Book Lover's Day

November 7.  Today is Book Lover’s Day.  A day to celebrate reading.  And did you know that DOGS can be taught to read?!  It’s TRUE!   A quick search of the internet revealed several videos of dogs who could read flash cards. Including a Bernese Mountain Dog!  That REALLY shocked me.  I just don’t see Bucket Head as being a literary kind of dog.  But who knows?! 

There are also programs in which children read to certified therapy dogs.  That’s cool.  The kids feel less pressure reading to the dogs – so it’s great practice for them.  Obviously, the dogs must be calm and well trained.  I’m afraid nobody in this household could qualify for THAT program.  But I admire the dogs who do it!!!

My human loves to read – AND she loves to collect books.  Old books about dogs.  She has some dating back to the 1800’s.  And of course she probably has every modern book written about Bernese Mountain Dogs and Polish Lowland Sheepdogs.  We looked in the old all-breed books to see if we could find any info about us PONs.  We were not successful – except for ONE book called The Book of the Dog by Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald.  It was written in 1948.   

The two pages talk mostly about the “large protector-dog” generally found in the Podhal and Tatra areas.  But it also describes the “smaller animal of about 24 inches in height at the shoulders, weighing about 65 pounds, short-tailed, and known over almost the whole of the Polish lowland territories.”  That would be us PONs.  But holy moly, I don’t weigh anywhere near 65 pounds.  I KNEW my human should be feeding me more!!

The article goes on to talk about other breeds related to the Polish Sheepdogs and describes what the Polish Tatra Sheepdog did for a living. They guarded the sheep and even pulled carts like Bernese!  They never said exactly what we PONs did.  But I did like the last line – which referred to both types of Polish Sheepdogs…”In general the Polish Sheepdog is a vigorous animal of lasting stamina (sounds good so far), sensible make-up and an essentially suspicious nature (yup – I don’t trust that neighbor’s cat), a fine and loyal companion UNDER DISCIPLINE (my human said YES – they got THAT right), but dangerous when encountered alone (and SUPER dangerous if more than one of us live in the same house).

So that’s your reading lesson on PON history for today.  I think this reading stuff is very interesting – but I do fear that my human is going to try the flash card thing.  I don’t follow commands when she says them – so reading commands….heaven help us….

 

This book has nothing to do with the dog on the cover - but it sure looks like a PON!

 ©  Linda Wozniak