Monkey see, monkey do

Children do it all the time. A 3-year-old will copy what his 5-year-old brother is doing. He'll watch, he'll learn and he'll repeat. I distinctly remember doing this growing up with my brother, who is five years older than I am. Heck, I lived at the baseball field, watching and emulating what my big bro and his friends were doing.

Teens do it all the time. It's called peer pressure. The cool kid gets the latest pair of shoes or trendiest new techie gadget, and everyone else wants one too. I wasn't as bad about this when I was a teen. Sure, I felt peer pressure. But it wasn't about being popular. It was about trying to impress my friends, emulating the guys who I looked up to. I wanted to be as smart as they were, as athletic as they were, as strong of a Christian as they were.

Adults do it all the time. They call it keeping up with the Joneses. We buy the most expensive cars, build the most luxurious houses, rack up the most debt that we can -- all in the name of impressing people. Why? Because we see other people do it. Because we covet. We watch. We desire. We give in to those desires.

It's a natural part of life for people to observe things and then put those things into practice. Everyone does it -- including my dogs. Seriously, they are hilarious.

Sandy, who is still a pup, has been around for about 18 months now. She rules the roost. This is her house; we just live in it. What Sandy wants, Sandy gets. No questions asked. But don't tell Ryley that. Although isn't much younger than Sandy, she's only been with us for about three or four months now. But boy does she learn quickly.

How did she learn? By watching her big sister, of course. Sandy loves to be scratched -- where Sandy WANTS to be scratched. Not on her head. Not behind her ears. Not on her back. She wants it on her chest, or on her belly. If she's sitting, and you're rubbing her head, she will use her paw to move your hand right where she wants it. Or, she'll slide down onto the floor and roll over, so you can give her belly a good ole rub.

So what does Ryley do? The exact same thing. She's started using her paw to direct where she wants to be scratched. It's not as bad as Sandy, because she actually likes being rubbed on her head, but she'll use that paw to tell you what she wants.

That's just one of the many things we see on a daily basis where the younger pup has patterned her behavior after the older pup. We like to call it monkey see, monkey do -- and Ryley's the monkey!