I've been witness to two dogs making stuff up.
I often take my beagle, Sammie, on errands around town, as long as I won't have to leave him in the car on a hot day. I always have him on a leash, because he likes to hang out the window, and he'll start baying excitedly when he sees another dog, almost as though he's going to jump out (which he did once). For that matter, I can't park anywhere near another dog at the store, because he'll go berserk.
This morning, I took him to the grocery store with me. We only saw a little Chihuahua being walked and nothing else on the three mile trip, despite it being nice weather. On the way back, we still didn't see any other dogs. So, the last few blocks before home, Sammie started baying at the top of his lungs. No dogs around, but it was like, "Fuck it. If there's no other dogs to have a spazz over, I'll just have a spazz, anyway." I started laughing. The more I laughed, the more excitedly he bayed. Just completely made up a reason to bay when there was nothing to bay at. Now that he's going on 15yo, it's like he's figured out he can just make up stuff to keep himself happy.
The first dog I ever owned by myself was a little poodle mix, Angel. We lived in an apartment, so I'd take her to the neighborhood park every day. The park had lots of trees. At a certain point, I'd let her off the leash, and if there was a squirrel around, she'd chase it into a particular tree, and then stand at the based of the tree, all puffed up with excitement, and bark at the squirrel until I came over and picked her up.
Sometimes there weren't any squirrels. When I let Angel off the leash, she'd run toward the tree, anyway, and stand at the base, all puffed up, and looked up at a certain point in the tree and bark, as though there was a squirrel there. It didn't matter to her that there really wasn't a squirrel there. Pretending worked just fine.
Comentários