Hi and happy new year! This was supposed to be the first 2026 post, but it got away from me early. I got it back under control and scheduled it but … at least 3 of you (thanks for being such loyal readers!) mentioned enjoying it. I then remembered the email that goes out when a post publishes so I decided to release this one early. Enjoy!

The egg tax was bad enough.

At some point in her puppyhood, Jana (the original Thinking Dog) had an upset stomach and I made her some scrambled eggs.

In my defense, she was the first golden retriever puppy I raised; I did not realize what a slippery slope I was stepping onto.

She then decided that she liked eggs. Really liked eggs. And that if the human was cooking eggs, there was no reason not to add an extra egg and share with the golden.

Thus the egg tax came into being.

From that moment forward, whenever anyone in my household has cooked eggs, the dog or dogs have assessed the tax and gotten their share. Jana taught Cali about the egg tax. And Oriel. And Wylie. Cali taught Orly. Orly taught Dotty. And so it will continue, passing from generation to generation forever.

Having expanded my horizons a bit — I’ve raised several golden retrievers and have many friends who have also raised golden retrievers and other egg-loving dogs — I realize that the egg tax is a bit like dog “domestication.”

As in: Just as dogs’ wild ancestors realized, independently, in different locations, and at different points in our parallel evolutions, that ancient humans would make great cooks-butlers-doormen-housekeepers and decided to turn us into their devoted companions, the egg tax was not a unique invention.

Other goldens — and even non-golden dogs — have come up with the egg tax. And with additional, similar taxes.

• The peanut butter tax was next; why else do humans even buy peanut butter if not to share with the dog?
• The banana tax … That one might have predated even Jana. Timo, Jana’s older brother, would run from the yard to the kitchen if I broke a banana off the bunch; that unique sound was enough to trigger a demand for payment.
• The carrot tax, where dogs get the bottom half-inch of every carrot, plus the middle part when I am shredding a carrot into a salad and it gets too thin to keep scraping.
• On a visit, a friend inadvertently(??) invented a waffle tax, which Orly has eagerly embraced.
• One of Orly’s sisters taught the entire litter about the apple tax, via the  humans’ convenient family chat.
• A longstanding family tradition is to give the dog the tip of the ice-cream cone when we’re nearly done with it. Orly and Cali parlayed that into, yep, an ice-cream tax, levied on both cones (the end of the cone) and bowls (licking them clean). This happens after they have already wolfed down their own dog cones, without sharing.
• I have heard discussion of a cheese tax among other dog-owned humans, but I don’t think that Orly knows about it (yet).

This has gone far enough!

Orly is currently trying to institute a yogurt tax. And a banana bread tax! I am fighting back. Instead of giving her some every time I scoop out some yogurt for myself, I make her wait. She only gets to lick out the container when I am done with it.

I’m really showing her who is in charge!