Oscar, the eldest of the three and a border collie mix, stares expectantly from a throw, unwilling to move an inch towards such unrewarding largesse - but clearly invested in his due share.

Completely helpless before my animal's manipulations, I actually bring an ice cube to Oscar's rug, laying it by his side. He is satisfied as he jealously guards its melting.

The whole scene suddenly brought to mind one of my favourite literary passages - from Betty Smith's classic novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, about an impoverished couple and their two children.

It begins, "There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury." The text continues to describes how Mama Nolan makes one great pot of coffee in the morning to which her children are always welcome, although mild can be added only three times a day.

The boy, Neeley, merely sips at his coffee, and then spreads and enjoys his allotment of condensed mild on bread.

The novel's heroine, Francie, never drinks a bit of coffee. She simply pours her share luxuriantly down the drain.

As Mama Nolan explains, "Francie is entitled to one cup each meal like the rest. If it makes her feel better to throw it away than to drink it, all right."

Our rituals with the ice seem trivial against Nolan's poverty, not to mention the inequities of the world today.

Yet I can't get away from the idea that some kernel of a solution to larger problems could lie in the way scant resources come to be fairly apportioned and appreciated at the household level - even ice among canines.

- The Christian Science Monitor.