Our Pack

Halle, who always did
manage to land on her feet

My sister told me about a TV programme she had watched recently which detailed some of the finer points of animal behaviour.  She eagerly explained that the infamous three second memory of the goldfish is in fact a myth, it now being known that they can remember things for four whole months and are capable of recognising their owners.  She also earnestly informed me that cats do not always land on their feet so it is best not to test that theory.  Unsurprisingly though the most interesting nugget of information to my mind was about dogs.  

Being the owner of two dogs I have often had to wait whilst one had a wee on an innocuous looking tree stump following immediately by the other over exactly the same spot.  As it was always Barry after Gerty, and he is higher up the pecking order in our pack, I had always assumed that it was him asserting his dominance and proclaiming ownership of his territory.  Apparently not.  What dear Barry is doing is telling all other dogs in the vicinity how big his pack is.  He is proclaiming: "There are two of us so come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough!"

Sniffing out the right spot

This notion tickled me, not least because a pack size of two is hardly anything to write home about.  So, as one does to fill the voids in conversation, I repeated this fact to several others and finally to my husband who was mutually amused and entertained.  

A few days later on his day off from work and therefore my day off from walkies my husband returned from said walk and whilst brewing a cup of tea, nonchalantly mentioned that he had again observed the practice of double urination and had had to quell an instinctive urge to participate in a bid to exaggerate pack numbers.  This tickled me too.

Our Pack