The Treat Jar That Taught Me Love Isn't Always Food

The Treat Jar That Taught Me Love Isn't Always Food

The first time I opened the treat jar, the sound—that crinkle of plastic against metal lid—stopped time. His head lifted like I'd just spoken his name in a language older than words. The air in the apartment shifted. Bright. Expectant. Electric in a way that made my chest feel tight and warm at the same time, like I was holding something fragile that could also break me.

I thought treats were simple. A transaction. Sit, get cookie. Stay, get cookie. Be adorable, get three cookies because how could I not. I didn't count. I didn't think. I just kept reaching into the jar because his eyes—God, his eyes—looked at me like I was the only person in the world who understood what he needed.

But somewhere between the fortieth treat that week and the moment I realized his collar was tighter than it used to be, I understood something I didn't want to admit: I wasn't feeding him. I was feeding my own guilt. My own loneliness. My own desperate need to be the person who made him happy, even if that happiness was killing him slowly, one crumb at a time.

So I started over. Slower. Kinder. More afraid. Because learning to love something well is harder than loving it carelessly, and I'd been careless for so long I'd forgotten what care actually looked like.

A treat, I learned, is not just food. It's a language. It says, "I see you." And if you're careful—if you're honest—it also says, "I will keep you well." But if you're not careful, it says something darker: "I don't know how else to love you, so I'll keep filling you until we both feel better, even if neither of us actually does."

I used to think a treat was only about obedience. A bribe dressed up as affection. A shortcut to trust. But in those quiet minutes between my fingers reaching into the jar, his breathing quickening in anticipation, and the soft tap of his paws on the floor as he waited—I began to understand that what I was really teaching him was this: love arrives in small, edible pieces, and if you're good enough, if you perform well enough, you get more.

And that terrified me.

Because I didn't want him to think love was conditional. I didn't want him to think he had to earn safety. I didn't want him to spend his whole life waiting for the next crumb, the next approval, the next proof that he mattered.

But that's what I was teaching him. Not with my words. With my hands. With the jar I couldn't stop opening.

So I put the jar on a high shelf. And I sat on the floor with him, empty-handed, and tried to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do now.

He looked at me, confused. Betrayed, maybe. Like I'd just broken a promise I didn't know I'd made. And I wanted to cry—because how do you explain to a creature who doesn't speak your language that you're trying to love him better, even if it looks like you're loving him less?

I didn't have an answer that day. I just sat there, useless and aching, until he sighed and rested his head on my knee. And that—that sigh, that weight, that choice to stay even when I wasn't giving him what he wanted—taught me more about love than a thousand treats ever could.

A treat is a unit of attention. That's what I started calling it in my head, because it sounded smarter than admitting I'd been using food to avoid being present. Food is fast. Food is clear. You give it, they take it, everyone feels like something happened. But touch—real, patient, unhurried touch—is slow. Praise is quiet. Play is messy. And just sitting together in silence, breathing the same air, waiting for nothing in particular? That's terrifying. Because what if you sit there and realize you don't actually know how to be with them when you're not performing care?

I started mixing my currencies. A "good" instead of a treat. A walk instead of a handful. A game of tug instead of filling his bowl with extras because I felt bad that I'd been gone all day. And at first, he didn't get it. He kept looking for the food. Kept checking my hands, my pockets, the counter. Like I was hiding the real reward somewhere and this—this affection, this presence—was just filler.

But slowly, over weeks that felt like years, he stopped searching. He started waiting. Not for the crumbs. For me.

And that broke something open in my chest I didn't know was closed.

Because the truth I'd been avoiding was this: I was using treats to avoid the harder work of actually being loved. Of being enough without the performance. Of sitting in a room with a creature who loved me and believing—really believing—that I didn't need to earn it.

Commercial treats are a trap dressed in convenience. I learned that the hard way, reading labels at midnight in the grocery aisle, realizing that half the "healthy" snacks I'd been buying were just sugar and fat in a prettier package. Treat sticks for small animals that were basically candy. Dog biscuits that had more filler than nutrition. Cat treats that smelled like a crime scene but apparently tasted like heaven.

And I got angry. Not at the companies, though I could have. I got angry at myself. Because I'd been so desperate to be a good caretaker that I hadn't actually thought about what "good" meant. I'd outsourced my love to a bag with a cartoon dog on it, and somewhere along the way I'd stopped asking whether what I was giving him was actually helping him live longer or just helping me feel less guilty for not giving him more of myself.

