I see dog people.

Talk to the dogs? Oh yeah, that would be a monumental understatement! I can have full blown conversations with some of the dogs and I catch myself doing it while I’m on the phone at times. I’m sure I sound a bit crazy but I know the dogs get it. I was on the phone with a customer (who happens to be a friend’s fiancée ) talking about an upcoming training class when I watched a 14 year old Springer Spaniel stumble while next to me in the lobby. I immediately said, “oh, be careful sweetie” and Bill immediately responded, “I am”.
Katie thought she had hung up the phone after talking to a customer and started polling the playgroup as to whether they wanted to listen to music or Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on NPR. It was just one of the many conversations we have about music choices and we like to go with a consensus – they decided on NPR that morning.
As a group, we discuss the dogs as if they are our children and how we are pretty sure they gave us a dirty look when we corrected their behavior or tried to sneak away to mark when they weren’t happy with a correction. Gizmo is notorious for waiting until you are changing a mop or in the closet disinfecting a water bowl so he can sneak off to the corner and do his business. You can literally watch him through the crack of the door looking over his shoulder to see if you’re still occupied. The other day, I waited behind the door watching him and then right as was about start, I ran out the door to correct him. I think I heard “foiled again” come out of his mouth – or maybe it was a telepathic communication, but it was what he was thinking. I’m sure of it.
TJ has much quieter conversations with the dogs. He can get them to wait and not crowd the doors, they sit quietly and wait for him and it’s just wonderful to watch. I sometimes think he’s bribing them but whatever he’s doing, we are scheduling some shadowing so we can watch his body language and other communication so that we can all consistently garnish that behavior from the playgroups.
We communicate in a lot of ways with the dogs and it is a two-way street. We know their personalities and pride ourselves on learning about the new dogs, as quickly as possible. We work to correct negative behaviors through positive reinforcement of the desired actions and while it can be a bit tedious for the newcomers; it’s a beautiful thing to watch a dog blossom into an integral part of a playgroup. We are like bragging parents when we tell each other about so-and-so not jumping or what’s-her-name not barking! I’ve left names out so the doggy parents don’t get a complex!

One of our better improvements - who still has some improving to do!