Things I learned from my friend’s dog

My friend Fleur has gone on a 5-week jaunt through Asia and I’m looking after her two-year-old dog, Snow. I’ve never had a dog before, so the experience is teaching me a lot.

So far I’ve learned that:

• There’s a sleepy dog smell.
• You don’t have to be very big to snore like a foghorn.
• Snow has no setting between OFF and MAXIMUM POWER.
• Due to some kind of biological quirk, the phrase “Come here” cannot be detected by Snow’s ears, but she can hear the opening of a door from the other end of the house through solid brick walls.
• If you step backwards (at any time), you will stand on Snow.

I’ve also gained some insight into her thought processes. I’m pretty sure that her philosophy goes like this:

• The purpose of life is to locate humans and stand as close to them as possible.
• Disgusting = interesting.
  • Corollary A: The fouler it smells, the more it needs to be sniffed.
  • Corollary B: If it drips, if it stinks, if it does both at once, bring it in the house.
• It is uncouth to push open a slightly ajar door in order to pass through it; rather, one should sit in front of it and whine.
• When you gotta go, you gotta go.
• The grass is always greener on the other side of a closed door.
• The only thing more exciting than going on a walk is coming home from a walk, unless you’re already home, in which case the most exciting thing is going for a walk.
• If you don’t know what it is, lick it.