My big, ole yellow Lab is about 5.5 years old. We named him Hoover, which the bird loves to yell, and Hoover seems to like his name, too. He no longer responds to the bird; I guess his hearing is acute enough to distinguish between human voices and the bird’s voice. I wish mine were, I keep thinking one of the kids is cranking off about something if I’m not in the room with The Big Chirp. Anyway…
1. He’s lazier than any of the rest of us. He sleeps, he naps, he lollygags around. The floor, his crate, our bed, the couches; if it’s flat and larger than a placemat, he’ll lie down on it and close his eyes. We humans are bundles of kinetic energy in comparison, even though by most people’s standards we are probably slugs.
I love the way he lollygags on couches – he will paw the pillows until he has them just the way he likes them, and if they won’t arrange themselves, he noses them off the couch altogether. He will either drape himself artistically, belly down, on the couch, pillows under his chin, and look balefully at any human present before closing his eyes, or he lies on the couch just like a human – on his back, hind legs stretched out, forepaws bent at the ankle, head on the pillow. His lips flap back, exposing his teeth a little, and his ears tend to flop outwards on the pillow. He looks as though he thinks he’s a fur boy and this is his domain.
2. He’s the happiest dog I’ve ever seen. Wag, wag, wag, smile, laugh, wag. He’s happy to see any of us, he wags when he hears his name, the words “dog” or “puppy”, he wags when he’s awake, asleep, falling asleep, just lying around wakeful, eating, watching one of us, whenever. The only times he doesn’t wag are during thunderstorms – he hates loud noises – and when you leave the house without him. Naughty! You’re going out without your dog! Bad things will happen!
3. He’s easy to train. He housetrained in only a few days after we first got him. And, yes, it’s been me doing all the training. I have taught him to come, sit, stay, shake, kiss, all with verbal as well as hand commands. He reads people pretty accurately, too. If I raise my eyebrow at him, he’ll lie down and look ashamed of himself. If I raise both eyebrows at him and tilt my head in the “mom” look, he runs for his crate. I wish my kids had been that easy to train! One of the things that makes Labs especially easy to train is their status as food ho’s of the dog universe. He’ll do anything for a treat, no matter how tiny, just as long as it smells like meat or bakery goods.
4. He moos. It’s some kind of a cross between baying and whining, but it comes out as a moo. I suppose this was to be expected, since our parrot is such a chatterbox, the universe would not allow us to have pets that do not verbally communicate, so Hoover was gifted with the expressive moo by benevolent dog gods.
He does the “here’s the door, see?” scamper when he needs to go out, but if the need is urgent, he fixes us with a pitiful look and commences mooing, with an occasional emphatic wag. If he’s in need of attention he’ll dolphin up (pass by, rubbing up against my leg and continuing on by, then repeating the process until I touch him or speak), then look up at me adoringly and let out three little yawn-moos before lying down on my feet (so that I’ll stay put, see). He “alert” moos at us if we’re not paying attention to the highly suspicious bicycle riders in the street, if the much-hated Akita is taking its owner for a drag, and if the trash thieves steal our garbage, as they generally to every Wednesday. Some mooing is prefaced with barks, but some mooing occurs all by itself.
5. He cleans my house. I think this is his most charming trait, as well as his most annoying one. I call it “harvesting”. I am responsible for him developing the habit of bringing me socks, shoes, bits of paper, dropped napkins, kitchen towels that fell on the floor, twist ties, and even wads of shed fur that have collected in corners. He picks up paper clips, toys, blocks, pencils, and pretty much anything not obviously made of metal. Then he brings it to me with an expectant look on his face, I reach for it and say “release”, and he drops it in my hand. At first, I rewarded him for his charming behavior with a tiny dog treat. Then I realized he was doing it for the treats, and would even abase his honor so far as to dumpster dive or steal stuff out of the kids’ laundry baskets in order to get a treat. I also noticed that he became aggressively helpful if his food dish was empty. So, now, about 99% of the time, I reward him with a pat or a scratch instead, which he also likes, since he’s a love/attention sponge, too.
Now if I could just get him to vacuum….
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