One of those hands better have a treat in it

Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist

A study conducted at the University of Vienna, Austria, indicates that dogs have a sense of fair play.

Gee. I figured that out on my own when I was 8 years old.

According to The Associated Press, researchers learned that when dogs were asked to shake hands, and were allowed to see that other dogs were rewarded for doing so, a dog that wasn’t rewarded soon stopped shaking hands.

That came as no surprise to the researchers. What they didn’t expect was to find out that the dogs didn’t care if the reward was bread or sausage, so long as they got a reward.

Some dogs simply refused to participate and were sent home, and so was a border collie that tried to herd the other dogs.

Identical tests conducted with monkeys produced a different — but predictable — result: The monkeys went on strike when they could see there was a good reward but got something less desirable, instead. Related to humans or not, they do have some of our traits.

Apparently, no such tests were conducted with cats. If you’ve ever seen a cat toying with a mouse it intends to eat (believe me, it’s not pretty), you might well conclude it has no sense of fair play.

One of my co-workers surprised his cat while it was sleeping and caused it to jump almost as high as the freezer section of the refrigerator. He referred to this animal as “The Attack Cat,” and while it may not have possessed a sense of fair play, my friend said it had a remarkable sense of creative revenge.

My grandparents’ Chihuahua, Pepi, was a robust, muscular little fellow who strutted when he walked and was convinced there was no one whose (beast of burden) he couldn’t kick if he didn’t like him.

If Pepi took to you, on the other hand, he was your buddy. My mother didn’t particularly care for dogs, but she and Pepi adopted each other, and she allowed him to sit on her lap while she fed him popcorn.

Mom and Dad and I often went to my grandparents’ house to sit on the porch, and Granddad and I walked down to the drugstore to bring back ice cream cones.

Pepi would select one of us and go sit in front of him. He wouldn’t move a muscle, but sat patiently in front of you, with his eyes locked unblinkingly on yours, while you ate your ice cream. That was his job. Yours was to give him the last inch or so of the cone, and there had better be some ice cream in it.

Pepi never picked the same person twice in a row, as if he had us on a list and went through it one at a time. It was one of the most unwavering demonstrations of trust I’ve ever seen, and nobody failed to give him his treat.

Scott, The Famous North End Sex Dog (he once fell in love with my old orange hunting coat), had a well-developed sense of fair play and didn’t hesitate to let you know it.

He and his family lived down the alley from my house, and his mistress and master said they always knew when I was coming to visit because Scott would get up from his nap or whatever else he was doing to go and sit in front of the kitchen door. My routine was to walk down the alley and cut through their back yard, and he invariably anticipated it several minutes before I arrived — sometimes, it seems, before I even left my house.

One time I went around the block to come through the front door. Scott’s mistress grinned and pointed down the hallway to where I could see him sitting in the kitchen, staring intently at my customary point of entry.

I called to him, and he jumped, then turned and ran towards me. When he got about three feet away he put the brakes on and skidded to a stop, then looked up at me and began barking his head off, apparently giving me hell for messing with his mind.

The scolding concluded, he greeted me with his usual tail-wagging, hand-licking, pet-me-and-scratch-behind-my-ears, ’bout-time-you-came-to-see-me-again fashion.

He and I liked to play “Guess Which Hand The Dog Treat Is In.” I let him watch me take a biscuit out of the box, then went behind my back with both hands to shuffle it around before presenting two fists for him to choose from.

Scott looked intently back and forth between them, then pawed at the hand he thought held the treat. If he guessed right, he got it. If he guessed wrong, he immediately batted at the other hand and I gave it to him anyway.

Sometimes, I slipped the treat into my hip pocket instead. When the second fist opened and there was no treat, Scott jumped to his feet in absolute outrage and let me have it.

I could almost hear him saying, “You (rascal)! Stop fooling around and play like you’re supposed to!” Then he resumed the position, and we started over.

Queenie was Mary and Frank Calemine’s beagle, and the best rabbit dog I’ve ever been around. She was chubby, short-legged and slow, but patient, and if you just stayed right where you were when the rabbit jumped, she’d bring it back around to you.

Many times, I’ve watched a rabbit stop to turn around and sit down to watch Queenie snuffling her way through the woods, obviously considering her more of a nuisance — or possibly a diversion — than a threat.

If you shot the rabbit, Queenie came to check it out and then looked up at you as if to say, “Good job, pal! Me and you did good!” before trotting off to find another one.

However, if you missed, she’d look at you as if to say, “You dumb (four-word Anglo-Saxonism). I did my job. How come you didn’t do yours? Now, I got to go after him again.”

And at the end of the day, when she was tired and it was time to go home, she made sure you were the one who carried her.