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I am now cross-posting everything to LiveJournal. I'm Educaitlin over there, too, for all you LJers who come slummin' to D-land just to read me. ( Yes, I'm delusional, but I'm happy.) I am adjusting to having a normal dog. For years, we've owned interesting border-collie crosses. Those dogs were *smart.* As in, if they had thumbs, they could'a done our taxes. Junior and Casey both had huge vocabularies, knew the names of things they liked (or disliked) and could spell. I've always wondered how much energy it takes to have a full-bore border collie. The fullbloods I've met seemed like distracted geniuses. If they'd been able to stop their ceaseless obsessive-compulsive movement, they'd be out curing cancer, but right now, tennis balls are just too darn important. So, after years of owning the chess club-and-science-fair sort of dog, we now own Thor. He is absolutely a sweetheart, a big floppy love of a dog who wants nothing more than to drape his jowly, heavy self all over his people and drool on them. He's not very complex, is all. He's not dumb, he's just got normal dog-level intelligence. He seems so simple and naive. Thor's more the linebacker type of dog. He gets how the plays work, but he needs a quarterback to lead him and a coach to keep him straight. He won't figure it out on his own. He'd rather snooze, while he waits for someone to tell him what to do. The only time I've seen Thor take the initiative is when he perceives a threat to his persons. Then he's impressive. Something like two thousand years of breeding for loyalty and protectiveness suddenly shows up, and strangers back away. He's never aggressive (unless he's playing), but he only needs to bark and flex a bit to become truly imposing. If I can teach him that my slippers are not toys,and the vacuum is not his mortal enemy,we'll be getting somewhere. |
 
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Canine Linebacker