Four-legged heart thieves
Dogs sneak into your heart.
Each has a little trick to effect entry.
Once the trick is learnt, it becomes ingrained.
Take Jock, the jack russell.
Like all little dogs, he fond of getting on to your lap.
But lately, he's employed a new tactic.
I call it the bottom-down chest-out stance.
It's simple. He jumps up, fixes you with brown eyes, turns his back on you and, balancing on his backside, rocks back gently so that his chest is at the perfect height for rubbing.
And, yes, it gets rubbed.
Jock knows it will happen.
He's trained me, as all dogs do.
He knows I will fall for the gag - it's unbearably cute - and I know he knows I will fall for it.
In the end, it doesn't matter.
What matters is that it is mutual trust.
Tui the collie has a different trick.
A lapdog she ain't. Her trick is to roll on her back, put on a goofy expression, and coax me into rubbing her chest.
Works every time.
Yup, trained again. By the dog.
It's the same with many dog owners.
How many respond when their dog nudges their hand with their head?
Almost all.
How many respond when a dog sidles up, presses a face against a leg, and then looks up?
We think we train our dogs, and in many ways we do.
We teach them to sit and stay and to come (mostly) when called.
But they train us, too.
No doubt about it.
We know we are being duped and used and trained.
And guess what?
We wouldn't have it any other way.
Now, here's that little dog. He's a four-legged quick-witted rub-my-chest kind of a guy.
