There is nothing worse than amateur psychology when it\u2019s being used by your human to understand you. \u201cGet on the couch, Wilma. Tell me all your problems.\u201d Ok, to be fair, she didn\u2019t quite go as far as that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem all started when Mum read an article about Border Collies. The article was explaining that much of their behaviour is the dog equivalent of autism. Border Collies can be very good at focussing on a task and doing it to the exclusion of all else. They are not always great with strangers. They are creatures of extreme habit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honestly, do I look like a Border Collie? Ok, so maybe some of the behaviours I\u2019ve described could be applied to Aristotle. He likes his routine, who doesn\u2019t? He likes to go to bed at a particular time and won\u2019t go without his biscuit. Again, who doesn\u2019t? So, Shadow would play ball until she dropped down dead if she were allowed to. What point is she making? We might have a fair few traits in common with a Border Collie, but we\u2019re working dogs. Obviously, we need to be determined, focussed, thorough, fearless. We need to bond closely with our main human. That does not in any way put us on the dog autism spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I argue we take our lead from our humans. Do you see Mum coping with surprises or sudden changes in routine? No. Does she give up on a task once she\u2019s started? No \u2013 a case in point would be trying to learn German. She has now used the Duolingo programme on the computer for more than 2500 consecutive days and is she any good at it? No. Does she know when to give up? No, no, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All three of us would be perfectly well adjusted, laid back dogs if we hadn\u2019t had her as our human. I\u2019m not complaining. I\u2019d follow her to the end of the earth, but I really don\u2019t need to be analysed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilma<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wilma is very concerned that her human is using amateur psychology in trying to understand her. It really is very unreasonable to draw the parallels which she is making.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,151],"tags":[63,50,148,27],"class_list":["post-21065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entlebucher","category-entlebucher-faqs","tag-aristotle","tag-entlebucher","tag-mental-health","tag-shadow","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}