Yorkies live a long time compared to bigger dogs
My sister had a Mastiff once, the biggest and yet gentlest dog she has ever owned, and poor Hazy died at the age of only seven years. The cat mourned for days (which I understand is a long time for a cat}, because Hazy was the gentlest playmate that cat had! I know I am generalizing about things I could be more specific about if I got the facts, but I know in my experience the biggest dogs have often been the easiest to get along with. Big ol’ labs and retrievers let the house’s toddlers pull their manes and crawl all over them, using them as horses or trucks or tractors or punching bags!
My little dog was afraid of nothing when I first met him – except toddlers
We’d be walking along, minding our own business, and I’d meet a friend toddling long, holding the hand of her cute little two-year-old. As soon as the child snatched its hand away from Mommy and started flexing its little fingers and heading purposefully toward Mason, he was yanking on the leash I was holding. Let’s get outta here! And he was right. Toddlers haven’t learned how to pet or hold an animal, of course, and so they squeeze the puppy too hard just like they squeeze everything else at that age.
My same sister that had the mastiff now has a therapy dog, a part retriever and part Labrador, which she takes with her to schools that allow some classes in which students are trained on the proper way to pet and care for animals. I think that’s a wonderful program. How’s a kid going to know if he or she isn’t taught?
I think the nature of dogs is interesting because it seems that the smallest ones can be the bossiest and sometimes the hardest to get along with. But almost all of them are easier to get along with than a cat!
Now I love cats
I think they are hysterical because they are so opinionated and independent. The reason people can find so many online cat jokes is that cats do so many funny – and let’s face it, cute – things. And we’ve all heard the comparison jokes between cats and dogs: Dogs have owners; cats have staff. If a dog’s owner is starving to death, the dog will lie there and starve with him, but the cat will go next door to eat those people’s food. The dog and cat diaries are very funny; there’s a little bit of truth and probably a lot – or at least some – exaggeration in them.
I have heard about cats that tracked their owners down when they traveled, cats that helped other animals survive tough situations, cats like that, and I like hearing about them, but we know it’s dogs that mostly do all that stuff!
People argue about the difference between dog and cat intelligence, but that’s tough because there are so many differences between the two animals and also between individual breeds and just plain individual animals, just like there are among people. For example, my sister’s beautiful golden retriever/lab has had many classes so that he can behave properly when he goes to be a therapy dog at a nursing home or in the schools with children, but my sister tells me herself that Gabe is just not a smart dog. She can tell him something very familiar that she has gone over with him many times and he just looks at her like he doesn’t have a clue. His only game is to chase his ball, and he will bring it to her over and over and over again to throw it exactly the same way in the same place, her front yard. If something needs to be done, like it’s time for him to eat, and she tries to stop playing , he just doggedly (you like that?) keeps bringing the ball. If my sister has something else to do or is talking to a visitor, Gabe pushes her leg with the ball until she takes it and throws it. He doesn’t understand if things are different.
Mason knows how to adapt
My little dog loves to chase his ball, and if I am not paying attention to the game we’re playing, he will take the ball and hide it someplace so that when I am ready to throw it I have to go find it. I find this precocious. The first time he did it, I couldn’t believe it. And when I am standing in front of my dresser putting on makeup and he wants me to throw the ball down the hall for him to chase while I’m doing my thing, he’ll bring it over and put it on the foot of my bed so that I can reach it and throw it between brushes with my eye shadow tools. When he knows it’s do it my way or adapt, he adapts. When he hides the ball, sometimes it’s if I’m watching television and get involved in the show and don’t even notice him, so he’ll put it someplace behind my chair so that I have to get up and look for it to throw it for him. Other times I think he actually gets bored with the sameness of I throw the ball, he runs to get it and bring it back, so he just decides to jazz it up a little. Amazing! If I am lost in the pages of a book, he’ll just give up and become a lap dog for a while.
I’ve been telling you what a social dog I have. Here he is with our neighbor’s dog, still a puppy really, Boom, a Brittany Spaniel. They are so cute together when they play!
