I know this is slight OT but maybe not totally.
A lot of us work at home right? Also many of us have dogs (like you Mark in SevenOaks) and because we work at home our dogs are with us all day. I have definitively proven that my Labrador Bella has learned not only to come to me and ask to be let out or walked AFTER I finish a phone call (every time) BUT she actually comes to me as I’m wrapping up the call (??).
In other words, something in how I close out conversations (tone or certain words or phrases) makes her realize that I am ALMOST done talking and she should come to me and ask for my attention at that point. That’s amazing to me !
This is only 1 of my 2 dogs BTW .. her sister Mae, (also a Lab), is oblivious :-)).
There’s no question that our dogs (well the smarter ones) are really in tune with us and that is cool to me…
Dick
p.s. Can you guess which one’s the one I’m talking about? Pretty easy isn’t it 🙂
Dick Moffat's Spreadsheet and BI Blog 
That’s a riot. Reminds me of a little mutt named Spot we had when the kids were younger. We were busy and might forget to put water in the bowl – we had a water bottle cooler so she would look us in the eyes to get our attention and then walk over to the cooler and look at us again until we got the point! She was smarter than us. Miss that little mutt.
Mae’s not dumb – just more reserved.
Ok, I’ve got a funny “dog at work” story too. We’ve got a dog that starts barking like crazy when he “hears” an animal on TV. At least that’s what we thought. One day I was in my office on a conference call and had the TV muted. As always, the 2 dogs were in my office on the couch. For no apparent reason, one of the dogs just started barking like crazy. I looked up to see an animal on TV. The dog actually watches TV.
Actually with HDTV I see both of them occasionally look at it when a tiger or dog or some animal is large in the frame.
Hope you guys go look at the updated posting with a beautiful picture (taken 2 days ago – still no snow 2 days before Christmas Day)
Nice pic. We’ve already had snow twice way down here in TN. Some years we never get it. Crazy stuff.
Finally got a dump of snow last night and continuing today … winter has arrived ! Dogs are loving the snow. Have a Happy New Year Dale.