I am constantly aware of Doc O’s admonition that “everyone would want a dog just like Jamie. But it will be a another spirit, another life, another joy.” As Callie (now a six-months-old Golden Retriever) grows up, I work hard at understanding who she is and not expecting her to be like Jamie (the heroine of My Doggie Says… Messages From Jamie. How a dog named Jamie “talks” to her people).

Unlike Jamie, Callie has established that she is a “ball dog.” She really like to play with balls, but Jamie didn’t. If you threw a ball to Jamie, she would just let it hit her on the nose. But Callie really cares about balls. In the next blog or two, you will see some video of Callie playing soccer, which she loves to do. This morning, one of Callie’s under-sized tennis balls fell into a little patch of ivy in our side yard, and Callie went diving in to the ivy and poked around until she found her ball. Jamie would not have done that. So what’s the lesson? I’m trying to nurture Callie’s interest in balls — partly by playing soccer with her whenever I can. Callie also likes to “borrow” golf balls when I’m practicing around the house.

Another difference between Callie and Jamie seems to be their interest in watching TV. Jamie glanced at the TV once in a while, but Callie really seems to lock in, for a few seconds anyway, on what’s going on. Yesterday, we were watching the British Open on TV, and Sergio Garcia hit a shot that rolled up onto the green. Callie saw the little white ball rolling, and she absolutely tried, with her mouth, to pick it up. She followed it all the way across the putting green. Then, when the ball came to rest in the lower right corner of our TV set, she focused on trying to pick up the round “ABC” TV logo. This just lasted a few seconds, and she was off to something else. But she does seem to have a pattern of checking in to see what’s happening on the TV, once in a while, in one of those rare moments, when it’s turned on.

Here’s an interesting article that says that “87% of dog owners believe that their pets watch television. A survey by the American Kennel Club and Iams found that nearly half of dogs surveyed showed some interest in what was happening on the television.” Another article, on seefido.com, points out that TV doesn’t appeal to dogs’ sense of smell, which is a very important part of their sensory input. So if the networks want to add dogs to their listener audience, they need to find a way for TV to impart a sense of smell. Can you imagine how much TV your dog would watch if it could smell the dog food, or the sizzling steaks in advertisements?

My three-year-old granddaughter, Lauren, has a stinky. Actually she has about three stinkies, because one of them is usually so stinky that it needs to be washed. One-year-old Granddaughter Amelia has also started to use one of Lauren’s stinkies. The stinky, or security blanket was popularized by Linus in the Charles Schultz Peanuts cartoons. Psychologists call these things security objects.

Here, from Wikipedia, is some background on security objects. At least as they pertain to children. The article says that they can help children adapt to new situations and aid in their learning. This seems to work for dogs, too.

Jamie (My Doggie Says…) used a red, blue and yellow stuffed ball as her “stinky.” She kept it nearby most of the day. And at night, she often carried it into our bedroom to park it a few inches from her nose. She didn’t chew on it a lot; she just kept it close. Sometime, she talked to it in a high-pitch, whinie voice. But when her ball got lost forever, Jamie was depressed for several weeks. She had obviously lost an important part of her life. Here’s Jamie with her ball:

Callie’s stinky is her little stuffed dog. She carries it around and gently chews on it frequently. But especially at night. Almost every evening, she finds it and gently “gums” it just before bedtime. Sometimes for thirty or forty minutes. It seems to put her in a very peaceful mood — ready for a good night’s rest.

Several times, Callie has run down two flights of stairs to retrieve her stinky puppy. Then she comes back to living room to be with us while she enjoys her stinky. This morning, she was playing with it in our bedroom, and it got lost. I could tell she was looking for it, so I picked up some covers and a bedspread, but I couldn’t find it. Then I wondered if it was under the bed. I guess Callie had come to the same conclusion. By the time I could lift the bed skirt, Callie had stuck her six-month-old head under the bed and pulled out her puppy.

Callie does something with her stinky puppy that I’m not sure I understand. Jamie did the same thing. She will offer it to me, almost like a gift. I’ve seen her offer it to her doggie cousin Ishka, too. She offers it, but she doesn’t really let go. I’m reluctant to force her to “give” the puppy to me, because I don’t really think she intends to give it to me. And I don’t think she wants to get into a tug of war. So I usually hold onto it for a minute, while she’s still got it in her mouth. Then she seems happy to walk away and enjoy it again. It’s almost like she’s offering to share her most precious thing with me, but just a litle bit.

Watch your dog and see if you can figure out which toy is its stinky. Which toy does it play with the most? Which toy does it play with at bedtime? If it does have a stinky, then be aware that it might be extremely important to your dog’s good emotional balance to spend time with it. If it gets lost, help your dog find it. It will appreciate your help more than you can know.

This is an important way to build a closer relationship with your dog.

Callie keeps getting better at swimming. Since about day-three on our vacation here at Lake Arrowhead, Callie has been swimming with confidence — well, almost with confidence. She’s swimming without a leash now, but she’s still swimming between the shore line and our dock, which is a protected (by the dock) strip of water about forty feet wide. When we first throw her “floppy” in the water, she still hesitates for a few seconds. She wiggles back and forth sideways, working up the courage to go into the deeper water. But it just takes a few seconds, and off she goes!

Within that little strip of water, she is doing really well. She has to deal with a few weeds, once in a while, but she’s learned how to do that. So for about fifteen minutes a day, Callie is swimming out about forty feet, retrieving her floppy (like a floating frisbee), and swimming back to shore.

The other side of the dock, the water beyond Callie’s little strip and beyond the boat dock, is the open part of Lake Arrowhead. Well, it’s not really open. It’s still within the five-mile-per-hour buoys, but there is some boat traffic and some choppy water, especially if it’s windy — as it has been the last two weeks.

So we’re working hard with Callie inside the dock line, to make sure she “comes” when she is called in the water. The last thing we need is Callie deciding to swim straight out into the lake, beyond the no-wake buoys and into the water ski traffic.

This was never an issue with Jamie. Maybe because Jamie was four-years-old when she started swimming from this dock. Here, from “My Doggie Says…” is a picture of Jamie swimming with her floppy outside the dock line.

We know Callie is bred to swim, and we know, already, that she really loves to swim. So why all the fuss? Because we want to make sure she continues to have good experiences in the water. We want to make 100% certain that, when she graduates to the open lake, she will “fetch” the floppy and “come” when called. It’s getting harder all the time to get her out of the water, which means she really loves her swimming. And we can tell she appreciates our efforts to make it a good experience. That’s what dog-relationships are all about.

She’s close. But we’ll probably wait until later in the summer, when she’s grown a little stronger. After all, she’s just six months old.

I’m getting some fun video of Callie swimming, but it will have to wait until I get back to the main computer. I don’t have the download tools here.