Friday, March 28, 2008

Gertie the Geometrist

The first time it was funny: One evening as I entered the living room from the kitchen I noticed that young Gertie the pup had placed a variety of dog toys into a very close approximation of a circle. I showed Fellow Traveler. We both laughed. What a cute coinkydink! "You're a smahhhht li'l girl!" we praised.

Then, last week, FT called me at work in a state of excitement: "You will not believe this!" she exclaimed. "Gertie has pulled toilet paper all the way from the bathroom to the living room, and she has her toys placed all along the toilet paper at intervals, like she's weighing it down!" Well...hmmmm. Maybe that's not a coincidence.

Last night, when I got home from a church meeting, I found Gertie's latest toy arrangement: Her several loofah dogs, placed end to end, interspersed with her other chewy favorites, making a graceful "S" curve on the rug.

Now, we would much rather have a smart dog than a stupid dog; but -- and maybe this is just our speciesist bias speaking -- it's kind of frightening to live with a dog whom we suspect may be smarter than we are...at least in terms of geometry.

4 comments:

Dorcas (aka SingingOwl) said...

Wow! I don't know what to think of Gertie!

Wendy said...

I wonder what she is spelling?

chartreuseova said...

Our dog stopped at making lines of neatly placed (and often matched up) shoes across the top of the stair landing, but I still suspect he is smarter than us. And he has us well trained. He looks at the clock & we get his dinner.

RevAnne said...

What an amazing dog! Our WonderMutt is smarter than we are and pretty manipulative, too, but he's sweet and a really good boy. Hope your Gertie's a good girl, too.