Leah and I don’t have kids, but we do have dogs. Ever since I got my dog Jesse back in 1979, I have noticed similarities between the way kids and dogs behave. I’m afraid I might have offended some people who have kids by that observation, but I don’t think it says anything bad about kids or dogs. I like dogs, so I would probably like kids, at least if they act like dogs.
If you believe what you see in the movies, in television commercials and in comics, kids love to jump in piles of fall leaves. I’ve never done it, but then when I was growing up we had mainly pines. I don’t think you’re supposed to jump into piles of pine needles. Based on Zeke’s behavior, if my observational theory of the parallel behavior of canines and young humans is valid, that picture of kids jumping into piles of leaves may be accurate.
Dead leaves fill the ditch on the uphill side of Fouche Gap Road where I walk the dogs, and Zeke almost invariably ends up running through the leaves like this:
What I really wanted to get was when he rolls in the leaves like this:
I took both of these videos with my iPhone. The last one has the classic amateur photographer’s shadow in the picture. Zeke has taken his leaf bath for a lot longer than he does in this clip, but I never seem to be able to get my phone out and videoing in time to capture it.
Lucy never wants to play in the leaves. I think she is mainly interested in getting the darned walk over so she can run into the living room and jump into her bed. I need to try to get a video of that, but I’ll have to be quicker than I have been with Zeke.
We also have cats, but I have never noticed any similarity between the behavior of cats and kids. Leah, who is much more familiar with cat behavior, says she has never thought about whether cats and kids act alike. I’m trying to picture kids bringing a dead mouse to the back door. I can do it, but just barely.
Love the videos of Zeke. He’s so cute when he rolls around in the leaves.
Robin Andrea — He’s so funny when he rolls around in the leaves. He dives in and almost completely submerges. I wish I had been able to get a better one, because sometimes he spends a lot of time under the leaves.
A dog rolling in leaves around here would come out covered with deer ticks! (Well, maybe not this time of year since there’s a foot of snow covering the leaves–but you get my point.)
Scott — You’re probably right about what would happen in the summer. Fortunately, by summer most of the leaves in the ditches have washed away. Then Zeke has to settle for rolling on the sparse grass we have over our leach field.