Dear Rover,
This summer my person started taking me on this cool new trail. It has tasty cow pies everywhere! When we get close to a cow pie she tells me “leave it” and I know that means run over there and lick it. But today she got grumpy about it and told me I was gross. I just don’t get it.
How come I know what “leave it” means but my person doesn’t?
Max the Mutt in Matsqui
Dear Max,
I suspect your person has gotten her communication a little mixed up. As you know, humans have all these cue words they like to use, and she probably got the timing wrong when she was teaching you how to “leave it”. She probably said it while you were enjoying your cow-pie, so naturally you would think it means “go lick your cow pie!” You know what she really means? She actually doesn’t want you to lick the cow pie, so she should have used that cue word before you went over to lick it and given you a big tasty treat for not doing it. She’ll have to come up with something good, because it’s hard to beat a fresh cow-pie. Get your person to talk to my person. She’ll set her straight.
I bet a Tim Bit would trump the cow pie!
I love cow pies! Especially when they’re fresh.