Hide and Seek

If you ever want to see if your dog cares if you are around or not, try this little trick...

Red and I went for a quick off-leash walk down the trail by the pond and on the way back around the pond, he wasn't paying me much attention or watching where I was going. So while he wasn't looking, I went and hid around a large tree and waited... He looked up, looked around, and when he didn't see me, he started to panic. He didn't know which way to start looking first so he started running back went back the way we came. I whistled from my hiding spot and he turned around, listening and quivering, all the while getting more and more visibly freaked out that he couldn't find me. He was positively panicking! I started feeling guilty and popped out of my hiding place with a big grin on my face. He laid his ears back, his expression clearing, as he bolted toward me - clearly relieved I was there.

Then we went back down the trail and he trotted off ahead of me. I side-stepped behind a tree and squatted down to watch. After a few seconds, he turned around, saw I was gone, then bolted back down the trail toward me. Of course he found me right away, and by then he had caught on to the trick I was playing on him and stayed closer after that, keeping a close eye on me. =)

Moral of the story - he better pay attention to mommy or she might disappear!