I’m Here to Tell You Different

There is accepted scientific fact, and there is truth. Sometimes they’re not the same thing.

I watched a canine documentary a couple of years ago that centered around behavior.  The Host started right in on a dog’s limitations, of which there seemed to be many. For instance, one of the first listed was the leash/obstacle problem.

The Host posited as truth the old chestnut that a dog can’t comprehend that they must stay on the same side of an obstacle as their owner; that they are connected by the leash. ‘They just cannot think laterally’, he said.  ‘They can’t work it out’. That’s when I turned the show off.

Well, Bree worked out for herself as a puppy that we were connected and after two times going the wrong way around a light pole and never did it again.

Last night while watching Stephen Fry’s series QI I heard him say that dogs cannot follow where you point. They watch your finger, not the direction in which you are pointing.

Once again, Bree got pointing right away. I can point at stuff anywhere and she’ll go get it. Stuffed babies, usually. She loves it and regards it as work, which is the highest calling for a herding breed.

She also knows how to ‘take it’, ‘come’, ‘go’, ‘hug’, etc… and saved my life once when the electric blanket I was using caught fire.

Got kids? Get Collies. There will be an excess of hair, but your children will have a best friend you can count on… one who won’t introduce them to meth.

Conversely, Badger, also a herder, does not always get it. Maybe her original people didn’t spend much time with her when she was a puppy.

She’s old now, the Bree. Her face becomes progressively whiter and she moves slower. But she’s still the best girl.