Saturday, January 20, 2007

Instinct

Our dog has been expecting puppies. She's a shih-tzu and about 7 years old. This is the last time for puppies for that old. Labor started and I expected 3-4 tiny puppies by the morning. The father is a yorkshire terrier. By 10am she was still in labor and my wife took her to the vet for a c-section. Quite a bit of $$$$ later 8 ^ ( the only puppy was delivered stillborn and there was a little question about the survival of the mother.

That was a day ago and the mother is doing much better. She would be the dog to adopt a litter of kittens, rabbits or any other baby, but in mid-January there aren't any around our house. I figured that she's just a dog, doesn't know what was happening and would quickly forget the whole matter. What she did though, is start carrying a small stuffed squirrel with her everywhere around the house. She's careful carrying it and sleeps with it next to her. Is it instinct or do animals think more than we think they think? I asked her about it, but couldn't understand the answer through the mouthful of stuffed squirrel.