then broke of a tiny piece of the end, tasted it, deemed it acceptable and returned for the rest. Now he saunters over, genteelly removes the strip from my hand using his lips, lies down in a frog position with the Begin Strip between his front paws breaks off small pieces, savors each morsel and in roughly three minutes has consumed his strip of imitation bacon.