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I'm not kidding. We've long suspected our Pomeranian, the self-described "leader" of our dog pack, always knows when it's time to go on their "last out" for the night, which preceeds their nightly cookies. At ten o'clock, no matter what we're doing, he pops out and gets the other three dogs riled up and ready to do their nightly trip into the yard.
When the time change occured, he seemed a bit confused, but at 10 o'clock, as usual, he popped up and let us know it was time for the "last."
You have to keep in mind, this is the dog that probably understands more of the spoken language than any I've ever met. We have to talk around things rather than say things out loud half the time because he catches on really quick. He knows what "shots" are, and will hide if anyone mentions "bath" or "brush."
Tonight we were watching House and paused the DVR, freezing the digital display with the PAU on the DVR display rather than the clock. I realized what time it was at about 10:08. He was sitting in his usual place under my wife's chair, in line of sight with the clock. He couldn't tell what time it was, so he was a bit surprised when I said it was "about that time." He popped out, looked at the display, and then looked at me like "hey, what's THIS about?"
I keep testing our theory in every way I can because it's so hard to believe. This dog is SMART. Well, they're all pretty smart, in their own way. The two bigger dogs are primitive breeds, so they're they're not smart in the same ways. The Pom knows what a phone is for. He's the ONLY dog in the house that doesn't look like I'm nuts when I hold it up to his ear when mom's on the other end. He cocks his head and listens, and gets excited. The others...not so much.
The Jindo is the guard dog who patrols the perimeter of the yard every night and stays by mom's side any time she is outside, particularly after dark.
The Shiba is cunning. He stands outside the dog pack structure by choice. My wife and I are the alphas--he doesn't care about what position the other dogs take. If there's a conflict, he screams for one of us to intervene.
The Min-Pin is sharp about comfort things. She's always alert for an open lap and when someone's heading for bed. She sleeps with whoever's goes to bed first. Our house isn't kept particularly warm, so she has to wear clothes throughout much of the winter. Her preference is that mom dresses her, but at bedtime, it's Dad's job to undress her. She doesn't believe that this system should be disregarded.
But I can't believe the Pom can tell time. That's just amazing, but everything points to that being precisely the case. Too weird.
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