Nurhan's take:
Picture is from an aborted paragliding trip - too much wind to fly. Kin is lying in the corner of the room whilst I type this and he's snoring soooooooo loudly that I've had to turn the stereo up or I can't hear it! How come when dogs snore it's cute, but the same doesn't apply to humans!
The large hounds (Great Danes, Irish Wolf Hounds, Scottish Deer Hounds,...) lean. They come up to you and then kind of flop sideways onto you; as they have a high center of gravity and can be up in the 70 kgs region this can have quite an effect on your balance if you're not expecting it. Maybe lots of dogs lean, but you wouldn't really notice it with a terrier! Kin pushes his bum into you, this is owing to the fact that he wants you to scratch it and this seems to be the most direct way to get humans to do his tidings! This facet he shared with Karma.
What he doesn't share is nose butting!
When he wants something he butts it with his nose. He's taken to getting your attention by butting you in the leg/bum and then going up to his leads and butting them. He repeats this cycle until you either tell him to stop or take him out. Now if you think about this a bit, he's 65 kgs (145 lbs) and his nose is in line with his body, so he can get a lot of weight behind it (think police using a battering ram down at waist height, and you are on the right lines!). Lots of folk think that the bigger the dog the harder the job of looking after them. This is mainly a myth but one area where this is undoubtedly true is ignoring them! If a terrier did this to you, you'd just lift your legs, but it's not so easy with a giant breed with attitude (Kin really does know his own mind but he's a big softy and getting more and more obedient - strange the more we train the more obedient he gets, it's almost like there is a connection here!).
The back door gets this treatment when he wants to go out, s does the front door when he wants to go for a trip. His food bowl gets the same treatment! If it's been left on the floor then he chases it around the floor with his nose, if it's in the rack then the rack gets a 'good' nose butting! And treats in your pockets are by no means exempt from this behaviour!
Doubtless I could get him to stop this if I tried, but it's endearing so I don't want to.
And whilst on the subject of idiosyncrasies, here's a picture of Mel, Rob (of the Eagle flying with Jostein's HG, fame - see earlier post), & Kin. We were checking out the conditions to see if it was possible to fly, notice the large amount of gortex in this picture, wind is oscillating over 7 m/s and the temperature is a balmy 4 degrees C (23 feet/second, 39 deg F). Now Norwegians are famous for wearing sandals and socks... (Mel's Canadian).
Post script note:
To be fair to Rob, it's not unusual in Norway to wear socks and sandals (especially in the office) as it's more comfortable and often you think that you are just nipping out the car for twenty metres or so an find yourself an hour later still walking through boggy ground... But the full on gortex look, with sandals was just too good an invite not to make fun of!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment