After I finished writing My Doggie Says…Messages from Jamie. How a dog named Jamie “talks” to her people, I realized that a lot of Jamie’s communications and behavior had a little “moral to the story.” So I went through the stories and identified twenty seven “rules” that Jamie seemed to follow. These are Jamie’s Rules for a Good Life. You can see some of them at the “My Doggie Says…” web site. Someone can probably figure out how these rules relate to life in the wolf pack, but I haven’t tried to do that. I just know that Jamie lived by certain principles that seemed like they could be a model for human behavior, as well as dog behavior.
The first rule I identified, and the one that prompted me to look for others, is “Play by the rules, even if there’s no referee.” This rule was the subject of this blog on July 30, 2007.
Jamie followed the “wuuf principle” in many aspects of her life. I first became aware of it when she “asked” me to lift her up on my bed at night. At first, she stood beside the bed (it was too high for her to jump up), near me, waiting to get my attention. If I didn’t wake up to her breathing, she would make a very gentle “wuuf” noise. A “wuuf” is much softer and more gentle than a “woof.” If the “wuuf” didn’t work, she escalated to a “woof.” And if I managed to sleep through a “woof,” she worked herself up to a full-fledged loud bark. But that was hardly ever necessary.
I wish more people would start out with “wuuf.” It sends such a polite message. It’s like starting a letter with “Dear Sir or Madam, should it please you…” It was a wonderful expression of the gentleness of Jamie’s breeding and personality.
Callie is still just a puppy, at seven months. But we can see some of the same gentleness in her breeding. As a matter of fact, we’ve been starting to wonder if she can bark! But when some racoons showed up at the sliding glass door of our Lake Arrowhead home, Callie let out a bark that was so loud it startled us.
So here’s a game to play with your dog. Try to figure out what it’s asking for before it gets to “WOOF.” See if you can understand what it’s saying when it “wuufs.” You will build a closer bond with your dog, because it will learn that you are listening and trying to act on its requests.
Just as I wrote this, I looked over at Callie’s crate (she’s still crate-training) and I noticed that she was standing up, breathing a little hard, and looking right at me. The clear message: “I really need to go pee.” We headed for the side yard, and , sure enough, Callie needed to go pee. BTW, in Callie’s case, it took about seven months to figure out that pee runs downhill. 🙂 Until last week, Callie always faced downhill to pee, so that the pee ran under her feet. She now faces uphill, and her feet stay nice and dry.
Next time someone does something you don’t like, try “wuuf” instead of “WOOF.”
