Toby the Puppy’s ever-expanding vocabulary now includes a feature I want to share with you. It’s his understanding of when his mother and I are getting ready to sit down for a meal.

He hears the call and responds with all due appropriateness.

We have a drill at home. When my wife and I are eating a meal, the puppy lies in a bed we have in the corner of our dining room. He waits patiently for us to finish our meal. Then, depending on what we have just eaten, we allow him to lick our plates. OK, listen up: It’s not as grotesque as some might imagine; we do wash our plates carefully after each meal.

Toby spends a good portion of the day curled up somewhere in our residence. He could be in his kennel, where he likes to sleep during the day; he might be on the couch next to one of us. He might be in our study, snuggled on top of a comforter. He could be sound asleep, “dead to the world,” as the saying goes.

But then when one of us is preparing a meal, we usually say to the other — often in a voice loud enough to be heard in another room — that our meal is ready. “It’s ready!” we might say. Or “Come and get it!” Or maybe “Breakfast is served!”

Toby hears those words, he awakens immediately and then rushes to his bed in the corner of the dining room, curls up, lies down and waits for the “treat” that awaits when we are finished with our meal.

I am convinced that Toby the Puppy would respond appropriately even if we rang a dinner bell.