Dax and Pixel have loved each other from the moment they met. Pixel was so tiny and Dax so big, but she was so gentle and loving, and I never had a moment's fear that she would harm him.

Pixel loves to play with Dax and when he was a puppy he would jump on her, chew on her big droopy lips, pull the hair out of her tail, and be an all around nuisance. Dax never once reprimanded him and never once even barked at him to go away. She did have her ways of coping, though, and really surprised me with her intelligence.

One day, she had had enough of his attentions and wanted to nap, but Pixel was only interested in chewing on her flews. She got up, went downstairs, picked up a chew toy and brought it back to the living room (the middle level of our split-level house) and put it in front of him. Pixel didn't care about the toy, though, and went back to chewing on her face. Dax got up again, went upstairs, opened the sliding glass door, down the deck stairs, to the apple tree, found an apple, brought it back up the deck stairs, inside, back downstairs to the living room, and gave it to Pixel. Being a corgi, Pixel is always willing to eat so he left her alone and ate the apple. I don't usually like the dogs eating too much fruit but this was so cool, so smart on Dax's part that I had to let him have it.

I have friends who insist that dogs can't reason, but to me this seemed so smart that I don't know how they could say that Dax didn't reason this all through. She made a plan and when that plan didn't work, made another one that did. She is sooo smart - the smartest dog I've ever known, and she loves her corgi.