As I was sitting watching Strictly on Saturday, Gus came up and nudged my knee with his nose then stood looking expectantly at me. Tearing my gaze away from Kelvin’s…err…muscles…with difficulty, I looked back at him.
“What do you want?” I asked him. In reply, he nose-nudged me again and gazed fixedly at me. I glanced at the clock. It was after 8pm – and at 8pm Gus expects his nightly Dentastix. “Just a minute,” I said – obviously I had to finish watching Kelvin first…
What Gus says to me is usually obvious – he’s my dog and as he’s grown up I’ve learnt to interpret what he’s “saying”. You’ll understand your dog pretty well too, I’m sure. But you may not be able to tell what other dogs are “saying” so easily.
Dogs don’t speak English, except in cartoons. But they do communicate what they’re thinking and feeling to us all the time, through their facial expressions and body language.
Being able to understand what dogs are communicating is an important skill – an essential one if you work with dogs – but even ‘ordinary” dog owners can benefit enormously from understand dog language.
For example, if you can ‘speak dog” you’re able to recognise if an approaching dog is friendly or not, or if play between dogs is enjoyable for your dog, or likely to end in tears.
And most importantly, if you can “speak dog” you’ll easily recognise when your dog is struggling with things he meets in life, or with the things you’re trying to teach him – you’ll be able to step in early to help him and use your doggy communication skills to help him learn what you want him to do easily and quickly.
Keep training,
Carol