I may be a strange sort. I looove the sound of my puppies whining. It is just so cute! Everyone else can't believe how sad it is. How she sounds like she's dieing if she's secluded to a room or crate. But as her mother, I know there is nothing wrong and she is just being a baby, so I'm able to see through to how cute she sounds. I have a 15 minute video (mostly a sound recording, I wasn't worried about where the camera was pointing) from when Pooka was first crate training and so I left the camera going when I left the room. She whined for 10 minutes (while I sat out in the hall) and then after 5 minutes of her not whining I went in and let her out. I'm really the only one who appreciates this video.

So there is one behavior of Pooka's that I love. If you give a treat that's good for at least 10 minutes of chewing, she ain't going to start chewing it. No, she is going to become very concerned while holding the treasure in her mouth. She will look around the room, possibly pacing back and forth between her soft lay-down spots. And all along she will whine.

She will whine ever ever so pitifully: she will go to her blanket and whine, she will hop up on the couch and whine, she will go to a corner and whine, she will walk up to me, stare at me and whine, possibly jumping up. And I just looove it.

You see, Pooka needs a place to hide the treat for later. And no where is ever good enough. She will try to dig in a corner and place it there and try to shooove it into the corner. No, that's not right, she'll whine and pick it up again. I will try and help her by lifting up a blanket to make a cave, but she'll have nothing to do with it. Basically, even if she hides it, she's not happy with the spot, she'll stare at it a while, then pick it up again, whining. Sometimes, if she brings it to me, I make her play fetch with it to distract her. But I can't do this forever. Today I helped her out by going to a blanket and digging at it, which started her digging at it. I helped her "make a hole" and then when she put it in there, she tried to nudge the "dirt" back over it with her nose, and I helped her with that too. She was content.

Always in this situation, once she is FINALLY satisfied with a spot and she has left it for a while and she has some quiet time (I'm at the computer or ignoring her) she will run around to all the spots where she temporarily hid it, sniffing furiously, until she returns to its hiding spot, grabs it, plops down on a blanket and chews delightedly. It makes me laugh so much, her inability to eat the thing right away, and the plight it puts her in and how much it worries her.

But seriously, the puppy has a delicious treat and nothing stopping her from eating it, yet she's going to whine. I have no sympathy.