Article – Do Dogs Take On the Personalities of Their Owners?

Do Dogs Take On the Personalities of Their Owners? 

For anyone out there who has a pet, you already know how it’s possible that they can take on the personality and temperament of their owners.  Whether it be royal or roguish!  Now, with my father and our dog Daniel it was a metamorphosing!

Daniel was a puppy that we got from my brother’s friend.  He was pretty much a Heinz 57.  When we went to pick him out of the litter, he was sitting there amongst the other puppies like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  All of the other pups were crawling every which way on him!  My father winced when I said, “I want that one!”  He encouraged me to take my time and look them all over again.  No, I wanted that one!  Reluctantly, he loaded up that leaning tower of fur and we took him home.

Now, my father was known throughout the animal world as a soft touch.  He talked strict discipline but oozed pure mush!  Daniel learned well at my father’s knee.  Whenever he would be looking in the refrigerator Daniel would be right in between his legs sniffing out the bottom drawers.  He was glued to my father’s side whenever he would rustle up something at the stove, especially when it was something Daniel liked!  He would drool all over the floor!  He acted as taste tester, knowing that my father would always slip him a sample or two while concocting his piece de resistance.

Daniel found out very early that my father was a huge tease, who would antagonize him to death given half the chance!  Do you know someone like that?  The man couldn’t stand to see the dog being quiet, not bothering anyone.  No, he would have to twitch a whisker, wiggle his ear, flick a paw…  But Daniel learned to watch and wait for his retribution!  He would pilfer my father’s socks at night, stick his cold nose in his ear while sleeping, abscond with his favorite hat…and so they would stealthily shadow one another like a couple of cloak and dagger spies!  

Still, they had a strong bond of love between them.  One would die without the other!  I remember a time when I was eating breakfast while the dog was still in the house.  He loved sleeping in until the last person went to work.  As I was lifting another spoonful of cereal to my mouth, he flicked his snout under my arm and everything went flying on the walls!  I turned to give him a dirty look and he gave me a determined fiery glare.  I had never seen him look like that before!  He let out with a low growl and kept backing up.  Intuitive one that I am, I surmised that I should follow him.  He led me straight to where my father was still asleep in bed.  He was quite feverish with a bad cold.  Daniel took me right to his side and put his head on the mattress with his nose pointing right to him.  You know that cutesy way dogs have of doing that?

I said to my father,  “Dad, you have to comfort the dog.  He’s worried about you!”  My father stirred, glanced at the dog, weakly gave a few pats on his head and rolled over.  Then Daniel jumped on the bed, curled up beside him and anxiously watched as he slept.  He stayed cemented to my father until he was well again.

Yes, Daniel had my father figured out right from the start.  He knew that in order to survive he would have to become just as foxy and mischievous as his master.  Yet, as much as they would provoke, needle, irritate, vex and antagonize one another, that’s as much as they dearly loved and cherished one another.  Dogs aren’t stupid, they know who loves them.  In fact, they know it so well that they sometimes become indistinguishable from them!

THE  ALTERED  PET        

I don’t know whether all dogs and cats should be neutered or spayed at six months or not, otherwise where would the next generation come from?  However, at some point in their lives our pets should have an encounter with this experience.

Daniel was our family pet.  Part Doberman, part German Shepherd, part Labrador, part pretty much everything else, he was a strong, intelligent, loving, king of his domain kind of dog.  We live in a small town near the countryside where animals, domestic and wild, roam about.  Daniel was top dog in his territory.  All of the other mutts in the area would visit and pay homage to the king.  Occasionally, Daniel would slip off his collar and the whole motley crew would case the town.  He had a wandering way about him, especially in the springtime when a young dogs fancy would turn to thoughts of, well, certainly not baseball!

Many a night my mother and I would be worried about him because he slithered off his collar again to go gallivanting all night.  Inevitably, he would be on our doorstep the next morning.  Although barley able to raise his head or move one paw in front of the other, he did manage to climb up the outside stairs.  He would crash in front of the electric heater and sleep for two days; only intermittently rising to skim a few licks of water and gulping it down in agonizing pain!

When Daniel was eight years old, we decided that it was time to have him neutered.  He was becoming far too aggressive towards anyone other than the family.  Experts say that in the ‘altered’ male dog it should reduce aggression, reduce a wandering behavior and make him more focused on training.  However, Daniel never read those statistics.

I loaded up my reluctant pooch in the van (amazing how they know when they’re being taken to the vet’s) and headed out.  Early the next day my mother and I picked him up.  We even brought a blanket along just to make it more comfy for ‘baby’ to lie down on.  When we got there, he let us know in no uncertain terms that this experience was not one that he would have chosen for himself.  He gave us the most ‘Boy, are you going to pay for this’ look.  As we were taking him to the van, he stopped at the vet’s flowerbed to relieve himself.  Two sets of patients went in and out and we were still in the same spot!  He ‘cried a river,’ as it were.  No matter how much I pulled on him to move, he stayed firm on three legs!  The flowerbed has since been replaced by a rock garden.

Finally, we got him into the van and up the stairs.  He pretty much ignored us for the rest of the day.  That night my mother got up to go the bathroom and felt something squishy under her toes.  She turned on the light and to her horror she saw chicken skins, bones and sundry soggy items all over the kitchen floor!  The following morning she told me about it.  When we brought Daniel in to show him what had been done, all he did was give us a glare that said, “That’s what I think about what you had done to me – live with it!”

Daniel was somewhat less aggressive afterwards, his wandering didn’t slow down though and he never did get a ‘focus’ on training.   Getting neutered at six months seems a little too early for me, but at eight years old? – it’s no dog and pony show!

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