Dogs Training Humans?

…

The jig is up!

I was reminded of Pavlov’s experiments with conditioning using dogs.

I had no idea that our dogs were conditioning us!

As in a recent blog, I indicated how Klondyke and Tamborine (the beagle sisters) were using the drinking trough in turn to take a cool bath. This is not good, as it dirties up their drinking water.

They do not like baths – unless they give it to themselves. We have a galvanized wash tub for their baths – which they hide under the barn at the sight of it.

Funny thing though –

Lately, every day just before lunch time we find the drinking trough upside down in the yard some 20 feet from its normal spot in the shade of the barn. So we refill it and place it back in its spot.

I have now realized that the dogs have conditioned us…

… the humans !

After being filled the previous evening or in the morning after their normal milkbone breakfast, they use the drinking trough to take a dip. Since the water is made dirty from their “bath”, they drag the trough into the yard and turn it over.

This makes a human exit the house, refill the trough with fresh water and place it back in its spot.

Through conditioning, they have learned they can have a morning dip and then get fresh water to drink.

We though they were just being mischievous and dumb by dumping their drinking trough. But it is now obvious they are manipulating the humans!

Is this smart, mischievous or devious?

The dogs have learned that when the drinking trough is getting empty, or the water becomes less than fresh, the humans fill it back up.

The dogs have also learned that they can expedite the fresh filling by dragging the trough into the yard and dumping it.

So we are trying to get them to use the was tub for a dip – but they prefer the trough…

Whoever coined the term “dumb animals” in describing dogs apparently never experienced the American Beagle.

Category: Tony Rollo Blog