There are lots of things you can do to have a closer relationship with your dog. “My Doggie Says…” is sort of a training manual for observing your dog, learning to understand what it’s saying, and nurturing it. This can bring you into a much closer relationship with your dog.

But what does it mean to be in a relationship with your dog? Does it just mean that your dog responds to “sit,” “stay,” “come,” and “roll-over?” Or is there something more going on? Is there some kind of emotional connection between people and their dogs? It sure feels that way to me.

People who really love their pets are often accused of “anthropomorphizing,” or imagining that their dogs behaviors represent human emotions or actions. If my dog licks my hand, is it because he loves me? Or is it because the salty flavor tastes good? But do dogs “doggiepomorphize?” Do they assume that people think like dogs? Probably. You could explain some of the “pack behavior” training theories this way.

Here’s a very thoughtful piece on this subject by Jasper: The Blogging Lab. After all, Jasper’s a dog, so he should know the answers to these questions.

Jasper believes there’s more to the people-pet relationship than anthropomorphizing. Here’s what he says:

“Personally I believe that there has always been much more to the canine mind than what we have in the past permitted ourselves to perceive. Believing this is no longer the wishful thinking of a pet owner anthropomorphizing their own thoughts onto those of their dog’s. Rather, dogs have recognizable intelligence.” Jasper also points out that scientists are discovering that dogs do have “recognizable emotions.” These emotions come into play in “pack” interactions. Why not also in human interactions?

Here are some thoughts I especially like:

“When I’m sad, they (my dogs) snuggle and are gentle and loving, not playful or rough. When I share good news with them, they respond by jumping around or by bringing me one of their toys. To me, this illustrates in the dog, a certain degree of intelligence and emotion, as well the ability to read, understand and interact with us.”

Yesterday, I talked about how much I enjoy my soccer games with Callie. She sits in the back yard, just on the other side of the soccer ball from me, and waits for me to come and play. How long would she sit there and wait? I don’t want to know, because after about thirty seconds, I start to feel guilty — like I’m hurting her feelings if I don’t play. Would it hurt her feelings if I didn’t respond? I have to believe it would, and it would begin to “train” her to not invite me any more.

So whether Callie is feeling human-like emotions or something else, I’m not going to “hurt her feelings.”

You PLAY with your dog; that’s what you do. Why not reward your dog’s initiative?

Yesterday I came home after a very frustrating round of golf (in a tournament at my club), and I just wanted to sit down in the back yard with a beer and some cheese and crackers — mostly so I could cry in the beer.

And then I look up and see this, or at least a slightly more current version of it. I say “more current version” because Callie has gained about twenty five pounds since this photo was taken.

Callie would stand there for an hour, I think, waiting for me to play soccer with her. And I guess she has me right where she wants me, because I can’t “just sit there” when she’s making such a lovely invitation.

Here’s what our soccer games look like.

[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4jkyC40njo]

As Callie matures, the nature of the game changes a little. She doesn’t stop to munch the grass and bushes as much as she used to. And, tragically, she’s almost too big now to squeeze through the orange tunnel. She can make it, but it’s pretty funny to watch her push the ball through. I guess we need to look for a bigger tunnel.

The other change is that her tummy is higher now than it used to be. So it’s easier for me to kick the ball when she traps it under her body. So sometimes she tries to pinch the ball between her front legs, or her hind legs, to make it a little harder. She’s a real competitor! (But I’m careful not to let the game get to a point where she becomes aggressive or real excited.)

Like Jamie (“My Doggie Says…“), Callie is good about drinking lots of water, both before and after her exercise. When she knows it’s time for a walk, she goes to her water dish for a nice big drink. But there’s an interesting difference. Jamie was always content to drink water from a bowl. Callie will drink water from a bowl, if it’s fresh, but she prefers to drink water that’s being poured or squirted, like water coming out of a fountain. When we stop in the middle of our walk to give Callie some water, she likes to drink from the stream of water as we pour it from the bottle into her dish. Like Jamie, she also likes to drink from the neighbors’ water sprinklers. And if we fill the water bowl in her crate by drizzling water in from above the crate, she drinks from the stream of pouring water instead of from the bowl.

