I took this photo through our second story window and you can see Trip on top of our storage box. Immediately before this, he was standing on it, with his front leg n the deck railing, apparently trying to get as high as he could, and looking upward. He must have heard me moving around upstairs; he is our only dog who knows to look up and seems to understand when he hears us speak from a different location. Bless their hearts, but our other dogs just run around the yard looking for us. This same storage box used to be under the window to the laundry room, which houses the dogs' food and leashes; and sometimes when I was preparing food or getting leashes, I would look up to see Trip staring at me through the window- using the box as a stool. This dog has some major hyperawareness going on...I swear he also can "hear" when I am upstairs donning dog walking clothes and shoes, versus getting dressed to go to work or somewhere else, because when I come downstairs, there is Trippy all bouncy and ready to walk!
The first night we brought Tanner, then a basically feral foster dog, home, Tanner was extremely afraid and uncomfortable in our house. He just laid in a corner of the kitchen, ready to flee at any moment. But, sweet, intuitive Trip seemed to understand Tanner's fear and just calmly laid about 3 feet from him, facing him, as if to say "Its okay, buddy", and gave Tanner the space he needed. It was really cool to see Trip realize that his usual playful roughhousing wasn't appropriate at this time, and being calm and quiet was the way to go.
You've heard that one sense will become more acute if another is lost? Well, I'm not sure if that is true, but our dog with the missing leg sure seems to have an extra dose of heart..love you, SuperTrip!
