Yes, we are, you can’t deny it. I’m sure you’ll protest that statement, but you can’t sit there and tell me that you’ve never done something that’s just a little bit on the naughty, evil side to your dog. Or sat by and laughed at him while he’s gotten himself caught in some unsolvable predicament. I didn’t think so. I’ll confess, I’m a bit of a sadist myself.
The old mouth full of peanut butter trick is a great example. How many of you out there have received pure pleasure from stuffing your dog’s mouth full of peanut butter, then laughed as poor old Fido desperately tries to lick to get his mouth unstuck. I mean not that it’s really horrible, the dog ends up with a treat he absolutely loves. Okay, so that one I haven’t done. My girl seems to be too smart for that. She won’t accept a whole wad of peanut butter, instead she will delicately, if not enthusiastically lick away at it, but under no circumstances will she fall for that one.
I did, inadvertantly get her with ice though. You see, Izzy absolutely loves ice. We have an ice maker in our fridge and any time anyone goes to the fridge, she’s right there, waiting expectantly that someone is going to give her a cube or two. Once she’s received her prize, she’ll run off to her day bed to sit and happily crunch away on it. After both of us came inside from playing out in the hot, early morning sun, I went to get myself a glass of ice water. As usual, she was right there, under the ice dispenser, waiting for her piece. I obliged and gave it to her. She dropped it on the floor, where it broke in two: a small chip and then the larger main piece. She managed to get the smaller piece, but then the larger piece had disappeared. I gave a quick glance around for it, but couldn’t find it. I shrugged it off and went to get her another piece.
But smart dog that she is, she knew that first piece of ice was still around. She searched around desperately for it. There was no point togetting up and giving her another piece. No matter how many I gave her, she would still know the first piece was around and would continue looking until she found it. As I watched her turning around in confusion, I suddenly spotted the ice. She had laid down to eat the smaller chip and in so doing had managed to lie down on the larger piece. It was stuck to the fur of her underbelly, in a spot that she would never be able to reach. She probably couldn’t even feel the cold of it because it wasn’t close enough to her skin. Besides, Labs are tough – they’re bred to dive into icy waters to retrieve – I doubt it would have fazed her even if it was. So instead of being nice, I sat and laughed as she circled around in desperation looking for the lost piece of ice. Eventually it fell off, hitting the floor with a crack. She stopped upon hearing the noise, looked at it a brief moment and then ate it happily. She then padded sleepily into her crate to have a snooze.