Dogs coming together and pushing it

Well, we saw the PBR lastnight. I have to say I'm glad that I work with dogs and not bulls. Although I would have love to have had my long lense on me during some of the more spectacular rides; simply awesome. Now to get onto these monster beasts I'm pretty sure you have to be either really, really brave or very stupid.

So back to dogs; we joined several of our OC standard poodle group yesterday at a new location. It is so much fun to see a pile of poodles having fun, especially off leash. They all got along and Luke was in heaven, just him and 5 girls. He really enjoys being the only man in town (I'm guessing most men feel the sameway). So they ran and ran; sometimes as a close pack sometimes they would venture off in their own directions.

Tilley had a great time; her tail was up and she was in full shadow chasing form. But about midway in our walk it was obvious that she was tiring. She gets tired so much faster these days but at least she gets out and walks with us; even ran at the start of it.

Once we got home from the PBR; we had our normal evening. Dogs go out; I go out to make sure that they are actually going and not just standing there. Then we all go up to bed. The dogs had an early dinner lastnight so I thought they could use a cookie. Everyone had their piece and then Tilley wandered over to Luke's crumbs. I love to watch their interactions and subtle signals that they give each other.

As Tilley has gotten older food has become a more important factor in her everyday. She has become a food seeking canine; much like her house sibling Jessie. So as she moved in to check out Luke's crumbs I watched. Luke has never, ever growled at Tilley, but I wondered in his tired state, laying on his comfy bed with his crumbs between his legs if she wasn't pushing it.

There was no signals yet and Tilley was about a foot from the crumbs. Luke seemed to be puzzled that she was moving in quite this close and then there was the signal. If you weren't looking you wouldn't have seen it; a freeze. Luke froze for a instant; Tilley responded immediately by turning her head (this is the stuff that I love). They had a moment of "this is awkward" and then Luke broke the ice by licking his foot. This was done with intent; how else do you get out of an awkward silent moment like that?

Dogs are amazing; they are such great communicators that we should take a lesson or two from them. They rarely need words and if sound is called for it is typically a lack of communication skills or total disregard from someone.