A recent report says that our canine pets seem to be aware of being watched and are more expressive when they know they have our attention. But, do they use that pleading — and endearing — look to press all the right buttons with their susceptible owners and manipulate them? No, say researchers.
We may get carried away with their waggy-tailed, droopy-eyed act and go “Awww” and give them that biscuit we are holding — but that biscuit is not what they are after. And, once the biscuit is gobbled up, it doesn’t mean that they are no longer interested in doing their puppy-dog routine anymore. As long as we are watching, they may continue playing to the gallery and be at their most appealing.
Most dog owners will acknowledge that their pets do this — but eventually settle down.
However, there are some of us owners who take one look at our pets — and go overboard.
Our canine was our “firstborn” and as new “parents”, we believed that she was the most wonderful creature that had ever walked the earth and we were the luckiest people on the planet to have her share our lives.
She didn’t have to dance in circles to get us to pay attention to her. She didn’t have to make goo-goo eyes at us to get anything she wanted. She got it anyway. And if she ignored what we had offered her and moved away regally, we hurried behind her, resorting to all kinds of antics to get her to look upon us with favour!
Where her food was concerned, she may not have thought it was our primary job to provide for her — but we certainly did! Thus, if she turned up her nose at mutton keema (mince) on one day, there was shredded chicken to tempt her the next day and if that didn’t work, then liver biscuits would be whipped up the day after!
I cannot say whether our dog ever did any attention-seeking playacting with us subconsciously, but I know for sure that we did so endlessly — and consciously — for her benefit.
Thus, when she was not in the mood to eat what was on offer, we would distract her with a boisterous game, hide, run around madly as if we were chasing our tails, believing that we could use our wiles to get her to work up an appetite. I suspect however, that after all this, she finally dug into her meal less out of hunger and more because she was embarrassed by our behaviour and wanted us to stop cavorting like crazy loons!
And when we got home from work and the initial affectionate greetings were done with and she was confident we were not going out again, she would dive under the bed and retreat into the farthest corner, content that we were “around”. She didn’t need constant reassurance of our presence.
But, did we get that message? No!
Instead, we would dive behind her and try to drag her out from under the bed so that we could run our hands over her satin-soft fur that was so comforting after the pressures of human contact!
Mostly, she was gracious about this and allowed us to indulge ourselves — but when she thought we were done with all the touchy-feely stuff, she would once more retreat to her corner to relax — while keeping a wary lookout for us. Because a mere twitch of her elegant eyebrow could set us off again and have us latch ourselves onto her until our hunger for her affection and attention was satisfied.
Perhaps, contrary to her species, she ought to have learnt how to pull a poker face. Or perhaps we ought to have learnt that some pet owners’ attentions can be exasperating.
Cheryl Rao is a freelance journalist based in India.
