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Wll wErk fr Fud an LUv
A couple of years ago, my daughter and a friend taught our dog how to raise a paw or “shake” for a food reward. The dog is sweet and friendly, but not exactly the Einstein of the canine world, if you get my drift. However, she learned quickly because there were treats involved.
Here’s the funny thing: we noticed she was using the raised paw, unprompted, in non-food situations. It’s now a sign that means “I need . . . [fill in the blank according to the context].” So on a long car trip, she was raising her paw if she needed to get out and use the bathroom (and I think she also does that if she wants the car window cracked so she can stick her snout out). And then yesterday, my husband was petting and talking to her because she had hurt her leg, and when he stopped, she lifted her paw. Obviously, she didn’t want the session to be over.
Published in Entertainment
We got a new puppy around the time that our old dog became, well, old. They overlapped for only a year or two, but it was long enough for us to witness this same phenomenon. Our old dog had a lifelong prejudice against fluffy, white dogs (she herself was a yellow lab and German Shepherd mix). She didn’t seem to care much about any other dogs, but a dog who was both fluffy and white – oh boy would she let ’em have it. Long after she passed, I recall walking our other dog and he would only lunge at – you guessed it – fluffy, white dogs. On a related note, who knew that dogs could be such bigots?
I’ve mentioned my standard poodle several times in the past. He was scary smart – but as I’ve said before, made me laugh at least once a day. I really miss the Pup. Also taught him some things using hand signals. He was nearly 15. Great years with him.
If we were at the table eating, all I had to do was look at him and point to the door and he would turn around and leave the room. No Border Collie he (in terms of herding and responding to hand signals from one hilltop to another) but there were other things he’d do on a hand signal command.
But you’re right – those guys “know just how to wrap us around their…paws.”
Or, if necessary, one claw.
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Indeed. They’re unique in that they’re the only animal to co-evolve with humans. They transitioned from wild lupine animals to adorable obedient canines as we transitioned from hunter-gathers with our first permanent settlements (probably still competing with the occasional neanderthal) to modern humans with agriculture and trade.
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We’re unique in our ability to communicate emotion with minute changes in facial expressions but they evolved to be responsive to us so well that they can pick up on nonverbal cues so subtle that we don’t notice them in one other. They seem to think of their human family as their pack mates and respond to our directions and desire our approval as they would the leaders of the pack who have social dominance and would direct coordinated hunts.
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I think that’s another transferred pack behavior. All mammals are instinctively protective of their own young, but wolves protect all the young of their pack as if they were their own. I suppose people would look askance at the idea today, but there were times you could let your dog babysit your toddler if you weren’t going to be gone for very long. Here’s what may be a modern analog.
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Just white and fluffy, or small, white & fluffy?
My husband’s family had a dog that injured one of his front paws. While the paw was bandaged, the family babied him and didn’t scold him for transgressions. Forever after that, whenever he did something that would bring on a scolding, he would raise the paw and give them a pitiful look. That generally made them laugh and, of course, shortened the scolding.
I also had a racist poodle. He enjoyed poodles (and any other people) but always got scolding and barky with other dogs. I talked with his breeder about it and she said he was used to other poodles in the show ring being very properly behaved. But dogs in the neighborhood would run at him and bark at him….therefore he must have concluded that only dogs of certain breeding were worthy of civility.
And now, Clancy is ringing her bell, Excuse me.
So, I let her out and she immediately ran to the front door and started pawing at it, to show me a package had arrived while I was downstairs! I guess that makes her my secretary?
I imagine someone of her station would more properly be called an amanuensis.