"Play" time

I've been letting out a neighbor's dog for them mid-day while they're at work. Most times I bring Keeper with me. Rusty would like (very much!) to play rough and tumble and be the chaser, not the chased. Keeper would prefer he be polite, or be the chaser. These do seem to be mutually exclusive states of being. I may take a Setter next time.

I find her reluctance to engage with Rusty to be interesting, and the stress drool when we visit his house very indicative of her awareness of social rank. She *knows* she's on another dog's territory, and would like not to be. That I see no such stress response on walks or when she's working fascinates me. It is not the distance from our home, or the strangeness that's getting to her, it is the fact that we're in "enemy" territory, even with the "enemy" bouncing along side going "play now? Now? Now?"

When he's been over here, she's aloof because he's rude, but not stressed.

Complex instincts at work here. I'm sure I'm missing some of it, but it is very interesting to watch.

After I'd put Rusty back in his crate, we went straight to the library to grab some books, and all was right with Keeper's understanding of the world.

She's not the brightest, or the most daring, adventuresome soul, but she tries, and what she does understand, she does very well. She's steady, reliable, easy. Even when she's got great gobs of spit hanging under her chin, she still listens and works for me. I love her to pieces.