The Kids vs. the dogs.

We as a couple have always had pets. We have gone through mice and many fish. A cat that I had and a rescue toy poodle Maureen adopted one afternoon. Then we got Coffee a mutt lab mix and then inherited my mother's shih Tzu. And now we seem to breed mollies in a fish tank taking us to what I think is third gen fish now in that tank. Now throw in the children. The kids love the fish tank and know not to tap the glass or mess with it. I mean to say, as of yet I have not found any child spoor in the tank.
 The dogs though, the dogs and the children have what can be best described as a mutuality adversarial symbiosis, at least to the dogs view of things.
  The kids just love the dogs. Just loves them to pieces especially Bobby. Bobby looses his mind over the shih Tzu. He wants to be near her and touch her and pet her constantly. Cooper and Iris prefer to grab the dog's toy and throw it playing fetch with the little dog. They make the little dog so over stimulated at times she retreats to the underground of the couch scant to come out till called by Mom or Dad to go outside.
 Then there is Coffee the big dog. Again Bobby just loves this dog and like to lay on her and rub her belly, Which Coffee finds just fine. The other two kids don't really play or mess with Coffee to much. Coffee just kinda lumbers around and if the kids get to close to her she just starts licking their faces. That normally ends the problem.
  Now where the true conflict comes on. Food, snacks or drinks. We can not have the dogs in the house while the kids are eating. You have to pick your battles! This was not one I wanted to fight the rest of my life. The couple of times that we have forgotten it has but lasted seconds before the dogs are escorted out side. Now it's not the issue that my dogs and grand champion beggars, they do the eye thing and whimper and all of it. The problem is the kids think it's hilarious to feed the dogs. If the kids have snack in hand and walk around the dogs, the dogs get a nice snack. Coffee knows that she can knock them around a bit and get the snack and the kids love it when they toss a food item and Coffee can snatch it out of the air. This has created a love hate relationship between the dogs and kids and just generally annoys me.
 At one point we come in to let the dogs in the house and they would be excited to see us. Now when we let dogs in the house they run right to the kitchen and scour the floor looking for dropped tidbits from dinner.