Is your dog a natural comedian? Making you laugh when he sees you’re down?

We have heard about — and actually seen — dogs that are intelligently funny. But most of the times we just dismiss them as “funny” from our point of view, meaning these canines do not really intend to make us smile or laugh.

The doggie would like to kiss the bride, too!  

But now there’s more and more talk going on that dogs, at least some of them, do have a sense of humor – and sometimes of rumor as well as when they try to tell us something with their woofs, movements and other uncanny acts.

I’ve read a story in the Internet just a while ago about a writer named Stanley Coren who describes his Terrier named Flint as a dog who almost always try to amuse his owners.

On one occasion, Stanley says his wife Karen was having friends over for coffee. Flint hung around the guests, perhaps hoping for a morsel of food. Karen shooed the dog away and told him to go find something interesting to do. Flint obediently left, only to return with one of Karen’s undergarments in his mouth.

Coren writes, “Evading capture, he proceeded to flagrantly snap it from side to side with great joy—to the amusement of the company and the dismay of my wife!”

Did the terrier know he was being funny? Hard to say, but Coren says Flint did get a great deal of enjoyment out of it.

Another dog owner writes: “I guess you could say… that I startle easily. And now, I live with The Crow - she’s an unusually smart dog with a wicked sense of humor. She’s decided it’s funny to ambush me from the shower stall. Hahaha. Now I know she’s likely to be there, and it doesn’t scare me anymore … not much, at least. Still, there’s always a small start when I don’t realize she’s in there and I turn to see this.”

Sometimes I think dogs could think like us, people. It seems at times they are really trying to be funny, not just playful, which is common to all dogs.

Another writer named appears to agree with my view. She said her tiny Yorkshire Terrier named Missy is exceedingly careful to make sure the line between play and not-play is very clear. She writes: “Missy loves to growl and yap ferociously when playing a game with a person. But she’ll abruptly call a time out by running over and licking her human opponent most humbly, as if to say, ‘Hey, you know this is only a game, right? You know I wouldn’t hurt you.’ Once Missy is satisfied that all parties understand that it’s only a game, she’ll go right back to it, acting out her savage beast within.”

Dogs are truly everyone’s best friend … and best joker!

By the way, here’s a trivia: What does the phrase a “Dog Day Afternoon” mean? That phrase was made famous in the 1975 movie starring Al Pacino.

The answer: The “dog” in the phrase does not refer to our canine friend. It actually refers to the star “Sirius,” also known as the dog star, found in the constellation of Canis Major, which derived its name from the Greek word ‘“seirios,” which means “scorching.”

The star sirius is most visible in our hemisphere during the summer months as the brightest star in the heavens (not Polaris, the northern star).

So, “dog day afternoon” actually means nothing more than a hot summer afternoon.

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3 Responses

  1. Lorie

    28|Jul|2007

    not just humor, actually, but they really could empathize, i think.. at least, the most “perceptive” ones could.. my dog chubs would “empathize” with me when i was sad… that was when i was in elementary, before he died… :(

  2. Jay

    28|Jul|2007

    Can you describe how your dog empathize with you? Sorry for what happened to your pet dog. Did you find a replacement for him or her?

  3. Lorie

    29|Jul|2007

    no i never did find a replacement for him. kasi after chubs, i never wanted another dog.. tatay got himself another dog, but i don’t wanna play with her. i had a cat for a week when i was in UP Los Banos, and she had rescued me from being trampled by a bull when i crossed a field.. hehe. the bull stopped short when she hissed at him. he was less than a foot away. so i got my nth life because of tigger/tiger lily. :) but she refused to go home to iloilo with me. :)

    as for chubs, there was this incident when my aunt and i were fighting, and i went outside to let off steam. chubs went near me and i think he put his head on my lap and looked at me with the saddest eyes. and it was when i told my aunt that animals were better with empathizing with humans than humans were. haha!

    there was also this time that my half german shepherd rox chased the jeepney i was on, while chubs sat calmly by the highway, because i was going off camping. i guess the poor pooch thought he’d never see me again. wah, i miss my dogs.. maybe it will be years before i get one again.. :(


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