Sunday, March 16, 2008

Do dogs get jealous?


I'm sure that I can answer "Yes" to that question. Take for instance, the interaction of Hoffa and Stella. Hoffa will visit her friend Stella for a couple of days. She gets to go to the beach, go to doggy park, and have all kinds of fun.

But when the two are together, Stella will gather up every toy and every dog bone that is around, hoard them and take them into her crate. There was one dog bone that I got at the grocery store. It was a large marrow bone with lots of meat on it. Stella wasn't interested in it at all. She sniffed it and walked away. So now over a week since the marrow bone was ignored, Hoffa comes to visit and Stella decides that she loves the marrow bone. She hovers over it. She looks at it with love. She guards it. And she won't even get in the van to go to doggy park because she wants to guard her marrow bone.

Is this doggy jealousy? It is to my mind a great example of how possessive dogs can be. And maybe it's just certain dogs and their reaction to guarding food and their crates. But it is also humorous. I have to smile at Stella's sudden interest in the marrow bone when Hoffa arrives on the scene. Aren't dogs just so like people sometimes?

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