Dog Oberservations

The dogs are a pair of Labradors. They are mostly white in color with a little yellow cast at the shoulders and down the back. The noses are pink. Their names are Molly and Lily. At this writing they are about 5 months old. They were strays picked up by Terry's mother, kept for a while, when the owners could not be located we adopted them.

This morning it was cool, about 74, low humidity and very comfortable outside. I took my last cup of coffee and went out on the porch to enjoy the morning air. The dogs behavior has been easier to control so I let them out so they could enjoy the day also. Molly went down on the ground and lay just in front of the porch, Lily lay on the porch near my chair. Within a short period of time Molly decided she might like a little romp so she picked up an old face towel we have outside for them to play with. Lily immediately sat up, ears alert, eyes focused on Molly. The invitation was made, but not accepted at this point. Molly then spied a clump of weeds and root ball and jumped on that beginning to tear it apart. That was too much for Lily who came off the porch and wanted a piece of the action. So now we had a little game of keep away going on. Abruptly Lily broke off the game and grabbed another nearby towel, bunched it up in her mouth and began seducing Molly to play. Lily positioned her head in front of Molly's to entice her to grab the towel, when that did not work she began to swipe the towel on the top of Molly's head. Finally after some coaxing Molly took the bait and grabbed the towel. Lily let go and Molly, towel in mouth rolled away from Lily to keep the towel away from Lily. That was just what Lily wanted, she immediately jumped on the wad of weeds and took off with the intended prize all along. Molly followed and we had a tug of war over the weeds. Finally the weed ball broke apart sufficiently so it lost their focus of their interest.

Exploring the yard Molly came upon one of our apple trees. Finding an apple on the ground intrigued her and she began to bat it around. After a few minutes she decided it was worthy of sport so picking it up she pranced toward Lily who was exploring the base of one of our Pecan trees. Lily decided that they should have a rollicking game of "Apple, Apple, who's got the Apple." The dog without the apple would place her muzzle along side the dog with the apple, then cocking her head so her muzzle went under the head of the dog with the apple the head would twist up forcing the dog on top to raise its head and open its mouth. Then a little further twist would bring the canines into play and sometimes the apple would pop out and the other dog would have it. Then the wrestling would continue. Back and forth Molly and Lily went, one dog had the apple then the other. If one held the apple to long she would drop the apple on purpose to motivate the other dog to go after it. It appeared to be away of extending the game. It was kind of like as long as each dog got a turn at having the apple the other was willing to play.

Finally Molly decided she wanted to eat the apple. Perhaps it had nutritional value as the body of the apple got softened in the play and the juice didn't taste too bad. So Molly became very possessive and ate the apple. Lily wanted some, but Molly growled and protected her prize. They would end up barking at each other as though one were scolding the dog with the apple and Molly who was intent on eating the apple told Lily in no uncertain terms it was mine. Lily finally strolled off and got her own apple. Seeing the I cannot find any remnants I believe they each ate their apple.

So ends this observation. Very interesting.