Monsieur Brainiac

It has only taken us four years but Waffle has finally grasped the concept.

The concept?

If, when I’m working from home and he starts barking upon the arrival of the postman, I will be very, very annoyed and therefore, it’s always best to refrain from barking.

It’s not that his barking annoys me (I’d take it over the whining any day) but rather, he used to scare the life out of me with the sudden roar, when previously we had been sitting in silence.

Four years on though, if feels as though I have won the doggy lottery each and every time the postie comes calling. When that happens nowadays, Waffle merely raises his head and turns towards me as if questioning the validity of his hush.

“That’s right,” I say. “Not a word out of you or you’re going in the bin.”

Waffle then merely licks his chops and goes back to sleep.

It was a long road, though I can tell you that for nothing. The number of times the Waffle sound volcano erupted when the red van swung into view was… significant. And the more he erupted, the more infuriated I became. In the end, I would purposely hit the proverbial roof every time the barking commenced and possibly even fire one of the cushions from the sofa at him. Possibly. Once or twice. Or three times. Maybe four.

I was thinking about Waffle’s new superpower on Saturday afternoon last week as I was reading a study regarding dog intelligence. “Where is your dog on the smart list?’ the tagline on the article suggested.

“Where indeed?” I wondered, regarding the sleeping hound.

Apparently this new study was carried out by boffins in France whereby they analysed the brains of over 170 dog breeds. The results were somewhat surprising.

You know the way in the animal kingdom that the bigger the brain, the smarterer the animal? Well, the opposite now appears to be true of dogs. Les scientists found that breeds with smaller brains (compared to body size) respond best to training and have better short-term memory – two traits considered brainy for dogs.

Conversely, les dogs with bigger brains (compared to body size) marked higher for fear, aggression and anxiety – all traits considered dullard-y for dogs.

Top of the intelligence charts were the working dogs like Alsatians and Rottweilers and Golden Retrievers. When the body to brain size ratio is taken into account, they have smaller brains but consequently more grey matter firepower.

There was a lot more to the study than this, of course, but I eventually became bored. Possibly this was due to my brain size but mostly I lost interest because I couldn’t find Waffle’s breed on the charts.

“Some fuppen study this,” I told Waffle, whom I noticed had started chewing his feet in the most un-intelligent of ways.

“Reckon you’d pass the 11-plus?” I asked him after a moment. But he didn’t look up from his chewing.

Although I complain a lot about Waffle and although it took four long years before he finally cottoned on about the moratorium on barking at the postman, I have to admit that aul Waff is no slouch when it comes to that grey matter firepower. He long ago worked out that when he hears that k’tish of a beer opening of a weekend evening that his master will soon become more inclined to scratching ministrations. He appreciates too that my hens are not to be touched on pain of death and, over the years, he has learned plenty of tricks like fetching and rolling over and sitting pretty and playing dead.

“We don’t need them aul cheese-eating surrender monkeys to tell us you’re smart when we already know it,” I told the ardent foot-chewer.

And at that most auspicious of moments, the postman’s van drew up at the front door with a crunch of gravel.

Waffle looked at me and I looked at Waffle.

“Not a single word, Monsieur Brainiac,” I told him through clenched teeth.