Shephard's Tell

Shephard may be many things, but a poker play he is not. This dog has absolutely no poker face. It makes it really easy for us to know if he is being naughty or minding his own business.

Several weeks ago, Shephard chewed a hole in our rug in the living room. Its not too terribly heartbreaking as it is a cheap Target rug. We wont replace it until we are certain this too has passed, so for now, we have a semi naked rug in our living room.

From Shephard Meets World

Last night Jeremy was sitting in his office and it was a "too quiet" moment. He got up to investigate and found S strangely close to the original hole in the rug. Jeremy approached and S quickly put his head down on the rug to cover the hole (that he was ahem, chewing on again) and looked up at Jeremy with what we call the "sad eyes", like he had been doing nothing wrong, as evidenced in this picture:

From Shephard Meets World

Jeremy redirected and moved on. "Too quiet" quickly rolled around again and this time the minute Jeremy stepped into the living room, S hightailed it away from the rug and looked at Jeremy like: "who me? I wasn't doing anything!".

This morning, S found an errant sock in our bed. S likes to sit at the top of our staircase as it affords him a good view of me straightening my hair and getting ready for work in the morning. I however, need to bend down to see him in this position. Today I could see his paws but again, "too quiet". I bent down to catch a glimpse and barely saw the sock in his mouth as he hightailed it into our bedroom. Now, I am a bad owner and decided I didn't have the 30 minutes I knew it would take to retrieved said sock, so I just let him go. Several minutes later out of the corner of my eye I catch him army crawling down the stairs so he was fully in my view, sock in mouth. I turn and look at him. This dog literally shakes the sock at me. Yes, my dog knows how to push my buttons. I flinched at him and he ran away with it again. My lazy tactic may have worked because he eventually forgot about the sock and I didn't engage with him when he was being naughty and clearly wanting me to run after him. I had forgotten about the incident until he just wandered into the living room with it.



A dog bored and not getting enough exercise? Seems so on the surface; however, this is an example of the challenge of Shephard. Even after an afternoon of playing with Stella he will do this. He is a constantly anxious animal. Dubbed "busy" by one of my coworkers in fact. He is a busy, busy dog.

The moral of the story here is that although he may present us with challenges we will always know when he is being naughty. No poker face.