Rich isn't the same as kind. That sentence lived in my head for weeks. I wrote it on a sticky note and put it on the fridge, because I needed to see it every time I reached for the easy answer. Rich food, rich treats, rich love—it all tastes good in the moment. But it doesn't build a body that lasts. It doesn't build a relationship that holds.

Obesity doesn't announce itself with trumpets. It creeps. A dog who stops jumping onto the couch. A cat who stops grooming the spot between her shoulder blades. A rabbit whose movements slow just enough that you convince yourself it's age, not weight, not the hundred small choices you made when you were too tired to make better ones.

I started watching him differently. Not with judgment, but with honesty. The way his breath sounded after a short walk. The way he hesitated before the stairs. The way his belly hung just a little lower than it used to. And I realized: this is what love looks like when it's not paying attention. This is what happens when you care more about how something feels in the moment than how it lands in a body over time.

So I did the math. The quiet, humiliating math of portioning. I measured his food. I counted his treats. I broke biscuits into quarters, then eighths, then crumbs so small they barely registered as food but still carried the promise of yes, I see you, you did well. I borrowed from his dinner to pay for training sessions. I started using his kibble as rewards during walks, and at first it felt like cheating—like I was cheapening the transaction—but he didn't care. He just cared that I noticed him.

And slowly, the collar loosened. The stairs got easier. The vet stopped giving me that look—the one that's half concern, half accusation, the one that says, "You're the reason this is hard for him."

I learned to ask a different question. Not, "Does he want this?" but, "Does this make him healthier, happier, calmer?" And when the answer drifted away—when I was giving treats out of habit, out of guilt, out of the reflexive need to fix my own discomfort with his boredom—I set the bag down. And I reached for something else. A walk. A brush. A game. My hands. My time. Myself.

Training without overfeeding became a puzzle I had to solve every day. Food could open a fearful door. A dog who trembled at the sound of the elevator might learn "elevator equals chicken," and suddenly, bravery had a price tag. But I didn't want him to need chicken to be brave. I wanted him to trust that I would keep him safe whether or not his mouth was full.

So I paired small pieces of food with praise. With distance when he needed it. With my body as a shield between him and the thing that scared him. And in time, the elevator meant safety not because of the chicken, but because I was there. And the chicken became optional. And optional felt like freedom for both of us.

I started thinking of fresh vegetables and simple ingredients not as boring, but as honest. For rabbits and guinea pigs, hay is the backbone—not carrots, not the sugary crunch of convenience. For dogs and cats, I looked for labels I could read without a chemistry degree. If I could snap it into pieces, wipe it off my fingers, and not feel like I was feeding him a science experiment, it stayed. Everything else went on a high shelf, reserved for days when celebration made sense and guilt wasn't driving the car.

The best treat I ever gave him wasn't food. It was a walk. Not the kind we rushed through to check a box, but the kind where I let him stop at every lamppost, every hedge, every crack in the sidewalk that smelled like someone else's story. His nose worked, and his heart settled. And I realized: this is what he needed. Not more. Just different.

Grooming became a ritual. A soft brush by the window while dust lifted into the light. My hand along his spine saying, "This is your body, and I will help you live here." He learned to lean into it. To close his eyes. To place his weight in my palm like trust had a sound.

And then there was quiet. After play, we rested. I taught him a word that ended the game kindly—"all done"—and paired it with a mat that smelled like home. The nervous system loves patterns. So do I. So we built them together, one soft ending at a time.

The body tells the truth. When his stool softened, when his energy dipped, when the collar felt tight again, I looked at my ledger. Treats, meals, movement, sleep. I adjusted. I didn't chase a number. I courted balance. And balance, I learned, is not a destination. It's a conversation you have every day with the creature you're trying to keep alive.

Time is the finest dessert. Attention is a feast. Love is a meal that doesn't end. I walk him when he needs walking. I sit with him when he needs sitting. I let him choose the route, the pace, the moments we pause. And when something feels off, I call the vet. Because care is made of tiny, ordinary hours, and those hours are how he learns what safety means.

Treats will never replace affection. They were never meant to. They're accents in a song whose melody is presence. On good days, we celebrate with a crunch. On hard days, we steady the room with our breath. Either way, the promise is the same: I will choose you over convenience. I will keep you well as best I can.

And on the days I fail—because I do, because I'm human, because guilt still whispers and the jar still sits on the shelf—I try again. I sit on the floor. I reach for his head instead of the treats. And I say, out loud, to both of us: "You are enough. We are enough. This is enough."

And some days, we even believe it.