The Funny Things My Dogs Do

I have five Airedales. Every single one of them has an agenda.

Some agendas are obvious. Some are mysterious. All of them make me laugh, usually at moments I'm not expecting it.

What I didn't realize until I sat down to write this is that the agendas might not be as random as I thought.

Here's how the quirky behavior breaks down in our house.

Hudson

Hudson is my only dog who is completely comfortable just being a dog. No hidden agenda, no emotional complexity. Just a happy guy living his best life.

His signature move is barking from a remote location.😂

He's usually upstairs or in another room, zero line of sight to anything happening outside. And typically, nothing is happening outside. But Hudson has decided that someone needs to bark, and today that someone is him.

My best theory is that it's support barking for the dogs in the yard. A morale boost from management. Hudson hears the commotion, can't be bothered to actually go look, and just sends encouragement from his pillow.

Only Hudson knows for sure.

Erwitt

Erwitt is my most serious and thoughtful dog. He approaches life with a quiet dignity that I genuinely respect.

Which is why it always catches me off guard when I find him sitting in the bathtub.🛀

No rain. No thunder. No apparent reason. He's just in there, taking a moment. I like to think of it as his Calgon Take Me Away moment. A few minutes to decompress, reflect on the day, mentally review his task list. This is the dog who relates most to Frasier Crane, and honestly, I think Frasier would also appreciate a good bathtub sit.

Prayerie

My showgirl likes her quiet time too, just differently.

Prayerie will settle herself in the living room and stare. Not out a window. Not at the door. Into the room. Very focused, very still, very much seeing something the rest of us apparently cannot.

My working theory is that she's meditating. My backup theory is that she has an imaginary friend, which I actually find completely reasonable. I had an imaginary dog before my first Airedale, so clearly this is a character trait we share.😊

Whatever she's doing in there, she looks very peaceful about it.

Quick note...she is the loudest barking dog in the house.

Fleetwood

Fleetwood was a rock star in a previous life. He is absolutely certain of this. 😆

He doesn't just bark. He talks. Full conversations, operatic range, eye contact the entire time, like he's presenting a quarterly report and wants to confirm you're following along. "Are you getting all this, Mom? This is my preferred agenda for the week."

Off stage, Fleetwood has a dedicated bathroom routine that involves trying to lick my legs after a shower, expressing strong opinions about the blow dryer, admiring the smell of hairspray, and rearranging all the bath towels into an arrangement that makes sense only to him.

He is a lot. He is also my favorite kind of a lot.

Daisy

Daisy has had a strong sense of self since the day she arrived.

She is composed. Contemplative. She reads the room before she enters it. She has also figured out exactly when to stir up the whole pack for a good time, and she rotates the timing every day, so no one sees it coming.

But her quirkiest habit, the one I love most, is where she sleeps. 💕

Daisy sleeps on the stairs. Not at the bottom, not at the top. On one stair, horizontally, usually near the top of the staircase where all the bedrooms are. She has been doing this since she was a puppy, and she has not reconsidered it once.

And Then It Hit Me

I was finishing up writing all of this when I realized that all of their “behaviors” may not be as quirky as one would think.🤔

I spend a lot of time laughing at their quirks. The bathtub, the staring, the operatic monologues, the stair sleeping.

But when I looked at where everyone actually lands at night, it stopped being funny and started being something else entirely.

Hudson is upstairs on his pillow, covering the upper level.

Erwitt sleeps downstairs and checks in through the night, moving between floors.

Fleetwood and Prayerie are on my bed. As you would guess. 😂    

Daisy is stretched across the top of the staircase. The exact spot where anyone coming up those stairs would have to get past her first.

Nobody assigned these positions. Nobody coordinated. They just settled into them, each one a perfect match to their personality.

What I thought was quirky dog behavior was actually a coordinated operation I knew nothing about.

I don't have five ridiculous Airedales with funny habits. I have my own Mission Impossible team, and they've been running the mission since day one without briefing me once.

I'm not sure I deserve them. But I'm very glad they showed up. 🥰

What quirky things does your dog do that you can't explain? Hit reply and tell me. I genuinely want to know.

Kim Opdyke 💗