Tricky Emma

I'm sure you've heard that border collies are known to be intelligent, but did you know that they can be tricky and conniving too? Emma showed us that side of her a few times now. It all started with a couple of big knuckle bones that I got for the two of them. Both Will and Emma love to gnaw on them and they do this endlessly at times. Well, Emma truly has the hording instinct and she can only stand it so long before she has to gather all the bones around her into her own little pile. She can be just peacefully laying there chewing away on her bone, with Will just a few feet away gnawing on his. Suddenly she will get up and race over to Will to steal his bone right out from under his nose, or should I say right out of his mouth. It has gotten to the point that Will knows to expect this and as soon as she makes a move towards him he leaps to his feet and away from his bone. There's no way to stop her when she gets in this mood.

For some reason she decided to try a different tact last week. They were both happily chewing and enjoying some quiet time with their knuckle bones. Emma got up and disappeared from the family room and I heard her barking like she had to go out. I got up to let her out, but she wasn't at the front door, she had gone into the living room at the other side of the house. You can see the family room from where she was standing if you look right through the kitchen, so she could see Will laying with his bone. When I got up to check on Emma though, Will followed me into the living room. As soon as Will was far away from his bone Emma took off back into the family room and scooped up his bone! She was so proud of herself that she had tricked Will (and me!) to get his bone away from him without the usual charge at him. Whatever possessed her to do this, I'll never know. Maybe she was tired of how easy it was to just race at him since he didn't put up a fight.

She's tried this a couple more times, and succeeded in luring Will away from his bone only once more. The third time she tried barking from the living room, Will grabbed his bone and stood there in the family room protecting it from Emma's antics. I guess Emma's going to have to find another way to get Will's bone! He's figured this one out pretty easily!