The thing about German Shepherds....... in QUOTIDIEN

They talk. There's no Doolittle'ism in my blood. In fact, the way Beth tilts her head at me, I have to wonder if she doesn't suspect there's a hole in my bag of marbles.

At any rate, lately, she has taken up walking about the house, and whining. Short little bursts, every now and again. Sometimes, she'll increase the volume and pitch just this side of 'for Dog's ears only'. I can't find anything wrong with her, so I'm thinking its about Hubby working regularly, Anne-Marie spending so much of her time at friends' houses, and Alex sleeping days since he works second shift. That....and the cats have become quite adept at ignoring her.

This whine is different than her regular love song 'whoa whoa whoa'ing'. Now THAT freaked us out, at first. We have since concluded that this is her version of not being left out of family life or conversations.

We are also desperate when it comes to training her to NOT look at the litterbox as a snack bar. I work equally as hard getting Anne-Marie to scoop that box every day. I'm guessing AM elite e's if she waits long enough, Beth will take care of it.

Well, last night I noticed Beth was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard the familiar sound of the dome being knocked off the litter pan. I called her in my most authoritative voice, 'Beth...come!' Nothing. I called again, and here she come with clean nose. Nonetheless, I went to check the box, and while she didn't get around to snacking, she was definitely setting her table, so to speak. I spent the next 5 minutes having hubby offer her snacks from inside the room where the box is, and me saying 'LEAVE IT' and offering her a higher value treat, until she didn't even look at hubby in that room. We'll see how that goes.

After all that was done, she went and got her super-sized tennis ball and stood before me. Her ears were perked and her expression said, 'Wanna play ball, Girl? Huh? Wanna play ball?' And just as I went to take the ball, she promptly turned about, pranced over to her water bucket, and dropped that ball in, then went to lie down on her couch.

I reckon that in that one act, in Dog, she done referred to me as a female of her species.