New England Old English Sheepdog Rescue, Inc.

Phillie, The Wonder Dog

"She is the most intellectually interactive dog I have ever met. She has all these projects, games and puzzles that she invents and does."  Jan Guthrie

In the new house, the shower is a more standard tub with sliding glass
door arrangement. This was a problem just waiting to be solved.
Obviously, she could not roll them in anymore. Then there was the problem
of opening the slippery sliding doors. And this in not a dog that will
just roughly claw open the doors. And her nose was too slippery.

So the solution was to go get one of those toys with all the rubber
nubbies on it. Hold this in her mouth, and use it to open the door.
Then rather than just throwing the toy into the tub, the game became to
first balance the toy very carefully on the small level place in the
corner of the tub .... then bat it quickly across tub with her nose.
Then she looks up with what can only be described as a smile of satisfaction.

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This is a game she figured out by herself and plays when she gets bored in
my office.

She balances the frisbee very precariously on the edge of the fan. She
will work for many minutes trying to balance the frisbee on the very edge
of the fan ... JUST exactly so ......

Then she backs up and waits for the vibrations of the fan to jiggle the
frisbee off the edge and into the airflow.  Then she catches it and the whole game starts all over again.

I obviously work out of my house. And when I am working and she gets bored. She is famous for filing her toys. I have this rolling file cart. She separates the file folders with her nose, and then files one toy per file folder. Notice the Frisbee without the hole is turned vertically and filed, and the Frisbee with the hole is hung over the corner post, and the stuffed animal "stuffed" in the drawer under the files. If she runs out of room there, she puts more toys in the outtray for the printer.