He’s your buddy and he wants to hang out with you. Why not treat him like it?
Your dog is not your baby, or your “furbaby”, or a dress-up doll, or a social prop, or a member of your “pack”. He’s none of those things.
He is your friend. And if you simply appreciate that fact, he’ll be your best friend. He doesn’t expect you to act like a dog or a parent. And, although you might lose sight of this, he is perfectly aware that you are not a dog and that he is not a human. He just doesn’t care about little things like that. He just wants to hang out with you, have some fun, and be part of your life. So, please just treat him like your best buddy. If you haven’t been, you’re missing out.
We take responsibility for our friends. I mean real friends, people we care about. We look out for them and try to keep them from being harmed or hurting themselves. We keep track of their emotional state and make sure that they’re OK. We share our belongings with them and make sure that they have what they need.
We have adventures with our friends. We go places and have new experiences with them. If we have a friend that enjoys doing something that isn’t really our cup of tea, we generally go along with him because he wants to share it with us. And it usually turns out to be a good time. On the other hand, we don’t make our friends do things that frighten them or that they don’t enjoy. We want them to be happy. The bottom line is that your dog is a friend from another country. You can learn each other’s language, and each other’s likes, dislikes, favorite things, and things to avoid.
And when our friends are being inappropriate, behaving badly or are just embarrassing in public, we show them what they should be doing and how they should be acting. When they’re occasionally annoying, we show them how not to be. Because that’s what friends do for each other.
Your dog is your friend. But he is a friend who is isolated and whose activities are limited to the things that you do with him. He only leaves the house when you are with him. You control his exercise, his mental activity, and his simple playtime. You are his only source of comfort, closeness and emotional connection. Why not give him the simple respect of treating him like that?
If you get a dog as a puppy, even though he is small and adorable he is still your friend. He knows that you are not his mother or a littermate. If you chose the dog wisely, he has been socialized with other dogs and humans to some extent, but it’s up to you to teach him the skills that he needs to function in the human world that we inhabit. You can do this just by engaging in the classes and activities that will give him the skills that he needs and help you to understand him. These puppy classes and training sessions will help you to communicate with your buddy and guide him as he makes mistakes and awkwardly bumps his way to adulthood.
If you bring a dog home from a shelter, it’s like making friends with the new kid at school. You don’t know much about his background or what he’s learned and experienced, and its up to you to show him around and teach him how things work where you live. He will be unsure of himself and may even act out a little, but that’s expected. It will be a while before he knows “the rules” but you can help him along with it and involving him in the things that you enjoy. ( Keeping your dog out of trouble when meeting people | The Animal Nerd ) Pretty soon, he’ll be reciprocating.
If you got a dog, it’s probably because you wanted a friend. You may have felt lonely or isolated, particularly during the last couple of years and you wanted a close companion. Now that you have him, don’t deprive yourself of that friendship. Treat him like the best friend that you wanted to have all along.