Monday, October 17, 2011

Lie to Me

I've been watching the show Lie to Me recently, on Netflix. It's definitely worth a view, if you get a change, and it's yet another wonderful show that has been cancelled.

It's interesting in that literally any story can be told there. There are mysteries and murders and all sorts of things. And then it got me thinking; humans lie to one another, but do animals?


Really, I can't lie to Elka. I don't particularly want to, first off, but she's also got a severe sensory advantage over me. She knows if I don't have food. She can tell, by my body chemistry and by subtle signals that I put off, whether I'm happy, or sad, or angry. You know those conversations that you have with people? "how was your day?" "fine?" Elka knows if it wasn't fine. Granted, some people simply don't want to hear about your crappy day, and the socially acceptable answer is, in fact, "fine".

But really, Elka wants everybody to be fine.


Elka herself will engage in baseline deception, however. If I come home to work not twenty minutes after Jim has taken her out to relieve herself, she'll still tell me that she has to go out. This isn't a malicious deception, by any means; she just likes being outside, and she knows I'll take her if she asks in just the right way (one of these days, I have to get a recording of her saying "Out"). If we're outside, she gets to see and smell all kinds of things, and maybe we'll play with the tennis balls! There might be a deer! Or a cat! It's a world of possibilities!

And you know what? If I haven't had the best of days, going out back and playing tennis can be a lot of fun, especially at the speeds that Elka is able to attain.

5 comments:

  1. We will add it to our view list

    Stop on by for a visit!
    Kari
    dogisgodinreverse.com

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  2. Fine = Freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional..

    xo

    Luna

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  3. I sometimes try and tell my humans i haven't had dinner even through I have. Somehow they never fall for it though :-)

    ps. my humans really like that show too!

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  4. LOL - Alfie's on to what my Bella does to us: the food lie. It's usually about "dessert" though.

    Bella sometimes has trouble eating - yes, I know it was unheard of to us, too - so she gets "rewarded" for eating all her dinner (which has her medicine in it) with "dessert" - a piece of dried chicken.

    She wages a brilliant campaign afterwards to convince whoever didn't give her breakfast, that she didn't get dessert. It hasn't worked yet but she keeps trying.

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  5. @ Luna Too true!

    @Alfie Elka tries that as well! She in fact tries it when I've just fed her, which speaks to her sense of the passage of time

    @Leslie oh, dessert! That's pretty special!

    @Kari you can bet on it!

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