So tonight I sent Shakespeare to fetch a dinner bucket, as I often do. We feed the dogs in steel pails. Both Shakespeare and Laev will retrieve buckets when necessary; Inky will happily carry her bucket full of food to a more private dining area, but she as yet has no idea that it can also travel empty. That’s Inky….
As I needed three buckets and he can’t manage more than one at a time, I followed Shakespeare down to where we’d fed last night. This is how I saw him trot into the bedroom and pick up the small pail in which he’d had his dinner the night before. He dropped it, though, and turned to Laev’s larger pail, picking it up and carrying it all the way back to the kitchen.
I really can’t say that I know he was consciously thinking of deliberately retrieving the pail which could hold more, but it was quite amusing to watch.
While we were filling the buckets, the dogs were to lie down in the kitchen and wait. Shakespeare briefly broke his down to reach for an abandoned chew which Laev had carried out of her crate — she was happy to drop it for the prospect of dinner — and immediately lay down again with the chew beneath his paw for safekeeping. Now THAT was deliberate…!
