Charley Wags

Charley seems to wag his tail a lot more than Lina. What does that mean, in dog speak? There are lots of different tail wags, actually. There’s a flag. Lina will sort of flag her tail when she wants to get a male dog’s attention. She also has a slow wave when she’s taunting one of our other dogs. Charley has a wag that’s somehow different. It reminds me of the wags of other breeds, like maybe a lab. It seems out of character for the Poodle breed to wag so much. Maybe Charley’s still getting settled in and is so happy to see the same faces come back after we’ve been away. It could be the adult version of what we see puppies do when they wag so hard their entire back ends move. The other possibility is that Charley is again different than any of our other dogs. It seems incredible that we could have five Standard Poodles in our life so far and each of them is completely different than each of the others in their temperament and behavior. I expect such uniqueness in humans, but for some reason it surprises me in dogs.

My breeder mentioned a new book, The Genius of Dogs. I think I’ll look into it. My knowledge of dog behavior comes mostly from my archaeologist dad, and I’m sure it predates at least some of the science in this latest book.