My Good Pal Scooter

This blog post excites me so much because well, I love puppies. Particularly my own little fella named Scooter, a German Shepherd I got when I was 11. He is a wonderfully peculiar kind of dog, he understands both English and Chinese (whenever I say "walk" or "eat" in Chinese he goes crazy), and he behaves a lot like a cat (he loves to rub himself against people's legs and he loves being clean). When he was a puppy, he used to sleep on his back. When I would kneel beside him, he would put his paw on my knee. Simply put, he is the best dog ever. The best thing about having Scooter was watching him grow from a puppy. I think he displays a remarkable amount of emotion, and while many would dispute the suggestion that dogs have emotions, I believe they have a large capacity to feel and express them. Scooter is very particular about what he wags his tail to, he's not like a Yellow Lab whose tail muscles are so strong from wagging they could probably take out a small child. When we used to punish him when he did something like steal the knobs off of our stove, we would put him in his kennel. When we let him out, he would creep out, head lowered and tail between the legs. Of course after seeing this, all was forgiven. Like any other dog, he becomes ecstatic at the prospect of a game of tug of war or catch. This happiness becomes exponentially greater when he gets a treat, and he has figured out that since I always ask for his paw when I give him a treat, he's decided it would be better to give me two at once. All of these little habits and unique expressions make me believe that dogs, while perhaps not as 'intelligent' as humans, are more similar than we allow them to be.