BlackMolly: Molly Knows

My daughter, Molly, understands most of what I say to her. She's only five years old, so her grasp of my vocabulary isn't so great, but she still seems to find a way to figure out what I'm telling her. Poodles are supposed to be amongst the world's top four of all dog breeds for intelligence, but it never fails to amaze me that she understands so well.

We keep several different toys and each has a different name. We've a small green porcupine called "Squeeker" that's one of her favorites. There's a piece of fake fur I tied into a knot that she knows as "The Fur." Of course, every dog toybox has a dental floss knot. We call that, simply, "The Knot." Then there's a collection of knots tied into a knot I call "Colors." And we have several different balls. "Big Ball," "Giggly Ball," "The Ball," "Peanutbutter Ball." We have "Bouncer" and "Spike," which are those hard rubber throw toys. That's ten toys listed and I can ask for any of them by name and she'll bring it to me.

But those are just memorized commands I've associated with each toy, right? Not neccessarily. Molly eats at the dinner table with us. She knows that it's ok for her front paws to be on the table but not her back paws. If I ask her if she wants more of something, she opens her mouth. If she doesn't, she opens and closes her mouth. She even waits to be excused instead of just hopping down.

She has a good grasp on a vast array of words, questions, and phrases. For instance, she knows the difference between going to the Park, the School, Grammy's House, Holstien's, and The Pet Shop. When we arrive near the correct destination, she gets excited and starts searching the car for a toy to bring in with her. I can go to several different places that she knows before going to the place I said we were going to and she doesn't get excited until we arrive where I said we were going at the beginning of our trip.

She hates it when I tell her it's time to go to work. She knows that, currently, this activity doesn't include her. She jumps to the top of the chair sitting next to the door and waits for me to tell her to be a good girl, to have a good day, and that I love her. Then I kiss her on the nose and am gone for a several hours. It's not a wonder that she doesn't like that phrase. Come to think about it, I don't like that phrase much either.

Molly races to my room when I tell her it's time to go to sleep. (Actually, I tell her it's time to go asleep.) After I open the door, she leaps into my bed and starts mussing the covers up to have a cozy spot for bed. She also understands the difference between "go asleep" and that I need to "work on the computer and she needs to go to bed." This is altogether different from "going asleep." I sit at my desk and she sits or lays on the desk in her basket, which is "bed."

Even after all this, people still ask me, "If she's so smart, how come you can't teach her to stop licking?" I just smile, shrug my shoulders, and think to myself because if she stopped licking, she wouldn't be Molly.