It's now Day Two with Crookytail, and we're beginning to settle into the Two-Dog Routine. The mutt monsters are almost -- almost -- friendly enough to start playing with each other, although thus far their attempts at Biteyface and Paw Slap aren't quite getting off the ground before devolving into Pongu's insecure "I'm the boss! Me! I'm the boss!" posturing and Crookytail's reassurance that "okay! You're the boss!"
(lookit that little dork glancing back up at 0:26 to make sure he didn't Break The Rules by snarking. Whatta nerd. But I <3 him, because it's exactly this nerdy mindset that ultimately makes Pongu so trustworthy. He might be a scheming malevolent jerkface, but he's always checking in to make sure he's still within The Rules.)
So this morning I'm trying to do nerdbook edits and I want the dogs to shut the hell up and entertain themselves with no input from me for a while. Also, as part of my ongoing campaign to make them quit being pains in my ass, I'm still trying to encourage them to relax in each other's presence. Therefore I give a plastic bone to each of them so they can chew next to my computer while I'm working. (Note that Crookytail has the yellow bone and Pongu has the white bone.)
This goes great at first. Hooray, (relative) peace and quiet.
Then Pongu gets up and gets his scheming face on. Crookytail continues to chew obliviously. Pongu wanders into position all "no, what, I'm totally just scratching my back, no reason for you to get concerned, just keep enjoying that nice bone..." He's not very subtle though, he keeps glancing back at his intended target to see if Crookytail has dropped his guard yet.
At this point I step away for thirty seconds to refill my coffee. When I come back, OH LOOK WHO HAS HOARDED UP ALL THE BONES AND WHO HAS NO BONES.
So I redistribute the bones -- Pongu can keep the yellow one, Crookytail gets the white one -- and peace and harmony reign again among the happy members of Team Stupid. At least as long as I'm standing right there.
Ha, your dog is a hoarder! ;]
ReplyDeleteWe had a foster dog that did that. She always had to play with whatever the other dogs had, and if she didn't get her way she would sit there barking at them. Of course they gave in and found a different toy. But then she wanted that toy. And over and over it went.
Kids these days. Honestly.
He IS a hoarder. And a jerk.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't bark at the foster mutts or take anything forcibly, though, he just comes up with dopey schemes and/or steals stuff when they're not looking. Sometimes Pongu will bring over another "decoy toy" and trick the foster into taking that one, then steal the toy he originally wanted. I've been trying to get this on tape because it's potentially really interesting in terms of showing that dogs have some capability for imagining other dogs' state of mind and intentionally attempting to deceive them (at least that's what *I* think is going on, although a behaviorist might have another view), but no luck yet.