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Choosing Toys - What Goes On In Meg's Head?


Fee

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Meg is, in anyone's terms, a very odd little dog - and I suspect way more intelligent than my other dogs (though that may not mean a lot laugh.gif )

 

In particular, the way she chooses toys puzzles me. We have a large toybox full of assorted toys and Meg likes the soft toys and has about ten favourites (teddy, monkey, slipper, etc) that she plays with regularly.

 

What fascinates me is that when she goes to the box to find a toy, she seems to have a particular toy in mind, and she'll pull all the others (including her other favourites) out of the box until she find she one she's looking for. None of the other dogs do this, they will normally just take whatever is on top to play with.

 

Just now she was lying quietly on her bed dozing, then suddenly jumped up, ran to the toybox, rummaged through and discarded all the other toys until she found Red Lobster, which she took back to her bed, put her head on it and went back to sleep.

 

What is going on in her head? Does she have some sort of abstract concept of various toys and decide in advance which one she wants at that moment? Or is she just rummaging at random until a particular one takes her fancy? I could understand it if there was one particular favourite she was trying to find, but it's completely random which one she picks.

 

Do other peoples' dogs do this - or is Meg (as I have often suspected) just strange? unsure.gif

 

She also glares at cameras laugh.gif

 

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:laugh: :laugh: Jack will search out particular toys, which is surprising, as he can't see them and I would have thought the plush toys all smell the same? :unsure:

His favourites are the duck, pheasant, baby seal, squeaky pig, squeaky bottle and string of sausages. If he chooses one toy, we can't throw a different one and try and fool him, he will always retrieve the chosen one :biggrin:

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Meg's :wub: :wub: Kiera's got her soft ball, a present from years ago, that's her favourite, Sparky doesn't 'do' toys (which is just as well, because Kiera 'doesn't do' sharing :rolleyes:

 

By contrast, yesterday, after Kiera had run her class, she took me shopping at the toy/coat stall - she does take me, by standing still, looking at me, then at the stall and refusing to move until I move her way, bit like how you teach your dog to walk on a lead :laugh: There were a few boxes with toys on the floor and she had a good rummage through all of them, before deciding that nothing took her fancy! She did however, go systematically through one box before going to the other :)

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yep diez does this.... my pair easily have about 100 toys and their toy box is huge, she starts digging them out and as the box is deep we have to stand there and pick up each toy and show it her when she can no longer reach, when you get the right one she grabs it and runs off happy as anything and leaves you to put all the toys back :laugh: :laugh: i always thought it was really clever that she knew each toy and knew which one to get.

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Our foster boy Eric had lots of 'favourite' toys and definitely went to the pile and chose a specific one to play with each time he was in the mood for playing. He has taken them all with him in a big bag along with a couple of new ones he acquired whilst he was with us, off to his new home on Friday. Wonder if his new sister will learn to play too and pinch his 'best' ones!!:biggrin:

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Some really smart and obviously happy dogs!

 

Both of mine have fave toys, and will root throught their toy box to find them. Finn's is a snowman which is falling apart a bit so it has to be rationed and Billy's is a guinea pig from ikea! They will at times definately look through their box and select a particular toy.

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Yes, mine hunt for the toy they want and no other will do.

 

We have a store of logs beside the woodburning stove and my dalmatian will rummage through the cut logs until he finds the 'special' one, which is always near the bottom, pullsl it out carefully and delicately nibbles it, spitting the bits out.

 

Then he walks away leaving a mess behind.

 

When he was a youngster I had three china ornament dalmatian dogs- one sitting, one standing and one lying down.- which sat on the mantlepiece.

 

When we were out he would carefully lift off the standing one, which was placed behind the other two, and place it in the middle of the floor. We would find it sitting there when we came home.

 

He had to stand up on his hind legs to reach it and reach over the other two figures which were never disturbed.

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Meg :wub: Free entertainment for you anyway.

 

For Misty any toy would do

Jester was selective & would pick a particular one.

Toffee prefers to recline when indoors - walks are for exercise and only a certain type of ball will do, others are looked at distainfully.

Hobie has a a range of toys he likes but he never takes one from the box. There are alway toys around the house, behind the sofa etc

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Meg :wub:

 

One of my fave things with Dylan is to give him a choice of two toys. He will first look carefully from one to the other. Then he will rub his nose on both in a considering manner, before finally giving me the eye and mouthing the one he wants :laugh:

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