The Best Investment in the Relationship with Your Dog is Time ... and Frogs?

What is the secret to developing a strong bond with your dog?

Many things can improve your bond with your dog. Training, walking, play, grooming, massage ... what they all have in common is the invested time.

Time is the secret.

Quality time that is. You cannot have any kind of relationship without time investment. No amount of toys, fancy beds, fancy collars, and outfits can substitute for that.

Why would you even want a dog if you weren't to spend time with them?

With Cookie, of course, we do lots of walking, we do some training and tricks. She'll do the tricks but seems to have relatively low interest in such things. She loves her walks. But what she really wants to do, what she lives for, is hunting something.

She's a Rottweiler, not a Hound?

Yeah, I can tell myself that all I want. But somehow, while she looks like a purebred Rottweiler, there is hound blood running through Cookie's veins.

I could try to keep convincing her that "my" activities are enjoyable. Afterall, if she does those things, she gets treats and praise. But she's just not having any fun.

I decided to become her partner instead.

We go frog hunting together. She's the hunter, and I am her spotter. I can see the frogs better. I'm taller and can see further, and I can see them when they're trying to blend with the weeds. I can tell her where to look for them.

Suddenly, I am useful.

This has improved our relationship dramatically. Not that it wasn't good before. But now it's a completely different level. We are a team. We do this together.

Over time, we developed a whole new communications system. She looks to me where to find them. She learned a whole bunch of new words and sounds I use to explain to here where they are and what to do.

Why should we always expect dogs to do what we want them to?

Why couldn't it be the other way around?

It makes Cookie happy. Therefore it makes me happy. And we became inseparable.

We do other things together too. Mouse hunting, mole hunting ... And I do find ways of making myself useful.


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