reading about dogs on an ebook reader

I'm still reading Stanley Coren's book, How Dogs Think. And I'm loving reading it on my new Bebook reader, so I thought I'd give my impression of this e-reader on my other blog, in case anyone reading this is thinking of buying an electronic reader.

dogs are crepuscular

When Penny was at the vet's today to check up on a recent limp, I weighed her and was alarmed to see she has put on a kilo over the last two months. How could that be? Hmm...would it be the constant trickle of treats when she is doing training? Could it be the regular scraps of toast? (It's a strange feature or our household that there seems to always be someone toasting bread - very mysterious.) Or is it the snacks of carrot, ends of beans, offcuts of sweet potato - a favorite of hers?

I wondered whether we are not exercising her enough, because she seems to be lying around most of the day. Why isn't she racing around the backyard, getting fit? That's how I imagined it would be, before she came to live with us. But the problem is that dogs, being pack animals, will wait for the leader to signal that it's time to go out hunting, so having a large backyard doesn't get around the fact that most dogs won't exercise themselves.

And now I've found out that dogs are crepuscular. That's why they are happy to lie around most of the day, which is very handy for humans who go out to work between 9 and 5.

And if you don't already know the meaning of crepuscular, you might just go over to my other blog to check out the meaning, and thus give the site more than its usual average of two visitors a day.

It was in Stanley Coren's book How Dogs Think that I found out when dogs are most likely to be active.

am I becoming a cynic now that I live with a dog?

I've never thought of myself as cynical, but since I've been reading Stanley Coren's book, How Dogs Think, I might have to reassess myself, because I've found that the origin of the word might mean someone who lives in a straightforward way, as a dog does.

Since Penny joined our household, I've spent more time

stopping to smell the roses, when walking with her on-lead (waiting for her to finish sniffing around the base of every tree or pole);

plenty of time picking up (and, yes - examining - poo);

heaps of time sitting by the waterside while she swims;
a regular night-time session out in the backyard looking out at the universe while she has a wee,

and...oh, I could go on forever thinking about how she has changed my daily life.

So perhaps I've become more cynical - in the original sense of the word.