Learning from a Dog

We have a guest in our house.  It is Pickles, our grand children's family dog, who we are dog-sitting while the family is away on vacation.

Pickles

Lucky for us, Pickles is an exceptionally easy dog to take care of.  First, she is elderly and rarely barks; second she eats and sleeps a lot.  Her attention span is good, especially when it comes to watching us open the refrigerator or make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  

She loves to eat home cooked food, and will stare at us for hours if she thinks we smell like a hamburger, or a good piece of cheese.  

If I rub her head affectionately, she incessantly licks my hand to tell me to "keep going." I have to order her to stop.   If we lean down to pet her, she rolls over and asks for a belly rub.  It actually isn't very lady-like, but after all, she is a dog.

Lucky for us, Pickles prefers short walks with long breaks while she takes time out to sniff blades of grass and tree trunks.  One really doesn't have to go very far, or very fast, to make her happy.  

Lucky for us, our eldest granddaughter wrote down the instructions for how to take care of pickles, and the notes aren't that difficult or too demanding.  

Instructions

Not so lucky for us, we attend to everything on that list, even using good manners and picking up the dog's droppings and taking them home with us to put into the waste container.  This is not my favorite task, but it is the law.

We do not have to put her to bed or read her a bedtime story.  At exactly 9pm every evening, she voluntarily hops into her indoor "dog house" and curls up and goes to sleep.  

  

When we first arrived, she was nervous and stared at us, wondering what's next, I suppose. 

Dog Staring at Spouse

After a while, she relaxed and now spends her time sitting on the couch and lounging about, or lying on the rug and rolling around.  She will yip if she thinks we might step on her by mistake, but we never do.  But she yips, anyhow, just in case.

She might best be described as a fully, unkempt ball of white fur, with a mouth and long ears and significant eyes.  

When she curls up beside me, she kind of looks like a smurf.

What has Pickles taught us?  

Here goes:  

1. Food tastes better when it is not served in a dog dish;
2. Walking at a very slow pace soothes the nerves and makes one relaxed, unless one is in a rush or actually has somewhere to go;
3. Loud sirens cause one to howl; and, last but not least,
4. Sleep is everything.

Pickles the Smurf