Why Paying Attention To Your Dog's Mental State Matters

I may actually spend more time on this blog talking about why paying attention to dog body language and other signals are important than what they are. There are a couple of reasons for that. I think observation of the dogs in your life is an important teacher. I (and other sources) can tell you what this or that behavior means in general, but I cannot tell you what it means in your dog.
I also think that paying attention to the messages our dogs are giving us is crucial. In order to live with us, dogs have to give up choices about so many things. They make our lives better. The least we can do is try to make their lives the best they can be. The way to do that is to pay attention to their needs. In particular, I think it is important to be able to tell that they aren't doing well; whether from illness, stress, or other factors; and help make things better for them.

Stop Staring

Making eye contact or staring is considered rude in the dog world. Not making eye contact is rude in the human world (although we usually still consider staring rude.) This can cause a wealth of misunderstandings. We naturally look dogs in the eye, just like we do with humans or really any thing with eyes. This causes dogs to feel scared or attacked. Often they turn their heads or back away. We might think our dog isn't paying attention. Or we might keep looking or move forward further upsetting the dog. These two natural instincts just don't combine well.

As the human part of the equation, we can train ourselves not to look dogs directly in the eye. When we do, we can make sure to move on quickly. We can also teach dogs that when a human looks them in the eye, it isn't a bad thing.

Can and Will

As a result of my just talking to him, one of the things Max has picked up is the phrases "Can I pick you up?" and "I'm going to pick you up." "Can I pick you up?" is used when it is optional. For instance, he is often more comfortable in the presence of strangers if I pick him up so he is at eye level. He also may find the terrain we are walking in difficult given his small size - he doesn't always like walking in tall grass where he can't see where he is going. He has started offering the behaviour of coming and sitting on my right side in response if he wants to be picked up and moving away and to my left if he does not.

Of course, sometimes Max has to be picked up. He might need to get up on the exam table at the vet. I might be picking him up to deal with a hazard like a hot street we are crossing. Often if strangers are coming over I don't give him the choice and just pick him up because I know he is less stressed that way. For those situations I tell him "I'm going to pick you up." and he knows what is coming.

Having these kinds of options is a great thing for your dog to have. I plan to generalize Max's use of positioning to say yes or no here for other situations, so he will be able to answer yes or no questions using vocabulary he has learned.

Talking To Your Dog

When Pico and I were talking our service dog training class, our instructor told us to talk to our dogs all the time. She said that if we told them what we were doing as we did it, named items and otherwise just talked to them conversationally, they would pick up words and phrases. I did this with Pico and she picked a vocabulary of hundreds of spoken and ASL words and phrases. She knew more ASL than I did because other people used it with her and she had a better memory.

I have done this with my subsequent dogs as well and while they haven't picked up as much vocabulary as Pico, they certainly have picked up quite a bit. Remember that they didn't spend 24 hours a day with me like Pico did as a Service Dog.

Having a large vocabulary isn't just a dog party trick. It allows you and your dog to communicate wants and needs and builds your relationship.