Fellow pet owners, you’ve probably run into this one before: the moment when your pet makes you look like a fool. I had mine on New Year’s Eve.
I had to work on New Year’s Day, so I wasn’t planning to go out on New Year’s Eve. But I did invite a few friends over to help me ring in 2008. We had a good time laughing and talking, playing with the dogs, and feasting on snacks.
I was telling the story of how my dogs joined the family. Lally was a stray; I adopted her from a Vermont shelter just three days after my dog Miko passed away in his sleep. Moose was surrendered to a shelter in upstate New York by his owners for being “too stubborn”. I mentioned that the people at the shelter had called him Coyote, but he’d never answered to it.
One of my friends looks over and says, “Coyote.”
Wouldn’t you know, Moose sat straight up and looked right at her. Just after I’d said he never answered to the name, he did.
We all burst out laughing. All my guests were pet owners, and they knew the trick. Just about every pet has done it: the moment when mom or dad says, “Oh, they never do this.” And then they do it. Moose couldn’t have picked a better moment to prove me wrong… at least not in terms of comedic timing.
I don’t think Moose is really stubborn, as his first family thought. I think he’s just not too smart. Another friend joked that maybe it took four years for Moose to realize that when I said “Coyote” I was talking to him. Maybe his skull is four years thick (it’s four years this month since I agreed to foster him and ended up keeping him). Maybe he just didn’t like the name. He became Moose almost by accident, thanks to some of the crazy noises he makes, and my thought that it sounded like a moose call.
But smart or not, he’s got some great comedic timing!