Only dogs

We have two dogs. Choo, now going on 10 years, is a German Shepherd mix who had arrived via our friend, Tony Pires, who spotted her in Brazil and realized she was perfect for us, looking for a dog.  Jet is a black Belgian Shepherd that Annette and I got about three years ago through my long-time friend Vic Fernandes in Barbados.

We had gone over there with a portable pet-carrier that my GT friend Syeada Mandbodh had loaned me.  Because she was, literally, jet black, except for her legs and her belly, and because she was always moving at high speed, I quickly christened her “Jet,” while her German Shepherd partner who came before her, got the name “Choo” – as a pup, she chewed everything in sight, except us. So Choo, full grown now, was in charge of our yard, when LIAT brought us back from Barbados with Jet as a pup, however I knew better than to just show up one day with a new dog. I picked up Jet in her portable kennel at Ogle, and Annette met me at the Seawall with Choo in the other van. The introduction there, on neutral ground, was brief, with the normal sniffing and circling, but none of the uproar that might have resulted from them meeting on Choo’s home turf. From the start, they were pals, and they are now fixtures in our lives, each with their own attributes. Choo is the lady of the duo, and Jet is the tornado, although, of late, Choo is getting wary of Jet’s aggressiveness and will often growl a warning “lemme alone” when Jet starts to sniff around.

           As I have repeatedly said on social media and in this column, “dogs are the best” in their ability to interact with humans, adapt to our various devices, make themselves at home in our vehicles, and to generally become part of the family landscape. If you devote yourself to it, which means put in the time, you can – I don’t want to use the word “teach” – steer them or encourage them into various behaviours that add to the quality of your days and nights.

          The ricey we had in West Dem when I was growing up was not on my pet radar then. She was basically a watchdog and I did not spend much time with her. But living in Canada, and later Cayman, I had interacted a lot with my dogs, particularly the ones in Cayman, on three acres of land, and I applied what I had learned there to Choo and Jet when I moved here.  Choo is a more sedate foil to Jet’s rambunctious outbursts, but they have both learned several words that we use with them daily.  They know “lie down,” “no,” “come,” “stay,” “move” and “upstairs” but they also read your body language or your tone of voice to know when you’re just talking as opposed to when you mean business, and they take in your behaviour. If I come to the front door of the house, for example, and reach for the car keys, Jet instantly goes into overdrive and when the door opens she’s out like a shot, usually with Choo trailing, so that by the time I get to the van, they’re standing there, agitating to be let in – they love going for drives. Inside the vehicle, dominant Jet tries to dictate where she sits but eventually gives in to me shouting “back” and settles down on the backseat, leaving the empty front seat to Choo.  Mind you, some days, it is a struggle, but eventually we’re off.  With the windows partly open, they will both stay anchored, except when Jet seems to want to leap through the window at some dog we pass on the roadside.

           The house rule is “no morsels for the dogs when you’re eating” but I usually manage to sneak some scraps for them as they sit patiently waiting.  When the goodies are over, however, I say “no more” and show them my empty hands and they instantly realise freeness done and they saunter away with not even a backward look. My rule is “no dogs” on the TV couch upstairs, but the lady of the house will occasionally ignore it when I’m out of the room to cuddle up with Jet for a few minutes. The minute she hears me returning, however, Jet will immediately bolt from the couch to her spot on the floor, staring at me with her “who me?” look before I can say “get down.” A dog lover by the name of Jean Rodrigues wrote recently on FB that her dog knows the word “treats.” She said: “He likes to go outside and then ignore you when you call him to come in, unless he hears the word ‘treats’ …then watch out; he will come flying in.”  Jet does a similar thing: when I come home and open the gate to drive in, she has been known to charge over to the dog behind the fence across the street, or even wander off toward the seawall, so I patiently trained both dogs to understand “inside,” pointing as I say it, and they will follow the instruction – some days more quickly than others – and are safely in the house as I drive in. They sleep in the balcony upstairs at night, and quickly came to know the word “upstairs”, galloping very happily up the staircase as soon as they heard that word.

            Mettai is another trip; they both love the stuff, so I keep a stock of it from Bounty in the kitchen, and will occasionally give them a piece of it when they’ve been banished to the yard. What is amazing is that, with their sensitive hearing, they pick up the sound when I open the cellophane to get the mettai, so by the time I come out of the kitchen they are there at the front-door grille waiting for their treat.  That acute hearing is also in play when you return home from a drive.  Day or night, once they’re in the yard, they know you’re coming and the two of them are parked by the front gate, when you’re still way up the road, tails wagging, waiting to welcome you home.  That’s been their behaviour for 10 years now, and we still get a boot out of it seeing that love waiting for us, day or night, dry or wet.

          Probably the most amazing behaviour of all is your pets’ ability to somehow recognise when you’re not feeling well. Time and again when that happens, to either of us, the dogs will park themselves closer than usual and remain there, not moving; they are reading either your expression or your quietness or your body language. When the flu hits and your head is like a football, Jet or Choo are stretched out under the hammock as if to tell you, “Hang in, budday; we’re right with you.”  Cats don’t come with that kind of radar…. only dogs.