CATHIE SHAFFER: Time to retrain the dog

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June 9, 2009

Cathie Shaffer The Daily Independent Tue Jun 09, 2009, 12:46 AM EDT

The dog is absolutely useless in a crisis.

OK, it wasn’t much of a crisis. It was more of a mini-crisis ... or a difficult moment topping a day full of them.

On television and in the movies, dogs and psychics can find anything. I’m waiting for the new reality show in which a medium with a really smart dog solves every cold case in the country.

My dog is smart enough to be on that show. She knows the name of every one of her toys and retrieves them on command: “Get alien. No, get bear. No, goose. No, duck. Ball, Maggie, ball!”

She understands the difference between “front door” and “back door” when we come in from the yard, and she has trained us all in the barter system.

When she wants a puppy treat and we ignore her, she finds something she’s not supposed to have — an ink pen, a binder clip, a roll of antacids, a paperback book — and settles down on the rug for a good chew. She knows that before her teeth sink in, we’ll be yelling “Trade, Maggie!” and offering a puppy biscuit in exchange for the found object.

Alas, acting as a search dog is not among her many talents. Unless the object has personal value for her or is herdable, she simply doesn’t care.

She can find a dusty chewbone under the couch in five seconds, or chase the cat upstairs at the first crack of thunder. But when I misplaced my watch, Maggie might as well have been a lump of stone.

My genetic coding apparently makes time important to me. My first question, whenever I come out of surgery anesthetic, is always “What time is it?” When I wake in the night, I immediately look at the clock beside my bed.

So when I couldn’t find my watch as I prepared for work, panic immediately set in. Did I have other watches? Did they have batteries? Did I know where they were?

The answers turned out to yes, no and no. The only working watch in my house was the one I couldn’t find.

“Look, Maggie,” I said, pointing to my empty wrist. “Find Mommy’s watch.”

As I retraced my steps from the night before, Maggie launched into her own search.

I looked in the bathroom; Maggie brought me a bottle cap.

I looked around my favorite chair; Maggie nosed out an empty candy bar wrapper.

I searched the dining room; Maggie barked at the water glass sitting on the table.

After a nervous day of glancing at my wrist, I went home even more determined to find that missing watch.

The search this time, with Maggie tagging at my heels, was even more thorough. I narrowed it down room by room, until the only room left was the kitchen.

The cat, being a feline, assumed the only reason I was there was to fill her water dish. Irritated at being ignored, she jumped on the sink to get her own drink. As I swatted her down, I also swung against my watch, which hit the floor at the same time as the cat.

And landed right in front of Maggie who, her eyes bright with triumph, grabbed my watch and headed for the rug for her first puppy biscuit-trade of the evening.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at (606) 473-9851 or cathieshaffer@zoomnet.net

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