A dog’s behavior can be rich with messages. The challenge, sometimes, is to figure them out.
Does your dog do wierd or unexpected things some times? If so, there’s a pretty good chance it’s trying to tell you something. If you want to improve your dog-listening skills, look for these “why-did-my-dog-do-that?” moments. And, then, scratch your head and get busy trying to decode the message.
One of the first clues can be your dog’s breeding. What was it bred to do? Retrieve? Hunt? Run fast? Herd sheep or other animals?
A lot of Jamie’s “why-did-my-dog-do-that?” moments became pretty obvious when I reminded myself that she was a Golden Retriever and bred to retrieve. One of my favorites is featured in “My Doggie Says… Messages from Jamie.”
One morning, my wife and I were jogging home, with Jamie, and I was carrying several rolled up newspapers. Jamie kept looking back at me. At first, we couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. My wife said, “She wants you to pay attention to her.” So I stopped and gave her a friendly ear scratch. But she kept looking back at me.
Finally, my wife said, “Maybe she wants to carry the newpapers.” I gave Jamie the papers, and that was it. She held her head up high and carried the rolled up bundle` the rest of the way home. But of course, she’s a retriever.
Another of Jamie’s “why-did-my-dog-do-that?” moments was to stop — as in “freeze!” — in the middle of our morning jog. Again, her breeding was usually (but not always) the clue. She was asking permission to retrieve a stick or a pine cone. Once we said “OK,” she would grab the object in her soft mouth and nestle it there until we got home — or until she got tired of it.
So next time your dog does something unexpected, ask yourself, “Why did he, or she, do that?” What is my dog trying to tell me? What was my dog bred to do? Maybe that’s a clue.
We’ll talk about other clues in future posts.
BTW, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been doing a lot of work on the site. Some of the interviews from the “My Doggie Says…” Radio Talk Show (KFNX 1100, in Phoenix, 8:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights) are posted as MP3 files. Soon, we hope to have them set up as a podcast, so you can subscribe and hear the “My Doggie Says…” Show on your own schedule.
