WHAT’S SO FUNNY:Adorable and bore-able

There are certain creatures whose lives have been cushioned for so long that they take on a star attitude. They feel they understand the world. They know who’s important and who isn’t, and they’re used to the spotlight — a little bored with it, actually.

Among these creatures are 2-year-old children and 4-year-old dogs.

My mother liked to tell a story of how she once met a woman on the street while carrying 2-year-old me in her arms. They stopped to talk. The woman complimented Mom on how cute I was. I looked at the woman and said, “Move.”

Our Welsh Springer spaniel Booker is four now, and although he’s still a sweetie, he shares one or two attributes with that earlier, ruder me.

About three days a week, Booker goes to Patti Jo’s jewelry shop with her and sleeps in a nook behind her counter. When he was young he would greet the customers who looked over the counter; he’d get up and wag his tail. Now he’s decided they’re extras.

The other day, three teenage girls saw him sleeping in his nook and cooed over him until he woke up and lifted his head to look at them. Then he inhaled, put his head back down and let the breath out through one side of his mouth in the classic “phooooo” sigh. Patti Jo was really embarrassed.

He’s gone from a wide-eyed fascination with everyone to the view that when you’ve seen one adoring customer you’ve seen them all. He doesn’t even offer the minimal response a star might give his fans; he just blows them off.

He’s not like this with everyone. Patti Jo, Katie and I are like gods to him. Visitors to the house are always welcome, because they might play with him. But a lot of people — and Patti Jo’s shop customers are among these — just say, “Oh, look at the widdoo biddoo with the hair sticking up!” and don’t do anything else. Even adulation gets tiresome when it becomes routine.

And it’s hard to explain the finer points of civility to a dog. You can tell a child, “It’s Aunt Betty, you smile because she loves you and she’s family,” and someday — it may be years from now — that child will smile at Aunt Betty.

But Booker has lost the feeling he once had that every customer is of interest, and I don’t know how Patti Jo’s going to teach him to pretend. He just can’t fake his wags.

For most rude 2-year-old humans, nature provides a cure: as we get older, we stop being cute. We lose our fan base. And we tend to try harder with people once we’ve taken a walk or two down Lonely Street. But Booker will probably never find out what it’s like to lose his appeal, because the truth is that the customers are right: He is, and always will be, a widdoo biddoo with the hair sticking up.