Dogs At Daybreak – An Appreciation

Training, behaviour, and science are important parts of my life with my dogs.  But there are simple, almost poetic moments that I also cherish.  Working, playing, and sometimes quiet moments that help me appreciate the rapport that positive training has given me with my dogs.  It starts even before I open my eyes each day.

There is no light, not yet.  A soft stirring gently rouses me from sleep.  A soft, warm tongue gently licks at my hand and I reach to nuzzle my fingers into a warm, furry neck for a morning scratch.  There is a quiet sigh and we both lie still but for the slow moving of fingers in fur.  We lie like this, with eyes closed, for some time and float in half sleep.  It is morning for me and my dog.

Before long, there is a stirring from the floor at the foot of the bed.  Soon an insistent paw prods the bed behind me and I reach over to stroke a smooth head with big ears that is panting happily behind me.  It is my other dog.  

Now there is a paw at my back, and then two.  Someone wants to join us up here on the bed.  There is a general, lazy shifting of bodies and now there are two dogs on the bed.  One collapses comfortably against my wife while the other begins the morning ritual of licking faces in greeting.

I open my eyes to the thump of a dog lying down heavily on the pillow next to me while my wife grumbles about insistent nudging from a cold, wet nose.  Peering through the early morning dark, it’s hard to make out two black dogs.  But they are making their presence felt.

Before long, there is laughter.  And there is just enough light to see the white teeth of their open-mouthed smiles as my two dogs take turns pestering my wife and me.  They are reminding us that there are things to be done.  They need to be let out and fed.  And play, there must be play.  Perhaps today it will be chase games with each other or maybe a chance to play with their humans.  Whatever the case, they are very eager to get to it.

It’s a pretty terrific way to start the day.  The simple love of a dog is a thing to cherish.  But one of the most precious gifts that we have gotten from using positive training is the ability to interact and understand our dogs in a very personal way.  To know their biology and their behaviour, to understand the way they take in the world, to know how they are uniquely dogs is truly a blessing.  It doesn’t matter to us that those face licks are an instinctive behaviour, a throwback to our dogs’ evolutionary link to grey wolf cubs.  What matters is that we understand it as affection.

We all have our morning rituals with our dogs.  All are different but all are important.  Take the time to acknowledge your dogs when they come to greet you.  Theirs is a unique relationship with humans, born of both natural selection and our selective breeding.  It’s been this way for thousands of years.  Their presence as I begin each new day is a comforting reminder that no matter what the day may bring, I will not face it alone.

I hope you had a great morning.

Until next time, have fun with your dogs!

Photo credit – 

Tiramisu – Eric Brad 2011

Recent Eric Brad CPDT-KA Articles:

• The Dog That Changed My Life
• Keeping Your Dog Informed
• Teaching Your Dog to Not-Behave
• The Simple Complexity of Dog Training
• What The Dog Wants