My dog Hank regards my wife and I as pretty poor excuses for dogs. Still, we are the Alphas in this pack and he has to get along with us. But he seems to think we need a remedial level of education.
Walks are very important to the Dog Unit. Why can't the bipeds see this? So he tries to train us. Everything that is associated with a walk he tries to reproduce. He'll nudge us towards the front door. He is very aware of when I set down my coffee cup. He knows I put on socks and shoes by the front door. So he brings socks and deposits them there. Mine, my wife's, clean, dirty. Surely several pairs will up the odds. When that does not work he'll try anything that smells like us. He'll tip over the bathroom trash can and bring down disgusting (to us) used Kleenex. Recently in an example of going above and beyond, he somehow got a bar of soap out of the shower and hauled it downstairs. That's dedication....
So he's clever, but his dog brain has its limitations. When a walk is in the offing he gets very excited and his on board decision tree goes haywire. Or maybe reverts to how he usually things about trees, as something to lift a leg on, or something to bark furiously at on the chance that there is, was, or someday might be a squirrel in the upper branches.
And when it comes to the final step in the pre-walk algorithm, he glitches. I want him to pick up the harness/leash combo from the floor and give it to me. He knows how to do it. He usually does it and gets the immediate desired result. But sometimes......
An idle threat of course. I have no use for a species that considers it their right to defecate in my home and expect me to clean up after them. Eventually he relented. But does he look a bit exasperated at the blockheadedness of the Alpha male?
Here he is at the end of a long day. Asleep with a pair of stolen socks.
1 comment:
That last picture is sweet. As is pretty much the whole story.
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