Yes, this is exactly what it looks like

Your eyes do not deceive you. You are seeing exactly what you think you see: Cheyenne lifting her leg to pee. It gets better: Dixie also lifts her leg. And, they all compete to see who is the last to pee in a particular spot. They will literally line up and take turns to mark on top of each other’s pee. IO may go first, then Cheyenne will go, then Dixie, and Jack. You can practically see them thinking, hurry up! I have to go!! Far be it for me to remind them that there is an entire yard they could use…

I have written before about how the animals learn from each other. This is not limited to the dogs, the cats do it too, particularly Baby Titten. She is a smart cookie and understands a lot of what goes on around her. Archie loves to sprawl all over the place, on his back, all fours in the air. Baby Titten sleeps in traditional cat positions—in a ball, or on her stomach with all her feet tucked underneath her body. Soon after adopting Archie, we would come into a room and see her awkwardly laying on her back, front legs stiffly in the air, eyes big as silver dollars, still as can be and obviously uncomfortable, but determined to copy Archie,  and thereby proving the term, copy cat.

People say an animal won’t starve himself, but Jackson is living proof that that is not true. I used to free-feed him and IO when they were little and I was of the opinion that if he was hungry, he would eat. Well, unfortunately, that premise did not hold true in Jack’s case. He got so thin that not only were his ribs visible, but so were his hip bones. At the vet’s office he weighed in at a mere 19 pounds. I was given a choice: separate him from IO at mealtimes, and give him a few weeks to see if he put on a little weight, or do tests right then to rule out things like liver failure. Although we knew more than likely he just wasn’t eating, I opted for all the tests, so that if there was a problem we could start treating it immediately. I was told by my vet to try putting broth and cheese on his food… sigh. Turns out, all tests were negative, in a few weeks he began to put on weight, and consensus was that he was being overly polite to IO, letting her eat all his food to prove his loyalty to her. She has the opposite problem with food, by the way, so if he has dog anorexia, she has dog bulimia. Over time, and many, many different foods later, he will not even consider eating his dinner without cheese on it. And if he goes too long without eating, I take him through the drive-thru and get him a plain cheeseburger, or make his new fave–chicken, brown rice and broth with a little dog food mixed in.

So fast-forward to the addition of Cheyenne. When we first got Cheyenne, she had been surrendered twice that we knew of and major trust issues. She would swallow as much food as she could at every opportunity, as though she didn’t know when she might eat again. Two years later and all of a sudden she has become picky, refusing to eat her dinner, waiting until we put cheese on it to eat it. And lately, picking out the cheese and just picking at her food. So now, here we are, putting cheese and broth on her and Jack’s dinner, and instead of being annoyed, I can only see it as good. For Cheyenne to be picky about her dinner means that she completely trusts us and knows she will never go hungry again. And that makes me incredibly glad.