Solakan Dandies

Ella is a bit reserved to strange people and sometimes she acts like she would be shy. She does not necessarily go straight ahead to strange people´s laps but she often keeps a little distance at first. If strange person comes right towards her she may go away or even hide herself behind the owner. But at home she always says nice hello. To strangers that is just polite hello but to those she knows it means a huge grinning, squeeky sounds, thousand kisses, jumping and getting totally grazy. So some people thinks that Ella is very shy and some others think that she is not. :-) But there are situations where Ella never acts like a shy dog. Those are the ones where something strange happens suddenly. She will go straight ahead to see what it was that caused such a voice or else moves weirdly. She may have her hair up but yet she is going to check the situation. She does not care about the loud sounds or odd smells - she just has to know what it is all about.

Eeven though Ella is tiny she is not a lap dog. She only wants to sit o laps when we are visiting our friends or else when we have friends visiting us. When she feels herself a bit unsecure or else wants to have some extra attention. Normally she may come to same soffa with us but she wants to have her own privacy. No need to sit on the lap. Becides it is enough that she sleeps on the same pillow with Minna.

Ella is not obedinece trained. As a matter of fact she is not trained at all. But yet she has the ability of knowing how to behave in different kind of situations. She knows what to do when visiting people we have never met before, when travelling in train, when shopping etc. But actually we are not so surprised because after all she is a princess. ;-) She has a very good ability to read both dog and human body language and she is bright enough to behave based on what she sees. She is very sensitive and feels uncomfortable in situations where she gets too much attention so she rather behaves so that she can live her own life the way she wants to. We have perhaps once or twice said her "no!" and that is all. Usually she just knows how to behave. Actually the only situation where we have had to use word "no!" is when strange dogs are coming towards us. Ella has to bark for few times to inform that they are coming.

We could never imagine that Ella might have a fight with any other dog! She just isn´t like that. She stays away from that kind of situations which could end up to fight or even to argue. She goes away and stays calm if other dogs is starts to challenge her. She uses the calming signals she has learned and does it pretty effectively. She also uses the same method at home. She shows her position in the pack for Mira by licking her face and if she tries to move Ella growls slightly and Mira immediateley stays still. Only twice we have sen Ella growling angrily to other dogs and in those situation they have been young and arrogant dandies who have been testing her limits. Usually Ella´s body language tells that she is the boss and that is all she needs. It does not matter at all that she is very tiny :-)

Dana´s Bengallight Divina - "Ella"