An Astute Maremma

By Penny Whatley

They say that possession is nine tenths of the law and that certainly applies with our dogs. I regularly give our dogs large marrow bones, (our garden sometimes looks like an animal graveyard!) which are delivered by our butcher with our meat order every few weeks. The dogs wait in anticipation whilst I unpack the order then rush outside. I throw the bones randomly and leave them to sort it out amongst themselves.

Indi loves fresh marrow bones whilst Haze and Guido look at them with disgust, they have to be a mite smellier before they will consider chewing them. However, since Indi came on the scene, things have changed somewhat. Because she is at the bottom of the pecking order, Haze feels honour bound to grab her bone and chew it, but we can see she is only doing this under duress! She soon loses interest and wanders off. At this point Indi grabs all three bones and refuses to give them up. This is where the above law comes in.

Haze has devised a means by which she can gain possession of her bone without confrontation. Tony and I have watched this happen time and time again. She raises her head then shoots off down the garden barking madly, followed of course by Guido and most importantly, Indi. Then whilst they are looking for the reason for her barking she doubles back and races back for her bone. It never fails, clever dog.

Over the past few months as Indi has matured there have been quite a few occasions when she has challenged Haze for the position of top dog. Again Haze is very astute, she is well aware that Indi is in fact physically stronger than her so she deals with it by simply ignoring her and not rising to the challenge. A typical example of this is when we're out walking and I make them do a Sit and Wait. I walk away some thirty feet then turn and call them for a small piece of liver cake. Indi immediately tries to head Haze off so she can reach me first but Haze completely ignores this and although she may be the last one to reach me she always gets her titbit first followed by Guido then Indi last. The time may come where Indi takes over the position of top dog and I shall accept this, to do otherwise would cause a great deal of trouble between them.