As I walked through the front door, Rio excitedly comes to greet me. With my hands full of the day’s mail and a small grocery bag, I ask her to go get her toy as to avoid being jumped on. She runs to the basket containing most of her toys and comes back with the favorite one of the moment. By now, I have put the stuff down and I can throw her toy for her. We do this for a couple of times until she can calmly come to me to say “hi”.
Then it dawns on me that Deuce is not in the living room. I peek into my office thinking that most likely he is lying in his crate or… maybe in my shower? One of his most favorite spots to lay when it is very hot outside.
Mmm, I wonder where that boy is? I know he is somewhere but where? I call but he does not show up. So I walk outside to the fenced-in backyard and walk through the gate that divides the lower people-friendly) part of the backyard from the area that we affectionately call “Deucy’s hill”. Indeed this name fits the location to a “t”. As Rio and I walked towards the highest portion of the backyard I find Deuce lazy and half asleep under a juniper tree. He had made a perfect doggie-bed for himself. His own private hiding place! It’s cool and has the best view of the land.
From his perch he can see the front part of the house and take note of our comings and goings as well as the hill to the right where we climb the steep slope for off-leash romps.
Oh, there youuuuu aaareee, I tell him as he stretches and gives Rio and I a little yawn. Dogs and their favorite spots and hiding places. I have always been fascinated by how dogs make decisions. I am still trying to understand what leads to a (certain) dog to go lay in a particular place? Why that place?
In search for answers, I watch my dogs carefully and kind of map their resting locations. Each one of them has their resting spots. They go to these spots regularly and I think that it's accurate to say that I had never found one of them in the favorite resting place of the other - with their dog beds being the exception.
Besides his crate, Deuce will lay in our shower, no brainer on this one: it is cool, when hot outside. Or he will lie just between the master bedroom and my office regardless of where I am. When we are watching TV, he might “grace” us with a short visit on the couch but quickly leaving for more “comfortable” grounds: the wooden floor in one of three locations in the living room.
I had never come home to Deuce lying on the sofas (which they are permitted to be on) but Ms. Rio…ah, Rio learned early on about comfy beds be it hers or ours, or the couch. She loves soft and cuddly.
She also has as one of her favorite spots the oversized pillow by the west-facing window. Many times she is snoozing so hard that she fails to see me approaching towards the front door, always a lovely site for me.
Rio and I take turns lying in perhaps the most coveted spot on the living room sofa… the sheepskin that I bought after many months of consideration. I guess the girls like their comfort.
I read in a book by a knowledgeable trainer and Border Collie breeder that border collies are not so interested in laying in comfort, instead they lie in “strategic” locations. Say by the front door, or in between rooms (just like Deuce). She gave no explanation as to why she thinks this is so, thus I am left guessing that it must be because of their strong “work-ethic” ready to roll on a short-second notice.
These exercises in observation of my own dogs and at times my client’s dogs open interesting windows into the individual personalities (or shall I say: dogonality?) of dogs. What other of our dog’s habits can we become in-tune to? What valuable information can we glean by becoming more consistent observers of their likes and dislikes?
Isn’t it so that knowing an individual’s likes and dislikes among other peculiarities are at the crux of an intimate relationship? So then, perhaps one of these days, I will spend some time mapping the locations of rest and comfort of my dogs and creating with this information some sort of visual testimony of how they like to spend those precious and long hours of relaxation… I’ll tell you, the (hard) life of (some) dogs…
Then it dawns on me that Deuce is not in the living room. I peek into my office thinking that most likely he is lying in his crate or… maybe in my shower? One of his most favorite spots to lay when it is very hot outside.
Mmm, I wonder where that boy is? I know he is somewhere but where? I call but he does not show up. So I walk outside to the fenced-in backyard and walk through the gate that divides the lower people-friendly) part of the backyard from the area that we affectionately call “Deucy’s hill”. Indeed this name fits the location to a “t”. As Rio and I walked towards the highest portion of the backyard I find Deuce lazy and half asleep under a juniper tree. He had made a perfect doggie-bed for himself. His own private hiding place! It’s cool and has the best view of the land.
From his perch he can see the front part of the house and take note of our comings and goings as well as the hill to the right where we climb the steep slope for off-leash romps.
Oh, there youuuuu aaareee, I tell him as he stretches and gives Rio and I a little yawn. Dogs and their favorite spots and hiding places. I have always been fascinated by how dogs make decisions. I am still trying to understand what leads to a (certain) dog to go lay in a particular place? Why that place?
In search for answers, I watch my dogs carefully and kind of map their resting locations. Each one of them has their resting spots. They go to these spots regularly and I think that it's accurate to say that I had never found one of them in the favorite resting place of the other - with their dog beds being the exception.
Besides his crate, Deuce will lay in our shower, no brainer on this one: it is cool, when hot outside. Or he will lie just between the master bedroom and my office regardless of where I am. When we are watching TV, he might “grace” us with a short visit on the couch but quickly leaving for more “comfortable” grounds: the wooden floor in one of three locations in the living room.
I had never come home to Deuce lying on the sofas (which they are permitted to be on) but Ms. Rio…ah, Rio learned early on about comfy beds be it hers or ours, or the couch. She loves soft and cuddly.
She also has as one of her favorite spots the oversized pillow by the west-facing window. Many times she is snoozing so hard that she fails to see me approaching towards the front door, always a lovely site for me.
Rio and I take turns lying in perhaps the most coveted spot on the living room sofa… the sheepskin that I bought after many months of consideration. I guess the girls like their comfort.
I read in a book by a knowledgeable trainer and Border Collie breeder that border collies are not so interested in laying in comfort, instead they lie in “strategic” locations. Say by the front door, or in between rooms (just like Deuce). She gave no explanation as to why she thinks this is so, thus I am left guessing that it must be because of their strong “work-ethic” ready to roll on a short-second notice.
These exercises in observation of my own dogs and at times my client’s dogs open interesting windows into the individual personalities (or shall I say: dogonality?) of dogs. What other of our dog’s habits can we become in-tune to? What valuable information can we glean by becoming more consistent observers of their likes and dislikes?
Isn’t it so that knowing an individual’s likes and dislikes among other peculiarities are at the crux of an intimate relationship? So then, perhaps one of these days, I will spend some time mapping the locations of rest and comfort of my dogs and creating with this information some sort of visual testimony of how they like to spend those precious and long hours of relaxation… I’ll tell you, the (hard) life of (some) dogs…
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