Dukee Plays Nice

We teach kids to play nice, and to share, and boy! is that a trial sometimes! It can be a pretty reluctant paradigm into adulthood, as well.

Dukee is the most recent addition to our family. He's a long, immensely broad dog with a couple of other nicknames - "the walking ottoman", and "flower pot" (because his head tapers like a it's a flower pot, placed open end onto his shoulders.

We have a houseguest this weekend, Jed, a former student of mine from Texas. I'd told him about Dukee's more interesting habits, such as his propensity to push pieces of kibble through the wires of his crate for Ladron, on of my service dogs (a heeler), to find.

Jed smiled politely.

Well, last night Dukee took things into his own paws, and upended his entire dish, forcing most of the contents out of the wires. Ladron thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

Dukee did two things, I think perhaps deliberately, that one does not expect from dogs. First, he shared. Second, he made a larger gesture on that occasion to prove a point (the evidence for this is arguably weaker, but it's still within the realm of possibility).

What do you think? Will dogs share, taking well-defined actions like this? Do they understand emphasis? Do you have any stories of your own?