I Gotta Get This On Tape

Everybody thinks they have the smartest pets in the world. Or the dumbest.
We have both.
Okay, I'm exaggerating: there are undoubtedly smarter dogs than Tux out there and Georgia's not exactly stupid, just...challenged.
Georgia's a scaredy-dog. We have no idea whence this came: we've owned her since she was knee-high to a chew toy and if there's a calmer, more sedate household than ours around here, you'd call it the morgue. If anything, I'd expect Tux to be the skittish one; he was abused as a young puppy and spent months in the pound waiting for us to find him.
But no, Tux is almost fearless...he'll even let a vacuum cleaner get within two feet of him before moving. Georgia, on the other hand, will refuse to come in the house if there's something on the landing she doesn't like. A bag of cat food, for instance. Or a leaf that blew in.
And she's utterly terrified of the baby gate we put up to keep the dogs out of the basement while we're gone. That one, at least, I understand. It's fallen a few times and it makes an awful clattling racket when it hits the hardwood floor.
Like most puppies, Georgia's favourite game is Daddy-throw-the-toy-so-I-can-slobber-all-over-it-and-bring-it-back. She's very good at it, scoring points in and every time for promptness and accuracy of retrieval (often placing the toy directly into your hand) and quantity of drool, which is exceptional. (That said, she's a Boxer/Bulldog cross...any dog playing with her has an automatic three-liter handicap.) Tux, who used to fetch and retrieve with the best of them, now indulgently regards all this horseplay from his dignified position on the couch, reading his canine Scriptures. When I was a puppy, I spake as a puppy, I understood as a puppy, I thought as a puppy: but when I became a dog, I put away puppy things.
Until Daddy whizzes the bedrooled puppy-toy out into the kitchen, where it might bounce around and land perilously close to the Baby Gate of Doom.
Peach (we call her that, she's a Georgia-peach) will tiptoe out into the kitchen, sizing up the situation. Is the BGOD within striking distance of my Georgia-ball? You can actually see her performing the calculations in her head. Carry the six...I think I can...just...get it. She'll mince out there, approaching the Georgia ball from as wide an angle as possible, gingerly extending a paw and ever so cautiously dragging it back. If I do this slowly enough the BGOD won't notice me. Mission accomplished, she'll grab the Georgia-ball in her mouth and trot back in to Daddy, tail a-waggin' and spit a-poolin'.
But what if the Georgia-ball is actually within the shadow of the BGOD? Well, then we have a problem. Peach will tiptoe out, perform her calculations, and not like the results. She'll sit out there and whine...just little whines, the whines of a child who can't seem to solve the equation to her satisfaction no matter how hard she tries. This used to be the cue for Daddy to get up off his arse, subdue the BGOD and restore the Georgia-ball to its rightful owner.
Until one day Daddy's and Peach's calculations didn't match. I felt certain our drooly-Peach could get that Georgia-ball safely; drooly-Peach most emphatically felt otherwise. Stalemate; standoff.
Unbeknownst to any of us, Tux had been watching all this develop. He let Georgia mewl for a little while. Then, with a huge sigh, he uncurled himself and stepped off the couch and strode forward into the kitchen, recovering the Georgia-ball and placing it directly in front of her. With a pointed look at his Peach ("see? That wasn't so hard, was it?"), a look at Mommy ("I'm a good Tux, aren't I?") and a final withering glare at Daddy ("That was a mean thing to do to my Peach! Bad Daddy!"), he then retreated to his couch and went to sleep.
Eva and I looked at each other. Did he just do what I just saw him do? I couldn't have been more dumbstruck if Tux had donned glasses and started reading that canine Scripture aloud.

He has since performed this exact routine several times. We, alas, do not own a camcorder, or you would have seen it by now on Animal Planet.

Tux, again like most dogs, absolutely adores car rides. Peach could take or leave them, mostly leave them. She'll go in the car, most times, if you insist a bit, and then she'll sit there with a look on her squashed Boxer/Bulldog face that says when will this misery be over?
One day, Georgia decided she did not want to join Tux for a car ride, no matter what, end of story, full stop. She stared at the car, and Tux in the car, as if whole regiments of baby-gates were about to march out and surround her. Peach is normally pretty obediant, and she does know "COME", but when she's worked up like that I'm sure she's thinking Come? COME?!! Go arf yourself, I ain't comin'!
We managed to herd her into the house--which she went into quite willingly since it wasn't the car--and took Tux on his own little car ride, stopping at Timmy's for treats (pull into a drive-through and Tux starts licking his chops). The car ride was completely uneventful until we were just drawing back up to Tux's house. As we were about to back the car up into the driveway, a man came jogging by with his dog on a leash beside him. Normally, Tux looks with interest at other dogs, but he keeps his opinions to himself: I've never heard a peep out of him in the car.
But this dog looked just like Georgia.
Somebody was running away with his Peach. Tux started barking fit to split and were it not for our calming words I do believe he would have chewed his way through the window to go get his sister back. We actually left Tux in the backseat while we opened the side door of the house and let the Peach come out where Tux could see her. Then, of course, everything was just fine.

Excuse me. I gotta go love up my puppies.