Here's Blondie

  The dogs can get in & out of my neighbor's yard at will. From where I stand it looks impenetrable. Blondie comes bouncing up my driveway, she looks happy. Her taill is wagging and she's doing a silly half ass canter. She takes a friendly "rrhagg"nip at Stormy as she goes by her friend and companion with a semi playbow she's back on course to our house.
  With low tail wags & squeals she greets my husband. She jumps up and licks the air. We don't allow the dogs to jump on us. Blondie knows the rules. Her happiness meter seems high today; maybe it's all the post partum hormones. Kirt goes into the house to get her some breakfast. She knows I am outside. She races around the house to me. When the yellow girl greets me her tail wags are lower, but her head higher. The sound she makes is more of a " yyaurrgh" It's not as squeaky as she does with Kirt. She wiggles and squirms between my legs, then around me a couple of times. Her condition is good. No signs of mastitis. Looks like she may have finished expelling the after birth. Her vulva looks clean nothing oozing.
  Stormy remains down by the neighbor's guarding the gate. He hears the feeding going on at my house and doesn't come up to join. He is still in front of the gate where Blondie left him.
  Sometimes I think that many years from now when we are a much wiser race, we'll understand the language of our cousins the dogs. I've studied dog behavior for years. I thought I knew so much, but since coming to Puerto Rico I've seen the dogs behavior when they are left to their own devices. Their communication is so much more complex than I could ever guess, when we humans run the show.
  Back in Illinois I've seen my dogs be cooperative in amazing ways, so I should have been more aware, but here the things I watch aren't colored by my wants and expectations, so its different.
  Blondie is back whith the puppies and here comes Stormy. His style seems to be the standing there staring at you. "I am here. I am hungry. You know what I want. Read my mind." Lord, he is such a guy. I'd better go take care of him. I' m well trained and he knows it.