RE: Do you ever catch yourself playing favorites with your pets?
Chipper is definitely my favorite, and he knows it and so does Tootsie. Since animals all have a "pecking order", she totally accepts that Chipper is the number one dog.
He also gets special treatment, because he is an old doggie now, and so I feed him special food. Even the tiny kibbles of hard dog food has gotten hard for him to chew, and I also give him canned dog food once or twice a day.
I realize that she doesn't understand why he gets that and she does not; but the other side of that , is Tootsie gets to chew on all of the bones, since Chipper cannot do that any more either.
Both of them get lots of attention, and I think that they are both fine with the fact that Chipper is treated as a favorite.