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Who is training who

 

The other day I was out walking my dog, and a security guard stopped to talk to me, and pet my dog. He told me a story of a dog that his family got on a road trip in Ontario. The owners were giving it up because they were moving to BC and did not want to bring the dog. I will never understand why people do that. Yet in this case, these people gave up their lovely dog, and it found a new home where it lived until it was over 20.

The dog now with his new family was soon to make the trip to BC anyway. The family got an opportunity and they headed out west and he got his first plane ride.

This dog used to sleep upstairs with the family in the bedroom. That is where his bed was, and every night he would climb the stairs with them to bed. Then during a run in with another dog, he was hurt badly and he could no longer climb the stairs even after he recovered from his injury.

So, every night, he would go to his basket that was placed at the bottom of the stairs, and watch the family go up to their rooms. When the house was all asleep, in the early hours of the morning, he would wake them up with crying and barking. The assumption the family made was that he wanted to go out, and so someone would get up, and let him out into the garden, and watch him, and wait for him to come back in. According to the security guard, (who was the one who always got up), the dog did not appear to have need to toilet facilities of the outside world; he just wanted someone to be woken up. Then next the dog would get fed something, and not just any old dog food, but nice special food that the dog seemed to like very much. The man would put the food down and leave the dog and go upstairs. Yet as soon as he got up the top of the stairs and safely into is bed again, the crying would start again. Yes, you guessed it; the dog was telling him he was lonely. Well, that is my guess anyway. Get down here with me! So the man would go back down. He would watch the dog eat his food, and try again to go up. Yet cry again he did; the dog that is not the man. The man would then stay with the dog until it had eaten, and seemed ready to curl up in his bed again for the rest of the night. Then, and only then would the man be able to leave the dog without being woken as soon as he got back in bed, by the crying sound.

Who is training who?

No don’t get me wrong, I have been owned by a dog too, in fact it can still be a competition with the current one, but I have learned over the years to be stronger and to show the dog that I make the rules, or at least most of them anyway.

This man gave in to the dog, and every night, for over 10 years this was the routine.

He told me this story after I had asked him if the family would ever get another dog. He seemed to love dogs so much as he enjoyed petting mine.

I would have given in to the dog too, but I would have carried him up the stairs every night and let him sleep in his bed in my room.  It was after all where he had started his life with this family, how was he to understand now why he had to be set at the bottom of the stairs.

 



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