[ExI] ep again

[spike at rainier66.com]

My next door neighbor's dog is a rescue animal, mixed, but with ancestors
clearly Scottish shepherd and English shepherd, the last several generations
of which never saw a sheep.  Somehow this dog gets a most puzzled look
whenever she sniffs my wool pants, with instincts calling to her but not
really explaining what to do.

 

I saw something yesterday with was most interesting.  One of her friends is
a big overweight Australian Labradoodle, as much flabby as fluffy.

 

https://www.dogbreedinfo.com/australianlabradoodle.htm

 

When these two bitches get together, they play in a way I don't see when the
shepherd is in contact with other dogs in the park.  These two run in
concentric circles, with the athletic shepherd on the outside and the Aussie
blobbing along on the inside.

 

It occurred to me last night why this might be: the lab kinda looks like a
sheep.  Her friend runs around outside, attempting to herd her fluffy friend
to the center of a non-existent flock.

 

Dogs bred for a job and now serving as pets must be so confused by their own
instincts.

 

Keith talks about evolutionary psychology, which is really in some ways the
human equivalent of the unemployed working dog.  Perhaps we, like our pets,
are vaguely compelled to do odd behaviors, to follow the puzzling
instructions of our own feelings, somehow genetically encoded by evolution. 

 

spike

 

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