We thought for the past week that Ayla must be having a growth spurt or something. She’s been quite aggressive and basically just wouldn’t leave us alone. It wasn’t matter of wanting to be around us, more that she just didn’t want us sitting still and she would nip at us all the time. If we were sitting on the couch she would get up there and crawl all over us and otherwise make a nuisance of herself. Nipping at hands, flailing around, doing the Newfie kicks on her back…and nothing really snapped her out of it. She was also having more F.R.A.P.’s than usual and we just couldn’t figure out what was going on.

But surprisingly enough, since I’ve found the baby birds Ayla has had a complete change in character. I know that dogs and especially Newfs are supposed to be rather sensitive to people in pain, with illnesses and so on. And I would like to believe most of the time that this applies to Ayla. But there are not that many instances when she actually seems to be in tune with me if I’m hurting, for example. Well, aside from her excellent nurse skills when I almost knocked myself out a while back.

When I came back from the dentist on Thursday morning, Ayla was just crazy. I had some dental surgery done and all I wanted was to lay on the couch and rest for a while. But Ayla felt she needed to be on the couch with me, jumping around and pawing at me and being crazy in general. So she was banished from the living room and basically had to play outside all day. Anytime she was allowed into the living room, she was all over us.

On Saturday morning I finally found the birds and since then the change is remarkable. Since the only thing we changed that day was cleaning them up and she almost immediately laid down and relaxed after they were gone, we can only assume that she was very troubled by the baby birds that had perished and was trying to express her concern. Of course if she was more a Lassie type and had perhaps led us out there, it would have been easier to figure things out. But maybe we can progress to that stage at some point. And at least she didn’t seem to have tried to eat them or anything. And next time she starts acting crazy, I think we will go do a thorough check of the farm to make sure everything is in order before we start thinking the dog has lost it. 😉