How my dog trained me after I thought I trained him
by Nancy Gallimore
I’m sitting at my desk working on my third guess in a stubborn bout with a New York Times Wordle puzzle when I feel a small tap-tap on my foot. I know this tap well. I smile and continue solving by typing “maven” into the five boxes. By the time I arrive at the correct answer, “amend,” the tap has become an insistent dig.
I look down to see a sweet spotted dog, chin resting on my knee and eyes, one brown and one blue, looking up expectantly. He is rolling something around in his mouth much like a 5-year-old child trying his first piece of hard candy. But this child is my beloved Dalmatian, Tag, and the candy is actually a small rock, neatly deposited into my hand.
This routine is nothing new. In fact, it repeats daily, sometimes multiple times. As I receive the gift from Tag, I ask if he would like to trade. The question is rhetorical because the outcome is a preordained ritual.
Tag races to the kitchen to stare none too patiently up at the dog cookie jar. I follow to finalize our deal: one cookie in trade for one rock.
The concept of trading was born out of desperation about four years ago. Tag, then an adventurous young puppy, was a dedicated kleptomaniac. He would steal just about anything he spied with his bright little eyes.
I’m talking remotes, socks, headphones, mail, shoes, bras, hair clips and pens, to name a few of his favorite treasures. The fate of those items in the grasp of sharp puppy teeth was grim at best. But have you ever tried to take a prized possession from a wily, agile puppy? I was no match and often completely unaware as Tag flew under the human radar with the greatest of ease.
An added challenge was that Tag was born completely deaf, a congenital condition that affects 8% to 10% of all Dalmatians. So there was no way to call out “stop” or “leave it” to him when I did see him eyeing a potential unapproved chew toy.
Clearly, this was an activity that needed to be managed. It was time to outwit the puppy.
Step one: Increase supervision.
Sounds simple, right? Keep an eye on the puppy when he’s free-roaming so you can save valuables and redirect him to actual puppy toys. Put the puppy in his puppy pen when you can’t watch him. Simple.
But when you have a puppy who apparently has invisibility as a superpower (and perhaps you are easily distracted from the task of watching said puppy), it’s time to invent step two.
Step two: Let’s trade.
I decided to teach Tag to trade whatever object he procured for a cookie. I know what you’re thinking: I’m technically rewarding Tag for stealing things. Well, I’ll answer that with a yes and a no.
If you have ever had a puppy grab one of your socks, you know the moment you reflexively yell “no” or, in Tag’s case, frantically wave your arms in an effort to get the puppy to relinquish his prize possession, it often ends in a frustrating game of keep-away. And puppies are far better at keep-away than clumsy humans.
So every time Tag had anything, right or wrong, I pulled a cookie from my pocket and made the sign for “trade,” formed with two letter F hands rotating positions. Tag, a food-motivated lad from the moment his puppy eyes peeked open, was a more than willing participant in this new game. We traded for dog toys (I gave those back). We traded for the underwear he plucked from the laundry basket. We traded and traded. Each trade was marked with a thumbs-up signal, “good boy” in Tag language, and rewarded with a cookie.
Eventually, Tag did learn which items I would let him keep and which items I preferred he not take through the dog door to destroy in the yard. But the game did not end simply because the lesson was learned. Tag just became more creative.
That’s when he started making it his personal mission to clear the yard of rocks and small sticks. Or maybe he’d find a stray piece of paper that didn’t quite make it to the recycling bin. Every item found was fodder for a trade. And in four-plus years, I’ve never let my boy down.
I may receive several small rocks in a day (and, for the record, I have no idea where he is finding so many small rocks). One day, I received six very tiny sticks. I think my spotted genius procured one stick and realized breaking it into several small pieces would result in a better payout. He was not wrong.
You may think I have failed as a dog trainer. The goal should have been to extinguish the behavior and fade out the treats. Surely, this constant game of trade is becoming annoying, right?
Wrong. This lesson has become our private game, our daily point of connection. The other dogs in our family do not play the game. It’s Tag’s game and Tag’s alone, and every trade brings a smile to both of our faces. I fully expect we will play this game for many years to come. I sure hope so.
Tag’s tap-tap on my foot is my reminder to stop what I’m doing and be present with a really special dog. The treat I receive in my heart is every bit as yummy as the cookie he gets to crunch.
I did successfully teach Tag not to steal things. But the lesson Tag taught me in return is that a lifetime of memories can be built from a growing collection of rocks piled carefully on my front porch — every single one a treasure.
I think my next five-letter Wordle guess will be in honor of Tag. “Smart” would be fitting, but I think I’ll go with “loved.”
