Glorious spring is upon us now, but I’ve been asking friends and relations about goofy dog behaviors since deep winter. I queried Rhonda on the subject, one snowy day, and she told me that her sedate English cockers don’t act goofy. While she and I talked, McGill lay down on his side behind her and waved his front and hind legs up and down in the snow. I pointed out that he had just made half a snow angel. “Oh, he does that,” Rhonda said. “Sometimes he turns over and does the same thing on the other side, too.” “So he makes snow angels?” I asked. “Yeah,” Rhonda answered, “but he doesn’t do anything goofy.”
Jim and Amy have three dogs, all of whom have been known to be goofy. Tucker, a beagle, growls to show his appreciation at being scratched. If people stop scratching him, thinking he has expressed displeasure with their attentions, Tucker nudges them to continue. And growls some more. When Winston, a German shorthaired pointer, was a puppy and broke wind, he would whip around and look behind him, Jim told me. “Like he was asking, “What was that? Who did that?” Duncan, a beagle, has the thickest coat of the three dogs. He always stays outside the longest, Jim said, but when he wants to come in, he fakes being cold. He waits comfortably outside for someone to make eye contact, whereupon he starts to shiver piteously. If you break eye contact but observe him on the sly, he stops shivering. All of Jim and Amy’s dogs have their shtick.
John and Marilyn have two dogs. There’s Daisy, a golden retriever, who enjoys her chews and her toys, and tolerates Holly’s trying to get a rise out of her by trying to take them away from her. Daisy’s nuttiest behavior is pot licking. John and Marilyn have a copper apple butter kettle in the living room that’s big enough to store blankets and pillows in. Daisy loves to lick it. Sometimes she licks it so hard the pot spins.
Then there’s Holly. As far as anyone can tell, Holly is a little golden retriever mix, but her behaviors are not retriever behaviors. She doesn’t care about chews or toys for their own sake. She expects to be entertained. When she gets bored, she likes to take up position near John’s or Marilyn’s chair, sit erect for a while, then open and close her mouth in a silent bark. This bark miming progresses to barely audible yips and continues interactively through successively louder vocalizations until reaching cacophony. She ends the whole shebang with a play bow, which signals it’s time to let her outside. Then she runs circles around whoever gets up, up to five circles between the living room and the door, as if she’s herding her human. Who knows what’s in her little doggy genes?
Juni—short for Juniper—is Carol and Paul’s dog. She’s an English cocker spaniel not long out of puppyhood. She has a consistently sunny outlook, happily participating in whatever’s on offer, but she has a serious side as well. Periodically, she rounds up all her chews and spreads them out on the floor by her toy basket. Having done so, she surveys the glorious array and makes sure all is well with these important resources, rather like reviewing her investments. I’ve received no word as to whether Juni returns the chews to their normal locations.
Rascal, our dog, is an affenpinscher mix, and there is no question as to whether or not he does goofy things. He’s settled down some since he came to live with us nine years ago, but not much. Before we replaced the sofa that made it possible, he used to try to entice me to play with him and his squeaky ball. If he did not meet with immediate success and found me sitting on the sofa, he’d grab the outrageously noisy ball and run along the tops of the back sofa cushions till he was behind my head. Then he’d lean down and squeak the ball first by my right ear and then by my left. And some people doubt whether dogs have a sense of humor.
My friend Tesla, a border collie, lives with Sue. Tesla is far too responsible to be goofy, but does do something endearing. She loves children, absolutely adores them. When given permission to approach children, she plops herself down on her stomach and creeps over to them. “See how small and not-scary I am? You want to pet me.” I saw her do this with an entire preschool once, in a park near her house. The children called to her by name, and she looked imploringly at Sue. “My peeps! My peeps!” Sue cleared it with the director, and Tesla creeped in. She was mobbed by her admirers. The best part of the whole encounter was when a little boy who had approached her with trepidation, leading with an extended index finger at the end of his extended arm, finally made one-fingered contact with Tesla, whereupon he shouted, “I did it! I did it!” He was joyful. So was everyone else, including Tesla. The pandemic has been hard on her. She hasn’t been allowed to make her usual overtures to children and, despite her clear intelligence, she doesn’t understand. Don’t worry, Tesla, this too shall pass. There are vaccines now. Victory is within our reach.
2 April 2021