Ray Logic!

First, just a note to say that yesterdays Post was taken down as the subject matter suddenly became rather sensitive and complicated.

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I love to watch Ray as he rationalizes things out in his own canine way. He sees things very literally.

Some time ago now when doing separation training with him, we realized that he saw the front and back doors of our home as totally disconnected objects. i.e. He was moderately happy with us leaving by the back door, but distinctly unhappy if we used the front door. One possible explanation could be that if we were going anywhere in the car, we would use the back door. Our initial attempts regarding separation training were done with using the front door. It is easy to see how he could rationalize that one door is better than another, even though to us they effectively serve the same purpose!

Part of Carol’s rehab program is an exercise routine which includes “stair stepping”, which she has done by using our Wii system’s balance board sitting on blocks (made for the job!) to raise its height to about 5″.  She recently wanted to add a little extra height to the exercise and so we thought that the basement stairs would be ideal. She duly went down the stairs and used the bottom step to do her on/off step routine.

Ray has often see us going up and down those stairs. He waits for me at the top of the stairs early in the morning, and tends to chill out at the top if either one of us is down there.  To get the full understanding of this Post, you have to put yourself in Ray’s position and see what he sees. He sees either me or Carol coming up the stairs, but what does he really see? He sees much more than just us coming up towards him. He sees us lifting our legs and feet to reach the next step!

Now visualize Ray at the top of our stairs, with Carol at the bottom doing her stair stepping routine. He sees her repeatedly lifting her legs and feet…. but never makes any progress up the stairs!

As Carol explained later, his facial expressions were priceless as he was clearly trying to work out what was happening. We’re going to repeat the exercise, and have a camera ready this time so we can capture the moment!

 

14 thoughts on “Ray Logic!”

  6. My old cat Jake was about 4 or 5 when he realized that the front and back doors came into the same house. If he was in the front of the house, he wouldn’t come in the front door but ran around to the back to come in. The day he realized it, his facial expression (for a cat) was priceless. I can imagine Ray’s brain working hard to figure out what was going on. Pets are so precious if you take the time to observe.

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