My mom says the dog believes my dad is the smartest one in the house -- when she whines for something and begins her charades of "Look, my bowl is empty. Look, there is the bag of food," Mom tells her to go lay down and Dad will fill the dog food scoop.
I've lived with an animal for years and years, but it still takes a little time to remember how to do it when I visit her.
Example: I drive up. She's sitting in the yard and wants to come see me. However, she's managed to wind her grazing-rope-leash around a bucket of water and she's confined to a 10-square-foot area.
Example 2: Everyone is in bed, so I head downstairs to the guest room. The dog is also stretched out, snoozing on her fleecey bed. Not two minutes later as I enter the pitch-black bedroom, I hear a rustling behind me. She heard me digging in the jar of -- her favorite -- honey-roasted peanuts and she snapped into action. I throw her a few intermittently, show her my empty hands and say the magic words: "All gone!"
When you have a vacuum-on-legs, you don't have to worry about potato chip crumbs or loose popcorn kernels, or meaty gristle. Whenever the dog comes in from her grazing/surveying of the premises, she heads straight up to the kitchen to review the latest spills. (Deliberate spills in her presence must be preluded with the word "oops." When you use the word in other contexts, she still comes running.)
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