There are several similarities between our dog children and our human children. Sometimes dogs eat things that aren’t really food. We’ve all heard of kids eating school paste, modeling clay, dead flies … the disgusting list goes on.
Human children must be trained where their, uh, waste products belong. Similarly, we train our dog children, with varying degrees of success, to do thier “business” outside. Most of all, both species love to play.
With our dog kids, their favorite game (and ours) is “fetch.” Fetching serves dual duty because the dog spends fun time with their people, burning off energy instead of eating the sofa. Some dogs, like Stella the golden retriever in this video, not only love fetching from a playtime standpoint, but are predisposed to this hunting activity.
When well-trained, they can out-fetch our human children by a long shot. Stella is so expert at fetching that she has combined it with other fun activities as well. She’s jumping in leaves which our human children LOVE to do in the Autumn months, she’s conducting a ball treasure hunt, AND playing hide-and-seek.
What a multi-tasker! In the finale, she makes herself completely prone, waiting to hear that “Good girl, Stella!”