He would have brought back a piano if you had thrown one in.

[herbivorous]

I've heard tell that your dog, if it is the enterprising sort, will give itself a job if you do not find a job for it to do. I believe this is largely used as a warning for people that insist on trying to keep so-called "working breeds" as lapdogs, and it's a good warning for someone that thinks a Border collie is going to have the same sort of

Comments

[the_sween]

Do you have one of these? I'm sure you've seen them...they work REALLY well...basically a tennis ball atlatl.

[herbivorous]

Yup! I thought they were silly at first, until I saw HOW FAR you can sling one of those. Enik can obviously throw it a lot farther than I can with that thing, but it lives permanently in our car. We can get the ball out pretty far into the water with it.

[hecateuse]

We still need to figure out what Pepper's job is. She's got a sense of "guard the house" which is developing nicely, but that's really just a part-time thing. I tried "guard the strawberry patch and keep the birds away from it"--but it turns out she prefers to EAT the strawberries. *sigh*

[atlanticat]

I used to know a dog who loved to eat blackberries right from the thorny canes. She was a golden and she would nudge in very carefully with her nose and just nom the berries right off the stems. The whole hedge by a certain section of the fence never seemed to have any berries from retriever height downward.... :)

[herbivorous]

That's HILARIOUS. One of the most fun things about dogs is their basically omnivorous nature. Need someone to eat an errant blueberry that's hit the floor during breakfast? The dog's got it. Small children throwing Cheerios all over? Not an issue, if you've got a dog hoovering it all up! Can't quite finish your burrito, but don't feel it's enough to save for later? THE DOG IS SO ON THAT. Whereas your average cat will mostly have a "meh" response to most People Food, or at least a highly selective response. Unless, of course, it's my sister's cat Joliet Jake, who as an ex-alley cat is utterly incorrigible about any sort of food, at any time, anywhere. Damn cat taught himself to open their toaster oven. They found out he had learned this when he stole an entire steak.

[atlanticat]

One of my cats sounds like she's Joliet Jake's long lost sister. She is also an ex-alley cat, though friendlier than most. In any case, she will happily have anything you care to give her, and quite a lot of things you don't care to give her. Of course, if you are eating and don't give anything to her, she will snag whatever you're eating with a claw when you're not looking, even steal it right off your plate if you, heaven forbid, get up to answer the door or the phone. She eats everything from pizza to marshmallows to cereal to buttered asparagus. Not in huge quantities, mind, but she'll usually at least sample anything you give her that isn't overly acidic (fruit is out). I don't have a toaster oven, but I suspect if I did she'd have figured out how to get into it...