All of which is a comment on how dogs’ breeding preserves some of the most basic instincts for survival. If you’re out in the wilds, of course it’s better to drink running water than stagnate water. If you want to push this a little farther, you can buy a small fountain that creates a running stream of water for your dog or cat. I just get a kick out observing the differences between Jamie and Callie, both of whom were purebred Golden Retrievers.

Is your dog inviting you to play? What are you waiting for? What better way to nurture your relationship?

I like to find ways to have a closer relationship with my dogs. The main message of “My Doggie Says…Messages from Jamie. How a dog named Jamie ‘talks’ to her people” is that, by observing your dog’s behavior, you can gain a better understanding of your dog. And then, of course, you have to act on what you learn.

Right from the first day Callie arrived at our house, when she was eight weeks old, she has invited me to play soccer with an old, under-inflated soccer ball. So I make time to play soccer with her. Here she is, waiting inside her tunnel, to see which direction I’m going to kick the ball.

And here she is in action:

But it’s important to pay attention to the basics, too. Here, on eSecret, is a good article titled “Are you a Good Dog Owner?” The keys, according to this article are 1) giving your dog lots of exercise, 2) rewarding and complimenting it often, 3) having structured training times, 4) having your dog groomed several times a year, and 5) giving your dog lots of social interaction with both dogs and people.

We work hard at giving Callie lots of exercise (long walks, soccer games and swimming), plenty of positive feedback, and lots of dog and people social interaction. We do work with her on the basic commands, but we can learn to be more structured about it.

It’s just about time to enroll Callie in Puppy Kindergarten. We’re hoping we can get her in a class with the same instructor who helped us learn to train Jamie (the heroine of “My Doggie Says…”). Her name is Ethel Mercer, and she works with the Lomita Obedience Training Club. See the web-link in the right-hand sidebar of this blog.

Well, after a few days (spread over a few weeks) of training, Callie took the plunge off the dock into the depths of Lake Arrowhead. She handled it well, but she still has some work to do.

She started by warming up with a few swims & retrieves (of her “floppy disk” from the shoreline). It had been two weeks since her last swim, so she had to get back into the feeling of swimming. The first time we tossed her Floppy into the water, very close to shore, she didn’t go right after it. Instead, she ran back and forth on the shoreline, not quite having the courage to tackle the massive (six inch) waves of Lake Arrowhead. We could see her trying to get up the courage to go into the deeper water, and finally she “just did it.” It’s pretty astounding to watch her work hard at overcoming her natural fears.

So then we decided to give her a try off the end of our boat dock. In case you’re wondering “why all the fuss?” the problem here is that there is some boat traffic near our dock. We didn’t want to have Callie in the lake until we were sure she would come when called. And that she would “fetch” her Floppy every time and “bring” it back.

For these first few test dives, I wanted Callie to be on a leash, so I hooked her up to a thirty foot lead. This would give her plenty of room to swim, but it let me reign her in, in case of an emergency.

So with Barbara in the water, Callie and I walked to the end of the dock. She walked like she was desperately eager to jump into the lake. But when we got to the end of the dock, she stopped short. She looked over the edge of the dock (which is about two feet above the water) and acted like she wanted to jump, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to take the leap.

She tried reaching down to the water with a front paw, but she couldn’t quite reach it. This went on for a few minutes, with Barbara and me encouraging her to jump in. Finally, she just lost her balance and fell in! It wasn’t pretty, but there she was in fifteen feet of water. It only took her a few seconds to start paddling, and then she was fine.

She swam to her Floppy, retrieved it, and swam with Barbara back to the shoreline (about sixty feet). Success!

So we tried again, and Callie had the same problem getting up the courage to jump off the dock. We let her work at it for a few minutes, and then I gave her a very gentle nudge. This time, as she realized she was falling forward, she pushed off with her hind legs and made a beautiful four-legged entry into the water. What a champ! She retrieved her Floppy and swam it back to shore again.

That was enough for one day. She did great, but she will get stronger at swimming as she gets more practice. She’s a great swimmer for a six-month old puppy, but she’s nowhere near as strong as Jamie was (or any full grown Golden Retriever).

Here are a few photos of Callie retrieving her Floppy: