One thing I love as a professional dog walker is all the stories fellow dog walkers share about their dogs.
It got me thinking “are we just servants to our pets!!”…
The western world has a very different approach to their dogs as the rest of the world. In many countries dogs roam free, are used as a working tool and unfortunately aren’t always looked highly upon and treated badly. As I have said in previous blogs, dogs have a special way of adapting to the situation life throws at them and surviving well, although they love and crave closeness to us or the pack around them as they are a sociable animal.
But here in the UK we have turned our love of dogs into an art! we have literally become their servants and dogs being the clever beings they are, have worked out how to live a “perfect life”.
I’m going to share a few scenarios and stories with you that show our love of our pets is unconditional and a little unbalanced!!
My own story would be in the bedroom! don’t get excited I’m not writing 50 shades, this is a dog blog! We have 3 Yorkshire terriers and although small can have this incredible skill of taking up a whole double king size bed by strategically spreading themselves out.
My long suffering wife is often in bed way before I decide to go up so that’s half the bed gone, I then proceed to work out how to fit in to MY bed by not disturbing the dogs!
Here is how it looks. I sneak into the room with my torch light on so as to not wake my wife, I get to my side of the bed and find Herbie, our youngest yorkie on my pillow laying as close to to his beloved servant(my wife) as he can without actually smothering her. I scan the bed and next find Stardust our little girl Yorkie laying upside down right in the middle of the duvet, making it impossible to pull it up and get in. Then our 3rd Yorkie- Rocky is at the end of the bed curled up in a tiny ball, he probably turned around in circles about 10 times before settling in that spot, knowing I am totally locked out of my bed!. So what do I do? do I pick up each dog and put them on the floor and take back control of my bed? Do I slip in the side and hang half in the bed, half out all night so as not to disturb our sleeping beauties? NO of course not, I admit defeat and go and sleep in the spare room. I get in and snuggle down and fall deep asleep, only to be woken 5 minutes later by Rocky asking to come up, then Stardust appears and proceed in locking and pinning me into the duvet for the night!
Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t change it for the world, but it shows how dogs have adapted to not only be alongside us all the time but also to outwit us to get the upper hand when it comes to comfort(it’s a love thing). How many of us let our dogs get away with stuff?
Another story I heard was of an elderly lady who owns a Shih-tzu called Bobby. She went to bed really early, not because she was tired and needed the rest but because Bobby had taken over her chair and looked so comfortable spread out and snoring away, that she didn’t want to disturb him, so he sent her to bed!
I work with 2 beagles and when I get back from walking them, one of their loving owners is there to greet them. Roe runs in and greets him with unconditional love and she receives a loving fuss and cuddle. She then uses this affection to her advantage and gets her regular treat, a juicy rawhide covered in cooked chicken, she takes it with love in her eyes and sits on the stairs, takes about 2 minutes to strip the chicken off, throws the rawhide aside and goes back to her owner with loving affection and sweet whining noises to get another treat, for the chicken part alone! She has learn’t by love to get what she wants from the scenario. Are we their servants!
I love the Rupert Fawcett cartoons “off the leash” and how he looks at life through a dogs eyes and making us humans the foolish ones.
In one of his cartoons he portrays the human as a poop slave, following their dog around picking it up as the dog leaves a trail for fun! Another is where the owner has only 2 poop bags, the dogs discuss this and do 2 poops using up the bags, then on the way home on a pavement go again leaving the human screaming NOOOOO!!!
Its all a bit of fun, but thinking about dog behaviour, we do create our own monsters, by mollycoddling and bowing to our dogs fake needs we buy into dogs not understanding their boundaries and limitations & creating their own. This is of course each owners choice of how to nurture their pet and enjoy their lives together as much as possible, but be warned, if we allow our dogs to rule and demand and get everything they desire, they will have issues.
The best way to nurture our dogs is to give them lots of exercise to burn their energy, a good balanced life with structure and of course love and attention at the appropriate times.
thanks for reading, tell your friends to have a browse. until next time…