A new dog

Moonlighting. A blog by Judy Cools. 

Some of you have already read about our new dog. We added a rescue dog to our household, so now we have two. Now…. we’ve had a lot of dogs over the years. Six or eight of them, I’d say, and each one was a rescue from one situation or another. We’re familiar with dog behavior, comfortable with the fuzz and the paw prints and everything else that goes with welcoming a dog into your home. And even though each critter has his or her own personality, each is also unique in the world of dogs.

All of that being said, this new one takes the prize. He finally knows to come when he’s called, but if being called involves food, he drools like a faucet. He doesn’t drool otherwise…. he just gets really excited about dinner. His reaction makes it easy to understand all the experiments done by Pavlov and the dinner bell.

The new beastie is young and he likes to play. He’s added new life to the whole box of dog toys we’ve collected over time. He likes to get them all out of the box, and about 90% of the time, he’ll have one of them in his mouth. I think he missed his calling – he would have made a great service dog, the way he loves to carry things around.

He also likes to be right next to a person. (Another good service-dog quality.) When he first came to live with us, I wondered if we’d adopted half a dozen dogs, because everywhere I went, there he was. He could look as if he was sound asleep, but then follow like a shadow when you went to another room. With his last few steps, he’d slide into the room behind you and be flat on the floor and look half asleep as soon as you could turn around. He doesn’t do that quite so much any more, but he still wants to be sure no one is going to leave him without his knowing about it!

We are still learning to communicate in his own particular dog dialect. We know the bark for “Hey, I’m hungry!!” He also has a distinctive bark for playtime, and one for strangers at the door. On other things, he is not so clear. Wanting to go outside sounds the same to us as his complaint that the water dish is empty. Sometimes that also sounds like his request for a car ride. “Silly humans” he must think, “what do I have to do to get you to understand?!” All in time, my dear, all in time.

© 2013, J. Cools