Dogs can read.

I have always tolerated the antics of my dogs while on walks as being personality traits.

My current dogs, Chap and Stanley, are as different as chalk and cheese when it comes to walking. Chap likes to pull ahead and to alternate sides – he probably walks at least twice as far as I do as he zig-zags along – while Stanley is more conservative and tends to follow behind me at as slow a pace as I will put up with.

Now that we can walk in the campo with Stanley off the lead, I have noticed that the dogs have exactly the same characteristics in their progress. Chap likes to explore at the extent of his fifteen foot extending lead while Stanley spends a great deal of time examining areas as small as one square foot.

Both dogs are very busy with their noses so I can only assume that they are reading the recent events disclosed to them by the various smells. I must further assume that Chap, with his rapid transit from place to place, is reading only the headlines while Stanley, in his own pedantic fashion, is reading the small print.