Occaisional exception

If you've been around enough animals, you know that every so often, maybe one in fifty or one in a hundred, an animal you know displays what might be called "genius." I have been lucky enough that in my life, I've lived with a couple such animals. They seem more human than dog/cat/horse/whatever. They are remarkably easy to train, understand exactly what you want of them most of the time, and just seem incredibly smart.

I was stumbling along and found a blog entry that was a eulogy of such an animal. His name was Tito, and he was just a dog after all, but he seems like a fine dog.

And it makes you think. I suppose we'd all like to think of ourselves as that one special specimen, the one who invents, understands, who excels over the others in our species. But the fact is, most of us aren't, and you have to go through a whole mess of dogs before you meet a Tito.