Rack the McNab in Get Ready To Play

A tired dog is a happy dog.

No matter what breed it is, whether a lap dog or a greyhound, your dog needs appropriate exercise.

If you intend to keep a Herding Dog or a Working breed in the house, you can tell if you're giving it enough exercise.   A happy and well exercised dog will be a couch potato indoors.  Comes when called, doesn't demand a lot of inappropriate attention.

That doesn't mean that it's a house plant, you set it in the corner and give it food and water occasionally and it goes and does it's thing.  A Dog is a living, social creature that deserves interaction and mental stimulation too.

But you can tell.

Those long walks are great, but sometimes a dog will need to break out of their training and "Just Be A Dog".  This video is one of those times. 

Rack, my McNab Dog, is a bit of a puzzle.  He's just about perfect indoors.  No hair-trigger when the UPS truck comes by - although he does grumble a bit.  He doesn't sleep on the couch or the beds because he knows where his bed is and he's got three of them in a 1200 square foot house.  Take him outside and if his fear is not triggered, he is fine, even off leash.  If there is a storm within earshot, he wants no part of it and heads to the door.

A thunderclap 15 miles away that we don't hear, he does.  At that point he'll decide that being outside is a big "Nope!" and begin to tow me home.

But every dog has quirks, and Rack is definitely quirky.  He's working through his fears and he'll come along to be one of those "Dog of a Lifetime" dogs that you hear about.  Lettie was definitely one, and Rack is on his way.

This is one of the times when everything was perfect.  His routine is after breakfast he wants to go out back and snuffle around the yard.  If I don't get involved, he will do a perimeter search of the property, empty himself, then amble back to the back door.

If I do get involved, he becomes poetry in frenetic motion.  What I do is either clap my hands or stomp a foot.  When that happens he will Get Ready To Play.

Rack is a sprinter, not a marathon runner.  The longest he's ever needed to fly around the yard is about 5 minutes.  I do mean Fly, by the way.  He'll skim past me airborne, all four feet off the ground, poetry in motion in black and white fur.


If you have never seen a dog thoroughly enjoying being a dog, give this video a watch.  It's safe for all audiences and has very little sound.