For various reasons, including COVID lockdowns in my area, my dog didn’t get to socialise with other puppies or dogs as much as we would have liked while she was growing up. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t a “COVID puppy”, she was purchased long before anyone in the general public knew anything about the upcoming pandemic. Like I said, there were various reasons she didn’t get to socialise with other dogs.
She did, however, get to socialise with chickens, a cat and myself. Now it seems she doesn’t know how to identify.
She is desperate to befriend and play with my flock of chickens. Whilst this might not sound like a big deal, take into account that she’s a HPR (Hunt, Point, Retrieve) breed so trying to befriend rather than hunt the chickens is slightly unusual. Granted I had to tell her “no” on numerous occasions when she was young and I first got the flock but she was more excited than anything and to this day still wants to play with my chickens. Not in a “let’s play break a neck” sort of way either. She’ll run up to them with one of her toys, the problem is that the chickens don’t understand the game.
This is probably more dominant than the chicken part to any onlooker. Firstly, she’s always been obsessed with flecks of light or bits of reflected light. I did have a laser pointer but the battery seems to be on its way out so the laser beam isn’t particularly strong. However, when she spots any kind of speck of light, she’ll do anything she can to get to it. When I say anything, this includes chasing it to pounce on it or even climbing furniture to try and get to something she’s seen on the ceiling.
When she does sleep, or she’s asked to settle down, she’ll also often settle across my shoulders or chest or alternatively, snuggle up to my feet. This is something, in my experience, that cats often do and something that the cat that she had common interactions with would do.
She seems to have a nose for mice or any vermin. Once she’s caught the scent, it’s hard to pull her off it. There have been quite a few occasions where it’s led to something. As and when she’s caught something, I’ve done my best to get it off her in exchange for a treat.
Another cat-like feature that she possesses is that she can and will climb. Running around, you wouldn’t think that this dog has any limb coordination, however, she’ll balance herself, stood, on the back of the sofa after she’s managed to knock the cushions off. She’s balancing herself, somehow, on something that is just a couple of inches wide. That’s not all she’ll climb though, she’ll also climb fence panels. She’s constantly trying to show me the creative ways that she can get out of my garden, I’m constantly trying to stop her and apologising to my neighbours.
To say my dog identifies as part human does sound a little odd. However, consider the following…
She’ll often balance on her back two legs and move about on these if she’s trying to peer over something or get a better view.
We’ve had literal shouting arguments. Admittedly, this was predominantly during lockdown when it was just me and her, however, I was yelling at her because she was misbehaving and she would simply bark back at me. She’ll often bark at me when she’s excited about something or when she knows we’re doing something she enjoys, in our daily routine.
While we consider the above, when I take her to the office, she’ll ensure that she goes around and says good morning to everyone, she’ll introduce herself to any new employees and bark at any employees who are eating at their desk but not sharing their food.
I recall that there was one occasion where I was sat in the car thinking “they say that dogs speak a different language, I wonder if she speaks French (the only other language I can really have a punt at)”. I gave her a command and she responded straight away, I was astounded. Now there seem to be certain days where she’ll respond to English, other days where she’ll respond to “Franglais”, I’m trying to draw on my completely underused GCSE French so I wouldn’t profess to be completely fluent. How do I figure out which language she’s responding to on what day? I test it and see.
With the above in mind, I try to apply an accent that I imagine would be keeping with where her breed comes from. I don't actually know what the accent sounds like in real life to be honest and it probably comes across as German more than anything else, she’s not not a German Shepherd.
Each day varies greatly with her. Aside from all the above, she’ll also empty any bins that she can and she’ll eat absolutely anything. When I say anything, I mean anything. She seems to love board markers or highlighters at the moment, however has eaten half a pack of staples previously (how is that tasty?). I then had to feed her cotton balls to soak them up, the tutorial suggested soaking the cotton balls to get the dog to swallow them, I didn’t even need to do that. She was happy to swallow them dry and saw it as a treat.
She constantly keeps me on my toes with her antics. However, she’s unique (hopefully!), and it’s always interesting to see what mode she’s in or whether she just fancies being a somewhat normal dog.
