(107) What Do dogs Do All Day?

When I return home after work each evening or when Brad and I have been out and return home, I often wonder what the dogs have been up to. Sometimes they are so amped I think they must have been sleeping all day. Other times they are so rambunctious that I think they have been up to something mischievous. They want to romp and get my attention like the little kids when they think the best way to get you to overlook a mess is to distract you with compliments and funny acts. You just never know with dogs. Some people have resigned themselves and obtained a webcam to see exactly what their dogs do all day. This can result in some really interesting videos that we have seen on U Tube (Remember the cattle dog pushing thru the baby gate?) Sometimes I leave little things around the house for Max and Beeker to find or to puzzle through so that they are occupied for part of the day. For instance, today I left little pieces of sweet potato in three different places. One piece I placed in the dog football, one piece I placed in the Busy Buddy, and the last piece I hid under the bench in our laundry room. When I got home, the piece of sweet potato in the football was gone; the piece under the bench was still there as was the piece in the Busy Buddy. However as soon as I came in and after we greeted each other, Max went right to the bench and started scratching, trying to get to the treat. All night they both worked to trying to get the sweet potato out of the Busy Buddy. The point is that they didn’t find life boring enough to focus on the hidden challenges during the day. I do know that if I have picked up all of Beeker's toys and chews before I leave the house, they are all, and I mean ALL, will be strung out all over the house. Not one of them will be in the toy basket when I return. Some kind of happenin' has been going on!

My nephew and girlfriend found out what their Italian Greyhound was up to when they were out of town last week. Turns out that when they returned home, the IG had made two piles of their belongings. One pile was all of Eric’s shoes and the other was a pile of his girlfriend, Chelsey’s jewelry. At first this seems very odd, but actually it makes sense for a dog that loves his owners. He wanted things that reminded him of them and both the jewelry and the shoes would smell like Eric and Chelsey. When I heard this story I couldn’t believe that a dog would collect stuff of their owners. I‘ve heard that if you have to go away and leave your dogs for a while, it is good to leave something with your scent for your pet. We usually leave a T-shirt. Hadn’t thought of jewelry.

Maybe our dogs have parties (remember Go Dog Go?) or maybe they just sleep until we return. Whatever they do, they keep it to themselves and we will have to use our imaginations to figure out what they are up to.