A herd of pugs, dressed in colorful harnesses and circling around each other at the dog park, stopping in front of a watching human for a pat or a drink of water, seem far removed from the ancestral wolf pack. Most will never mate and if they do, the bitches need Caesarian sections. The hunting instinct has been reduced to barking at absent-minded owners to refill the food bowls. But the drive to dominate other dogs remains.
When Puggo was about 18 months old, he attempted to hump a 10-year-old male German shepherd, who punished the pup’s audacity by biting his ear hard enough to draw blood. Although Puggo continued to run with the big dogs, he never tried that particular trick again. When he met other dogs at the park, they would sniff each other and sometimes one or the other would lay down in what seemed to be a gesture of submission. But it wasn’t until this past year that younger dogs have tried to dominate him by lifting a back leg over his rear end. Unlike the German Shepherd, Puggo hasn’t bit the upstarts. At 12, he just sits down and tries to ignore them, seemingly resigned to no longer being a top dog.
Except at home, where he remains, if not the leader of the pack, at least the center of attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment