Your dog’s daily jog or walk is rich with opportunities for your dog to communicate — and for you to listen and try to understand. Callie’s three-mile jog this morning is a perfect example.
Usually, Barbara, Callie and I run together, but this morning Barbara had an early meeting, so it was just Callie and me. Which probably changed the doggie-chemistry a little. I had to work a little harder to figure out what Callie was “saying.”
It started as soon as we began to jog up our street. Callie pulled me over to the gutter, because she had spotted something I hadn’t seen — a blue, plastic, softball-sized ball. Well, nothing gets Callie pumped up like a new ball. Unlike Jamie, Callie is truly a “ball dog.” Every new ball that comes into her life becomes her favorite toy (except for “Stinky”) for a few days. So Callie picked up the blue ball and started to carry it in her mouth.
This was OK for a while, but Callie decided she liked the ball so much that she wanted to sit down and play with it. It got to be a huge distraction from our running, so I popped it into my fanny-pack so we could get on with business.
The next “loud” message came as we ran through the parking lot at the nearby golf club. There are two “roads” through the parking lot — an entrance to the left, and an exit to the right. In order to cut corners a little, I started down the entrance road to the left. But remembering that the three of us always take the exit path to the right, Callie stopped and pointed her muzzle toward the right hand route. She was saying, “Couldn’t we go the way we usually do it?” I thought, “Why not?” and Callie picked up the pace smartly, her polite request having been heeded.
There’s a pretty good clue here: Sometimes, if your not sure what your dog is saying, it helps to be aware of where it is looking. In this case, Callie was looking in the direction she wanted us to run. Another time, she might be looking at a ball, or a pine cone, or a stick that she wants to pick up. Or at something she’d like to eat. Or a toy she wants me to pick up so we can play.
Callie’s third message came as we jogged along the street that borders the golf course — facing traffic on the side of the road farthest from the golf course. But there’s a little stretch of berm on the golf course side that is covered with wood chips, so it makes a nice soft place to run. It’s probably not wide enough for three people, so maybe Callie realized that with just two of us it would work. So she stopped on the street, and looked toward the other (right) side, with the nicely wood-chip-cushioned berm. I knew she was asking to run on the soft stuff, and it didn’t really cause a problem, so we crossed over, and Callie was happy as a puppy with a Kong toy!
You, as the dog’s owner, need to be in charge. But I enjoy figuring out my dogs’ polite requests and honoring them when it makes sense. I think it makes them feel good to have their suggestions taken. This morning’s walk was pretty typical; it gave Callie a lot of opportunities to express ourselves — and for us to build a stronger owner-dog relationship.
Next time you take your dog for a walk or run, pay attention to its messages and try to give you dog the gift of going along with some of its suggestions.
