One of our dogs has this weird obsessive compulsive habit; whenever he’s bored he walks around licking the floor. Sometimes when it’s rather quiet, all you hear is the TICK TICK of his claws and the LICK LICK of his tongue. At which point we then hear “Cut it out and go lay down or chew your bone or something.” Which he does, thankfully.

As a working dog breed, he does like having things to do. Usually he assigns himself the task of finding one of John’s dirty socks in the laundry basket and bringing it to me – which we take with all gratitude, thank him profusely, and reward him with a cookie crumb or pretzel. When he can’t find socks he looks for teeny pieces of paper or those little plastic bread wrapper clips – anything that slips onto the floor. Of course, it’s our own fault for rewarding him when he does this – but he just looks so happy with himself when he brings us his ‘prize’. (If anyone doubts the validity of the theories behind ‘Pavlov’s Dog’, come talk to me. :-D)