I am not making this up. Nor did I touch the dog or his possessions. He did this.
Our 4-year Tibetan terrier Mani, whom we’ve had three years, loves Hopper, the stray young adult TT we adopted last Thanksgiving week. Inseparable. They can quarrel over toys, though.
Mani is the alpha although Hopper has 10 pounds on him (25 compared to 35). Mani keeps toys even when not playing with them. Hopper always lets him win. (They respect one another’s food, too). Once we coalesced into the larger pack, within a month, all that turned old news by now.
What is extraordinary is how Mani arranged the booty last night while the humans watched Stewart-Colbert. Geometric. Three Nylabones at his paws, a fourth behind his head and parallel to his body and lying on part of a plush tug toy, parallel to the fourth bone.
We were told early on that Tibetan terriers tend to be tidy. This wasn’t, however, anything we’d noticed before. We like the breed for its medium size and moderate energy and relatively hypoallergenic coat. Otherwise both boys tend to leave things where they dropped them, like their people.
Mani could have an artistic sense of symmetry.
My third thought last night was the dog has developed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, an otherwise human psychosis. OCD TT.
My second thought when I looked down from the sofa was Mani has seen the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. You know the scene, early in the movie, the apes receive an evolutionary (or counter-evolutionary) leap in wisdom, discovering tools, (for hunting, for food, for weapons). Our TT Mani, we better watch him, make sure those dew claws don’t develop into opposable thumbs!
My first thought? Grab the camera.
