One aspect of having a strong relationship with your dog is trying to understand its behavior. Why did he/she do that? What’s the message? This is the point of “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie.”

When Callie brings me a toy, I try to figure out what she wants me to do with it. Am I supposed to take it? Am I supposed to give it back to her? Am I supposed to throw it and have her fetch it? It’s a puzzle. But I’d rather approach it this way than always forcing her to “fetch,” for example. I think she’s pretty smart, and I really want to understand what’s on her mind.

One thing I try not to do is to get into a game of “tug of war.” I did play “tug” with Jamie, before Callie arrived, but I was pretty careful not to get into an aggressive, growling contest. It was just a little back and forth and then on to something else. Some people have pretty strong views about not playing tug of war with your dog. (See the August 7, 2007 My Doggie Says… blog post.)

So Callie’s game has evolved into something that can best be described as “let’s both hold onto this toy for a little while.” Here’s how it went the other day. I was working in my office, and Callie was in the same room with several of her toys.

First, Callie walked over and presented me with “stinky,” her absolutely favorite security object (named after granddaughter Lauren’s “stinky” security blanket).

Callie’s “stinky” is the little brown doggie at the top of this photo. “Stinky” was one of Jamie’s toys, and it’s a total mystery that he/she has survived the jaws of two powerful Golden Retrievers. (See “The Doggie Toy Mystery,” posted on November 21, 2007)

Callie brought me her “stinky” and literally put it into my hands. As usual, I held one end of “stinky” and let Callie hold the other end. I didn’t tug. I just held it. Then I tugged a little, and Callie let go. OK, this isn’t a game of tug of war. Then I let go for a second, and Callie pawed at me, to get me to hold on again. The two of us just sat there for about 10 or 15 seconds, both holding onto “stinky.” That seemed to be what Callie wanted. Then she walked away.

A few minutes later, Callie walked over with her little stuffed chipmunk toy, and we went through exactly the same thing. She offered it to me. I took it and tested “tug” for a second. No tug in return. I let go for a second, and Callie pawed at me to get me to hold on again. Finally, we both just held the toy for a little while, and she went on her way again.

A few minutes later, Callie did the same thing with her blue stuffed monkey. Then a few minutes later, we went through the same process with her green ropey dopey looking toy.

So we played four rounds of “let’s both hold this toy for a while” in the course of about fifteen minutes.

Callie seemed totally satisfied with the game. It’s as if she just really wants to share one of her treasured toys with me for a few seconds — not to play tug, not to play fetch, and not to just give it to me. But to do something with me for a little while.

Try playing “let’s both hold this toy for a while” (LBHTTW) with your dog & see what happens. Who knows? It may turn into tug, or fetch, or something else. But you can’t play LBHTTW with your dog and not feel like you’re really in a relationship with it.

Ever wonder what it means to have a “meaningful relationship” with your dog?

It’s easy to get caught up in the mechanical aspects of owning a dog. You feed the dog, walk the dog, and train it not to pee on your carpets. And you work on obedience training — teaching your dog to “sit” and “stay” and “heel” and “come.”

Maybe the ultimate “mechanical” experience is owning a robot dog like Aibo. (Click on the image to see a BBC article about Aibo.)

This is sort of old news. You’ll notice the date on the BBC article is 2001. But it’s an interesting experiment in understanding the difference between a “robotic” relationship with a dog as opposed to an “emotional” relationship.

Aibo, developed by SONY, had some pretty cute features. You could program his software to change his name. And you could hook him up to your computer to see the world through his eyes. But the author of this article reaches this conclusion:

“No further connections grew between us, and I grew increasingly frustrated with my inability to develop a mutual relationship with Aibo.”

Here’s the final chapter of the Aibo story. Sony cancelled the project in 2006, partly because people wanted more than a robot for a pet.

It’s possible for owning a dog to become robotic and boring. For example, if you don’t like to walk, then walking your dog can be a burden. But for people who do like to walk for exercise, walking a dog can be a pleasure. The walk can be a shared experience.

What does it mean to have a relationship with your dog? Well, it must have something to do with getting past the boring, robotic chores. Here are a few ways that your dog relationship can get past the mundane stuff:

• You actually enjoy walking your dog, and the walk becomes a shared experience — and you and your dog get healthier in the process.
• You find other shared experiences, like going to a dog park, or in the case of Callie, playing soccer.
• You discover some things that your dog really likes to do, or is bred to do, and you take pleasure in supporting your dog’s “hobbies.”
• You get into competitions with your dog, like dog shows, agility training, or dog dancing.
• You tune into the more subtle “messages” that your dog is sending, and start to “speak” its language.
• You discover that your dog, in addition to depending on you for lots of things, also really cares about you — likes to be in the same room, licks your wounds and wants to sleep on your bed.

These are just a few of the ways your dog can capture portions of your heart and soul, if you let it.

Here are two of my favorite images from “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie.” The first is a photo of Jamie lying across the hallway by my home office saying, “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you right here.”

The second, is a photo of Jamie getting excited because she saw me take my green backpack out of the closet at our Lake Arrowhead house. Jamie knew that this meant she was going to get to go swimming in the lake, which was her favorite thing to do. So she sat by the door, waiting patiently (well, not always so patiently) to go to the lake.

Why would you want to have a “meaningful relationship” with your dog? After all, it will affect you emotionally — sometimes in happy ways and sometimes in sad ways. From the dog’s point of view, you are making its life better by sharing a part of yourself. But you’ll find that you grow in unexpected ways, too. For example, I got so interested in Jamie’s “dog talk” that I took hundreds of photos and wrote a book about it (“My Doggie Says…”). In many ways, the book — and the ensuing experiences — were a gift from Jamie.

The ultimate test of your emotional connection to your dog, of course, comes when you lose it. It’s been exactly a year since Jamie left us, and it’s still not something I want to write about. I treasure the times we had together, and I know that she was a better dog and I am a better person because of them.