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Just a bit of a light hearted thread.  Bess showed me her intelligence today, and I was interested in what your setters do which have your jaw dropping open?

She had two hare shoulders for tea - horrible bloody things, but they are her favourite (along with rabbit).  She gets them for a treat, and I have an old blanket that I put down on the kitchen floor and she's learned that she has to lie on that and eat them, rather than getting the carpet dirty.

Well, tonight she decided she'd take the first one into the lounge to eat - I could just seem my cream rug getting ruined so yelled at her to take it back to the kitchen.  She obviously wanted our company (and who doesn't prefer eating in front of the TV? :0) ) and didn't move - so I yelled at her again to 'wait' whilst I got an old fleece out and put that down instead.

She only stood there holding it in her mouth until I put the fleece down under it.  She then put it on the fleece and proceeded to eat it.  Five minutes later she got up, went out to the kitchen, got the second one and brought that back in and put that on the fleece to eat that one.

Now I couldn't have taught her that trick, but somehow she's cottoned on that mum goes a bit silly unless there's a blanked or something under certain foods. 

No other breed I've had would ever have had a clue what to do in this situation! 

 

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There was a fun example of the IS's quick grasp of situations just this weekend.

We visited a good friend and her dog over the weekend. They have a two story appartment and her dog never learned to walk down the stairs. He is straight out scared by the idea of walking downwards on them.

He is a very playful chap and quickly took a fancy to biting my dog Abby's ears and trying to make her join his games (playful, yes, but not chivalrous - this does not sit too well with a courteous Setter) - so when Abby learned, that wrinkling her nose was not enough to make him stop, she tried to leave and find a safe spot upstairs instead. Sure enough, he followed, so she fled back downstairs. The dog's mistres had to take him back down when he started whining on the top of the stairs.

This single short event was enough for Abby to grasp the situation. For the whole rest of the weekend whenever her new friend became a little to obtrusive, she would walk up the stairs, wait for him to follow and walk down again, leaving him behind, wailing on top of the staircase.

She is clever. And cruel.

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