Canine Intelligence

I often refer to our dogs as our "4 legged children" because they are so spoiled (by us AND our mothers).  No I do not think of them as tiny humans with fur, they are still dogs, but what puppy parents (who don't have actual children in the house) don't like to share puppy dog stories!?  With that said, here is one for ya.

Hawk, our lab, loves to play with tennis balls.  They are absolutely, hands down, his favorite thing in the world.  I am pretty sure he would rather play fetch with a tennis ball than anything in the world.  He loves tennis balls so much that we cannot keep them in the house because if he has one to play with he will do ANYTHING or knock over anything in his way in order to get to a ball.  Because he is an 80lb dog this can be a problem because he is strong enough to knock over a lot of things.  We like our house intact, and for this reason the tennis balls stay outside.  I try to keep a decent supply of them because he will chew on then until the balls breaking apart.  This is not a problem until he drops them in the pool and they sink (yes he drops his own balls in the pool so he has to get in the pool to get them).

Yesterday afternoon I let the dogs out like I always do. They ran around the yard, doing their business and whatnot.  After a few minutes I saw Hawk run back under the car port--not normal for him (if you walk under the carport he will lay down in the yard because he thinks he has to go inside).  I walked a little closer to see what he was doing and he had his front paws on the kitchen window sill.  This is where we keep the unused tennis balls.  I usually buy multipaks because he goes through them quickly in the summertime so we have a decent sized supply.  I kept watching and he grabbed the container of tennis balls in his mouth and dropped it on the floor.  He then put the container between his 2 front paws and started chewing on the lid, trying to get it off.  In less than a minute the container spun out of his grip across the carport floor and one of the balls rolled out of the container.  He ran right over to it, picked up the ball and brought it to me to throw for him!  I could not believe it!  It's one thing for him to know where we keep the balls, but to figure out how to get it down and know to pull the top off to get the ball?!?!  I couldn't do anything but laugh and throw it for him.  He was a happy camper after that!

Love this boy!