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| Daisy |
I was awakened this morning on my day off by the Speaker of the
House. We have four dogs. If one or more
of them needs to go outside to take care of essential business, or if they
decide that we’re late getting breakfast or supper, they will let us know with
a bark. The thing is, it is always just one dog. They never all bark at once –
except when there is an unexpected visitor coming into the house, or suspicious
activity outside the house. Somehow they work it out among themselves as to who
will be the one to communicate to the People of the House that they have
important business to take care of. My wife has dubbed the one who barks as the
Speaker of the House.
This morning the Speaker of the House was Daisy, our yellow
lab. Sometimes it will be Mike, our little “Heinz 57” rescue. Mike is bright
and full of energy, always ready to run and play. Other times it may be Martha,
our little terrier mix whom we acquired from the pound as a pup for our
daughter some 14 years ago. If you read my essay, “Living with Virtue: A Tribute to Mr. Higgins,” Martha was the little tyke that was welcomed and nurtured
by the extraordinary Mr. Higgins.
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| Mike |
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| Martha |
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| Felix |
Very rarely, Felix will be the Speaker of the House. Felix
is another rescue dog, a Chihuahua mix. Felix didn’t really know much about being
a dog until he joined our pack. My wife saw him wandering about the parking lot
at the local gymn one rainy evening. When she spoke to him, he hopped right into her car. We never found his owner and later decided he must have been dumped.
Felix came to us thinking that all there was to do in life was to eat and sit in someone’s
lap. Thanks to our other dogs, especially Mike, he has learned to run and toss
and tumble. Since he and Mike are both
boys, roughly the same size and about the same age, they have become great
buddies. On one of those rare occasions when
Felix was the Speaker, it was 5:00 a.m. I had to be at work at the hospital, and
normally would have been up by 4:45, but I had forgotten to set the alarm. That
morning I was grateful that Felix had spoken when he did.
Getting back to the Speaker of the House phenomenon, I’m not
sure exactly when that started or how our dogs decide who speaks, but it seems
to be a rotating designation. Years ago,
when Daisy and Martha were our only dogs, Daisy would never bark inside. I don’t
know why. She would bark outside, often too much, but would never make a
sound inside. She knew that barking was the way to get our attention, so when she
needed to go out, she would walk over to Martha, get her attention by ducking
her head and giving her a certain look, at which point Martha would jump up and
bark to let us know that dogs needed to go out. After we went from two dogs to
a pack of four, Daisy at some point realized that she could bark in the house
when necessary. Perhaps someone on the Animal Planet or some other source of
information on animal pack behavior can explain how or why they do it, but I
often marvel at the arrangements our animals seem to make among themselves.
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| Daisy & Martha: They always make the Buddha laugh |
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