Doggone Etiquette —

Let’s Talk

By Bardi McLennan

A Word to the Dog:

Face-to-face chit-chat and all that goes along with it is very important to you dogs. It keeps you safe, well-fed, healthy, and happy. This is true even if let’s say you were blind. In addition to all the familiar sounds and smells of your home and family, you would still have to rely on your people’s tone of voice and their touch, as well as paying attention to the many words you know. Or, for example, if you were deaf, you would rely on the physical presence, touch, hand signals, and facial expressions of your people. All you dogs instinctively understand (or soon learn) how to interact with each other, but sometimes the people in your lives forget that in order to communicate with them, dogs must rely on their actual presence. You dogs are smart, but you don’t operate via smartphones! Not yet anyway! 

A Word to the Dog’s Owner:

Conversation as we used to know it has taken a strange and remote turn. Today it’s our dogs that are pretty much the only ones left to benefit from what was our normal two-way, face-to-face communication. All else seems to have disappeared into earphones or an infinite variety of hand-held devices. Eye contact, for example, is currently confined to some form of Internet or text-messaging. Our dogs are left to become the sole recipients of what once was normal inter-communication. At least we can hope they are still on the receiving end of it!

This primitive (or canine?) form of conversation may be considered outdated by lots of people, but it does offer the recipient a clearer understanding of our feelings than the “deleted” and “inserted” form that seems to have taken over so many of us. Rufus will still follow your one-word commands or hand signals, but you cannot uncover his reaction to your thoughts or feelings by flicking your fingers over a tiny digital device. Nor can the poor dog! So when it comes to conversing with Rufus, stick to doing it the old fashioned way.

Once a dog becomes the family pet, teaching, training, and everyday chit-chat are all done with the dog beside us, or face-to-face, using the appropriate tone of voice, facial expressions and general body language that let the dog grasp what we mean. Rufus learns to read it all. It is vital to maintain these

human elements of spoken conversation with your dog. Keep your text-messaging, your use of iPods, laptops and all other use of the latest digital devices for the people who can understand exactly what that is all about.

Your dog will let you know if someone is trying to break into your house by barking – a good old-fashioned alarm signal to both you and the intruder. So teaching Rufus when it’s okay for him to bark, and when he must not bark, are further indications of when “let’s talk” is of prime importance to both you and your dog.

There are endless conversations anyone in the family can have with the dog. It’s just one of the benefits we humans get from having a dog. The kids can vent their problems, and share their dreams, without anyone but the dog knowing about it. And as you know perfectly well, adult dog owners can do the same!  Make “Let’s Talk” a promise to your special dog.

 

Until next time – BE GOOD!

- Bardi

Bardi McLennan bred, trained and showed Welsh Terriers for 30 years, during which time she wrote a monthly column on canine behavior in Dog Fancy Magazine. In addition to contributing to numerous dog publications, she has written 15 books on dogs, the latest being Rescue Me!, which received the ASPCA Humane Issues Award in 2008.