Anyone ever owned a Brittany Spaniel?

[Gektumi]

Wow, Freddie does something similar. A gesture that he got from his mother and then broadened it. I usually leave a bit of the dry food out for him for snacks. Whenever I have company--and he loves company--he does a food ritual.

First he greets the company at the door. Tail wagging, bouncing if he knows them, does a few play bows with plumy tail in the air, deep stretches to the ground with forelegs. Then after he's greeted them thoroughly, but before they might take their eyes off him....he runs to the bowl, takes out some nuggets and eats. It's so funny. He eating, looking at them sideways (his body turned to the side), wagging his tail and making a funny play "gruR-gruR-gruR" sound.

If you move away from him to sit down out of sight, he abandons the food, keeps looking at you to make sure you watch him, runs back to the food, picks it up to eat it (tail still wagging) in your line of sight. Over time this has really gotten stretched out. It's a full performance. If the visitor isn't watching him, he goes over to be petted but dances away a little bit to bring back the food.

I think he's doing a number of things here. Letting you know that he is in possession of a high-status object (the food), that you can't have it (well, unless you really asked for it) and that he is a creature of status because he has the food.

His mother's ritual wasn't as long, but she added a thrown back head gesture, put her lips together and did a very soft, short sound Ah-woo-wooo....it was definitely different and the closest thing I have to describing it is that it was like the sound a hound dog makes when a fire alarm or siren goes off in the distance. Wow, it was so strange. It was very soft because of her size, but it would leave people speechless. And over time she got better at it because she saw how much it entertained everybody to see the vestiges of the wolf call in the little squirrel dog.

Well, I'm up because I have a trip tomorrow to LA, but I do love dog stories

[Insomniac]

It makes a welcome change to some of the dog stories I used to have to put up with.

I actually felt like hitting some of my clients. Some people should never be allowed to have dogs, ever.


Anyway, have a good trip.