I feel terrible for my dog sometimes. She’s smart. She comes
from a smart breed..but also an exceedingly stubborn breed. I’m not a trainer,
by any means, but I’ve even been told by others who ARE, that her breed is
difficult because they are smart
& stubborn, so I’m not imagining or exaggerating it. However, even tho she’s smart, she’s not smart
enough to understand when her routine changes…she just knows something
is wrong and usually its that I have shoes on or ‘Dad’ put down her food
instead of me, or even any other little thing missing from the house. She’ll
panic: pace the living rm, won’t eat, and visibly trembles.
When we leave the house, we make sure to give Ebbs a special
treat—one she doesn’t get at normal times like bed time or treat time, etc..in
hopes to make her more focused on getting the treat instead of the fact we’re
leaving. A few times, she’s only eaten half the treat until we’ve returned =/
and she’ll be sitting in the almost the same spot in the living rm when we walk
thru the door as when we left. She’d grab it and run it over to me before
laying down to eat the rest of the treat. When she gets really upset w/ us,
tho, she’ll find a tissue and shred it in a neat little pile. She gets in
trouble, of course, but to her..it was justified. The last time she _expressed_
her frustration..she actually was smart enough to tear up the plastic around
the tissues in a pocket pack of Kleenex. We found the tissues still folded
beside the torn up plastic (no joke..it was a mostly unused packet)
Ebbs will also frequently sit and ‘people watch’…its almost
painful to watch the questioning confusion as she sees some of the things
people do, then turn to me as if asking explanation. Matt thinks I imagine it
all and attribute emotions to Ebbs that she doesn’t feel..Maybe I do, but I’ve
spent all my life w/ animal companions being some of my closest friends (as sad
as that is to say….) I’d like to think I’ve learned to read at least some of
their body language…
