{"id":2224,"date":"2011-01-20T11:01:08","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T19:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midlifedog.com\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2011-03-10T10:21:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T18:21:29","slug":"a-dog-who-knows-words-who-cares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/a-dogs-life\/a-dog-who-knows-words-who-cares\/","title":{"rendered":"A dog who knows words? Who cares?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mom just read me this article from the New York Times. Sit. Stay. Parse. Good Girl!<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently there’s a border collie on the East Coast who knows over 1000 words. <\/p>\n

“See, Gracie?” she said. “I need to work with you on learning more things. So far you haven’t fully mastered coming when called. Don’t you feel a little…um, underachieving?”<\/p>\n

Who’s kidding who? I never feel like an underachiever. I am a Canine Urban Princess – a CUPPIE in good standing. I don’t need to learn all those words. I just follow Cathy’s actions. <\/p>\n

In fact, I am actually almost psychic.<\/p>\n

Yesterday my mom was going out in the evening. She just signed up to take an improv class up at Jet City Improv. Fortunately I can’t go because I realize this is yet another activity at which my mom will fail to excel. So far, there’s been pottery, dancing<\/a> and now…acting. She just doesn’t know when to quit.<\/p>\n

\"\"But I digress. We went to the park around 3 PM. My mom urged me to run and play, even though there weren’t any other dogs worthy of my attention. And I’m not getting any younger. Even our good friend Lindsay noticed I’m getting more gray around the muzzle. Okay, I got in a few sprints. But I’m conserving my energy for tomorrow’s trip to the good park with my Aunt Sara and the nice dogs in my regular pack.<\/p>\n

So we went home and my mom pretended to work at her computer. I can tell because while she works I sleep on my special cushion, right behind her. The fat Ophelia sleeps right next to me on a separate cushion. <\/p>\n

Then the mom tried to fool me into a walk. She didn’t change her clothes. She made a big point of casually saying, “Want to go for a walk?”<\/p>\n

I wasn’t fooled. I knew this was a Walk Before Gracie Goes Into The Crate. So as we walked home I dug in my paws and looked stubborn. Everybody passing by made a wisecrack, like, “Who’s walking who?” and “Doesn’t want to go home, does she?” Some people thought I was cold and didn’t want to be out walking. <\/p>\n

Although I thoroughly embarrassed my mom, I still had to go home and yes, get stuffed in my crate. My mom put some peanut butter in my kong toy but I wasn’t fooled. I knew I was in for a few hours of serious crate time.<\/p>\n

“Gracie, there’s no argument here!” my mom said. “The vet says you’ll get really sick if you keep chewing things. You’re hardly a deprived dog. Millions of dogs would trade places with you in a heartbeat. I bet those dogs from Michael Vick’s ranch would love to be in a nice crate with peanut butter instead of fighting with other dogs.”<\/p>\n

Yeah, right. I think she’s reassuring herself. As soon as she closes the door, I scarf down the peanut butter and go to sleep. When she comes home, I’m out of the crate, tail wagging, ready to settle down for the night on my mom’s bed after our final, final walk, which I enjoy immensely and never argue about. See, I know? It’s a tough life but at least I can read between the lines. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mom just read me this article from the New York Times. Sit. Stay. Parse. Good Girl! Apparently there’s a border collie on the East Coast who knows over 1000 words. “See, Gracie?” she said. “I need to work with you on learning more things. So far you haven’t fully mastered coming when called. Don’t … Continue reading A dog who knows words? Who cares?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,43,235],"tags":[243,110],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2229,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/2229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}