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:

Here are two additions to our animal soccer team. So far, we have the elephant and Callie.

Now we’ll add Devin’s dog. Here’s some video from You Tube of Devin teaching his dog Sable to play soccer.

[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4aXe3-rno]

And here’s a dog in Chile that just decided to walk across the street and join the fun.

[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4I9Wroy644]

These two dogs will make great additions to our all-animal team as midfieldsmen because of their ability to move the ball up the field. So now we have Callie playing defense because of her ability to trap the ball, the Elephant as our scoring threat, and Sable and the dog from Chile in the midfield.

In the case of the three dogs, it seems to me that the dogs are doing the teaching, not the people. This is totally in the spirit of My Doggie Says…Messages from Jamie. How a dog named Jamie “talks” to her people. Why not have the kind of relationship with your dog where the dog gets to be in charge once in a while? As long as you don’t negate your “alpha” role, this seems like a healthy thing. Look how confident these dogs are in their doggie-soccer interactions with people.

Please let me know if you have any other nominations for the all-animal soccer (futbol) team. There’s now a page on the blog (see the upper right corner) where you can see video of all the players.

This Personal Story About Dog Walking is a cute example of how your dog can enrich your life. The author, Allan, started taking his dog to a doggie park in his neighborhood, and, in the process, he made a lot of new people friends.

This article from the Mayo Clinic, “Friendships: Enrich your life and improve your health,” reminds us how important friendships are in our lives — as a matter of maintaining good personal health. It contains a list of things to do to make new friends, and right at the top of the list is “get out with your pet.”

My dogs have enriched my life in a number of small ways, but also in one very big way. Because of my close relationship with my Golden Retriever, Jamie, I became the author of My Doggie Says… It started when I first became aware of the many “messages” Jamie was sending. Then I started taking photographs to capture Jamie’s body language messages. Then I started writing little stories about the messages. And then, one day, there was a whole book. It’s been a wonderful experience for me, and it all happened because of my relationship with Jamie.

Like Allan, we’ve also had the experience of being introduced to people by our dogs. This is especially true these days, when we go for walks with Callie, who is a six-month-old Golden Retriever puppy. Everyone loves Callie! So everyone stops to say hello and get to know Callie. So we’re making lots of new friends because of Callie. This is especially true when we walk Callie at Lake Arrowhead Village. Lots of the shoppers and small children like to visit with Callie, and we end up having fun conversations that we would not have otherwise.

Your relationship with your doggie can enrich your life in unexpected ways!