Chapter VII: Stairway to highchair
"Are you hungry, little one?" Jennifer asked as she led the wolf out of the bathroom.
"It's been a while since I last ate, I think," Aran replied, but he was distracted by his surroundings.
The hallway was fairly spacious, with five doors and a staircase. When they slowly descended the first steps of the stairs, one at a time, the wolf noticed that there was a wooden fence at the very top of the stairs. The fence looked like it could be shut, preventing people from descending the stairs.
Aran wanted to walk down faster, but the collie was in his way, only allowing him to descend to the next step when he had both paws on the same step. Holding his stuffed husky with one hand and Jennifer's hand with the other, he eventually reached the bottom of the staircase.
The staircase was not connected to a hallway, but to the living room instead, which was in turn connected to an open kitchen. The kitchen itself was shaped like a U, with one arm dividing the large room and separating the kitchen from the living room.
Next to the kitchen was a heavy-looking varnished wooden table with two chairs on each long side and one on either of the shorter sides. One of those chairs, however, looked different from the others. Its seat was significantly higher and it had armrests.
Jennifer took the wolf to this odd-looking chair and motioned him to sit down. The chair was not only higher than usual, it also appeared to be more spacious, as if it was meant to make whoever was seated in it feel small.
Just as Aran was pondering this, the collie surprised him by putting a wooden tray over the armrests. There was a long wooden pin connected to the tray that fell into its place like a piece of a puzzle. With this missing piece filled in, the wolf now recognized the strange piece of furniture Jennifer had allocated him: it was a highchair. For a second, Aran thought about climbing out of the chair, but his way out was cut off when he heard something behind the chair click in place. Looking down, he realized that the collie had fastened some kind of restraint to keep him in place.
Since the black wolf was already somewhat small, his feet dangled. He was unable to touch the floor, let alone put a full paw down. His paws eventually found support on a footrest, but the wolf still could not find a comfortable way to sit. After all, he was not used to wearing a diaper and the unfamiliar cushiony feeling it bestowed upon his bottom. Besides, the wooden pin did not allow the wolf to keep his legs together and the restraint limited his movement as well.
Meanwhile, Jennifer was preparing something in the kitchen, but the wolf could not see what she was doing, since she was not facing him and her body was in Aran's line of sight. When she turned back to him, he saw that she carried a colorful plastic spoon, and quite a few glass jars of what appeared to be... baby food? He estimated the jars to be larger than those sized for actual puppies, though.
Jennifer put the jars on the table, in Aran's plain sight, but out of his arms' reach. To make things worse, the collie produced a piece of cloth fabric from one of the kitchen drawers - one with a shape Aran recognized as well. The cloth had a bone-shaped appliqué with the word "puppy" sewn on it.
"Now you're probably going to tell me that you don't need this," Jennifer said as she tied the bib around her pup's neck, "but I've just bathed you and I don't want your clothes to get messy already, alright?"
"I think I'm well able to keep myself clean."
The collie smiled.
"I've heard that twice before, and with both of my charges, the bib was no luxury when I fed them for the first time," she explained.
'Wait, she fed them? Darn, she's actually going to feed me with a spoon or whatever,' Aran thought.
"By the way, you'll have to put your husky aside for a while. You can be cleaned in a bathtub, but the plushie, well, not so much, I'm afraid."
With a laid-back move, Aran offered the plushie to his caretaker. She put it on the other end of the table, its muzzle facing the wolf, as if it was patiently waiting for its new owner to be released from the big chair.
"Are you sitting comfortably?" Jennifer asked.
"Not really. Can't I just sit on a normal chair?"
She shook her head.
"Puppies sit in a highchair during a meal and I'm not letting you out before you have eaten."
Aran looked at the jars of food on the table and tried to count them.
"Don't worry, you won't need to eat all of them. I don't know how large your appetite is, but I guess we'll find out soon!"
"Do I really need to eat that?"
"Yes, you do. Aran, you should stop questioning me. I'm your caregiver and I know what's best for you. It's part of my job, so there's no need for you to doubt if I know what I'm doing."
The wolf stared down, looking at the wooden tray of the highchair.
"Oh I get it, you think it'll taste bad, because it's baby food, right?"
Aran nodded.
"Why judge it if you haven't tried it yet?" she asked cheerfully.
The wolf looked back up. "How much time do you have?"
Jennifer chuckled and took the cap off one of the jars.
"Good, we're going to start off with something almost everybody likes, so you can get accustomed to this, okay?"
"Fine..." Aran mumbled.
She took the spoon and scooped up some of the yellow-orange mushy stuff. Even though the wolf wanted to resist this treatment with every fiber in his body, he knew that it was inevitable. Jennifer said she was not going to let him eat anything else, and neither was she going to let him out of the chair before he was done eating.
'Let's get this over with,' the wolf thought.
Jennifer offered a spoonful of baby food and he leaned forward a little, with his muzzle opened to accept the spoon. The mush touched Aran's tongue and to his surprise, it actually did not taste that bad. Since the mush did not require actual chewing, Aran could swallow it immediately.
There were hints of oranges and probably other citrus fruits, leaving a pleasant aftertaste after he did so. Trying his best to not look too eager, he opened his muzzle for the next spoonful. His stomach had caught on that it was mealtime and as the Jennifer emptied the bottle, the wolf grew hungry for more.
The second jar contained something along the lines of apples and red cabbage. It was not altogether bad, although Aran liked the first blend better. His enthusiasm was curbed by the taste of the third jar, however. It contained a mixture of green vegetables like green beans, broccoli and peas. The wolf did not know the ingredients of the green mush, however, so he did not resist the first spoonful Jennifer served him.
This changed after he swallowed said serving, though, and he put up a facial expression of disgust. The collie tried to feed him another spoonful of the vegetable blend, but Aran twisted and turned all he could to prevent the foul tasting mush from entering his mouth.