the connoisseur vs. the glutton

This morning I was preparing some breakfast-to-go of yogurt with blueberries mixed in. As is my usual custom, I let the dogs lick yogurt off of my finger before I washed my hands.

I was going to say that I let them lick a spoon, but then none of you will want to come over to my house, so never mind. I definitely did NOT let them lick a spoon.

Anyway, I was struck by the way their personalities come through in the way they licked the yogurt off of my hand. Tango, my little connoisseur, licks methodically. He looks at the yogurt, sniffs it, decides it is worthy, and then proceeds to lick from left to right, down to up. Murray, on the other hand, sees my hand approaching and starts licking. He licks the air, he licks his nose, he doesn't even stop to sniff what I might be offering, he just licks and licks and licks, hoping to catch a little bit of whatever it is in his mouth before its gone.

Their differences show up in many things. Tango is selective about where he sits, what he eats and what toy he plays with. If you try to swap the red ball for the green ball, he will plant his butt in front of you and glare and snuff at you until you throw the original red ball. Murray just wants to be near us. He is happy to go anywhere, as long as we are there. Our only battles come when he wants to lie on top of me and I'd prefer if he lay next to me. It is a nightly battle.

I even convinced my mother once that Tango was the spirit of my sweet departed grandmother. Tango can respond to some simple sentences, so when I told him to remove his toy from his pee-pee pad (indoor puppy litter box), he trotted over, picked up his toy, deposited it off the pad, and trotted off. He knows what upstairs, downstairs, couch and bed are, so if you throw those words into sentences he will likely follow along. By luck, he responded when my mom spoke Italian to him (as she did to my grandmother). My mother ran from the room with her hands over her ears because the whole thing was scaring her.

In contrast, my father-in-law calls Murray "the simple son", in reference to the Passover Seder character. He is soooo sweet, but not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed.

I love them both, and at least now I know that I'll love any kids that come my way, cute or not cute, smart or not smart. I can see the good in each of my pups.

And in the meantime, I can get lots of pictures of Murray doing this.