Yesterday I was at my parents house for an extended family dinner. While I was there, I discovered that one of my aunts was terrified of dogs. Like paralyzingly terrified. For as long as my parents have been throwing parties at their house (with their two dogs walking around) we had no idea she had this phobia.

One of my parents dogs, Jasper, is a high-energy, super intelligent jack russell terrier who never leaves Mom’s feet. At one point in the evening, my Auntie Carmen was literally cowering in the corner of the room on my parents couch just trying not to pay attention to the dogs that were only a few feet away.

And then out of the blue, Jasper decided to walk over to her, sit at her feet, and just look at her. I’m not really sure why. She wasn’t really doing anything to particularly draw him to her. He just sat there, occasionally sniffing the leg of her pants and looking up at her eagerly. He even got up and gently put his paws on her leg (by this point, she started to audibly whimper and so I would reach over and call Jasper away from her). But then he’d go right back to her.

When she left, he must not’ve seen her go because he came back to the spot where she was sitting and then when he realized she wasn’t there, he went searching for her.

I don’t really understand how Jasper singled her out of everyone else that was at my parents house or why he wanted her attention so badly. I’d like to think though that he was just being a good canine ambassador trying to ease her fears and let her know not to be afraid