How did Sirius know??

[finwitch]

No: HPFGUIDX 57512

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:

> 
> Whilst that's a pretty safe assumption, a possibly less safe one is 
that 
> the first attack *does* occur two months into the school year, and 
whilst 
> Harry hasn't noticed the black dog hanging around the grounds by 
that stage 
> (the first time he notices Snuffles is during the Hufflepuff 
match), Sirius 
> has been hanging around the Hogwarts grounds all that time. In 
those two 
> months, he could easily have ascertained that Ron was a Gryffindor. 
Dogs 
> have good hearing, and people say all kinds of things.
> 

Dogs have extremely good sense of smell! And, dogs are also good at 
tracking (living) things by following scent. Padfoot did not need to 
know anything about Ron or where he was - he was interested in the 
RAT. He's a dog, hunting certain rat, whose smell he probably 
remembers from his time at school (and supposedly that came back when 
Dementors reminded him of Peter's betrayal, if he forgot what that 
particular rat smelled)...

Doggyness may have kept most of his sanity. It also means loyalty to 
the pack, protecting and caring for the young (Harry), hunting and 
attacking those who act against the pack - betrayal of pack(which 
Peter did) is absolutely inexcusable and unthinkable to the dog. 
Remus had a bit more mind than Sirius (who lost most of it to 
Dementors?), but it WAS near full moon when they encountered 
Wormtail. Harry's intervening brought out the human control, I 
suppose - a well trained dog will obey it's human...

-- Finwitch