Sony RX1, 35mm f2 Carl Zeiss
ISO320, f/2.8, 1/80, raw
Forth day of “Meet Shadow”.
Look straight into the beautiful and sweet eyes of Ombra and tell me you don’t see some astonishing intellect working behind them. I know I already sound like one of those preposterous dog’s owners, but still, tell me you don’t.
Thing is, when I figured out we were going to adopt a dog (I’ll tell how and why I figured that out in the next posts) I also immediately took the decision that this dog was going to be an intelligent dog. Not the Albert Einstein of dogs, just the regular PhD in Mathematics of dogs. The reason? Well, you know how much I loved Lucy and how I spent the most important part of my life with her on my side… but she was a sweet and beautiful dalmatian which never shined for her intellect. Quite the opposite, truth to be told.
So, when the time came again to look for a dog I used the tool I didn’t have fifteen years ago. I opened google and searched for “intelligent dogs”. The third entry google gave me reported a dogs’ classification related to their behaviour and, guess what, “intelligent dogs” was one of the groups. Once I took out the huge dogs (like the German Shepherd) the scary dogs (like the Doberman) and the small dogs (I must admit I agree with Ron Swanson from “Parks and Recreation” when he says that any dog under 50 pounds is a cat, and cats are pointless) there were only three breeds remaining: the Poodle, the Border Collie, and the Australian Shepherd (plus the weird Autralian Cattle Dog, which is truly Australian and basically impossible to find here in Italy).
Now, I really tried hard, but there was no way I could stand to get a Poodle. Sure they are intelligent, and really good in an apartment, but either they look like a sheep or like a posh dog (depending on the grooming), and neither look satisfies me. Border Collies are fine, but I happened to find a puppy of Autralian Shepherd looking for a new family just at 15 minutes driving from home.
So, that’s the story of why I got an Aussie and why now I love so much the intelligent way she looks at me.