Sometimes he may even whimper at the madness of it all.

It can’t be because you are strange or could it be?

Humans are normal and sane creatures, we are the ones that make this world into what it is.

Without us “Just where would our dogs be?”

We will use the word “he” when we mention the dog, please forgive us if your dog is a female, you know a… er lady dog. Its not our fault, some people have to own them.

The word that we use to describe the dog is “he”, if you do happen to have a… ah female dog then please be sure to change “he” into “she” or whatever you feel is appropriate for your particular dog.

You can of course use the dogs name, such as Lassie, Helen, Winston or Jenny, Mutt, Doggy, you get the idea.

Lets start with toilet training. The dog wants to “go”, heck that’s fine.

“I want to go”, he thinks,  “so I should” – right now and right here on the hall carpet. This is pure instinct for the dog, his bladder is laying on the pressure so he “must” get rid of that pressure.

The next thing the dog knows is that you are screaming and running at it like a freight train doing a hundred miles per hour. “Flipping Heck!” thinks the little puppy, “What’s going on?”

The next thing he knows is that you have pounced on him to save your nice new carpet, then you have picked him up with incredible speed and now you are running to the door, all this time the little puppy is dribbling on the carpet in a trail, he can’t help it because you are squeezing his fat little tummy.

And you are screaming for everyone to open the doors and get out of your way so you can deposit the naughty mutt outside.

Strange, a few minutes ago he was that cute little puppy the family just brought?

The puppy is now safely sitting in the grass outside looking at you with that curious look on its face.

He doesn’t need to “go” now because he just did “it” on the carpet, and even if he did want to “go” you just scared that thought completely from his poor little doggy head. He has probably made up his mind that he is never going to “go” again if this is the reaction he is going to get, he prefers the happy “pats” he got ten minutes ago.

He may even be shaking a bit because you just scared the wits out of the little fellow.

People often wonder why it takes “some time” for a puppy to be toilet trained, do you?

Later that day the little puppy is outside and he wants to “go” again. He hesitates, looks around at the people in the back yard, “what’s if they have a fit again”, so he holds on for a while. But heck the pressure is on again and he has to go sometime – right?

So he crouches down again and away he “goes”.

And to his total amazement the whole entire family is cheering and some may even clap. Praise is coming from everywhere. Some of the people (His new family) may even run towards him to congratulate him, he doesn’t know this is what they want to do so he starts to shake thinking someone is about to pick him up and do what they did this morning. So he quickly squeezes as much out as fast he can, and then collapses on the grass partly to protect himself and partly because he finds this all so tiring, after all he is only six weeks old.

Now what about feeding time. A dog soon learns that the huge (often white) box holds all the nicest food in the entire world, he knows not why. He just knows it because you mostly get his food from it.

When you open the door sometimes he sneaks up and pokes his little black nose into the big box and he finds that cold chilly air is inside. He is puzzled.

You reach inside and remove a large long thing which sometimes has pictures of dogs he knows in the neighbourhood on it, sometimes its just their heads – huh. But they look alive and well, how can that be, thinks your dog. Still it doesn’t matter because he is very hungry, he always is.

Some dogs may even think that the dog roll is made up of the dogs in the pictures on the side of it because its made of meat. He may eat his bits of dog roll wearily wondering if he will ever be on the cover of one of those. Does your dog act strange after eating his dog roll? Does he growl at you when he eats?

Sometimes you remove a can from the boxes in the walls, you swing a piece of wood out of the way and then grab a can. Of course you know that this is the kitchen cupboard but your dog doesn’t know this. How could he? Did you ever tell him?

Dogs really learn when they are young to trust their sense of smell but when you get the groceries he has smelt those cans when they have been on the floor and they smell like metal and not meat or any form of food. But he soon learns that food may come from inside the can, which also has pictures of dogs on its cover. Scary.

You wonder why your dog goes totally nuts when he goes outside after being inside for a while. Your dog used to, or at least his ancestors used to hunt for their food. You give food to him the easy way so he has to go nuts to burn of all that hunting energy that’s inside him. He sneaks around looking for any stray cats that wander in the back yard.

After a while a dog gets to know you and your habits. But one thing that must confuse a dog is the fact that he is allowed anywhere in the house normally, but not the “little room”, you know the room that you go into sometimes for a short while and at other times for a long time.

Sometimes when he is outside the door he hears things, like… well the pages of a book being turned, the moving of feet, a few grunts and groans and then a gushing, flushing explosion and the watery sounds that always come afterwards and then his owner or another house member bursts through the door with a look of total satisfaction on their face.

This must confuse the dog since the dog naturally follows its owners everywhere he or she goes.

Even the little children in the house go into the “little room”, “why can’t he?”

A dog can sense when bad people are visiting the home or people that the family pretend to like, but don’t really like. Even “they” are allowed into the “little room”.

One of the first things a dog owner does is buy a dog collar. They put it on the dog around his neck like a noose. and he finds that they are all smiling and this makes him happy. But after a while he finds that the darn thing is a real pain when he has to have a scratch under the collar. Sometimes when he scratches and he hits the collar the thing spins around his neck, confusing.

A few months later the people (his people) come home in a wonderful mood and put a little tag or disc on his collar and they smile at him and praise him as if he has done something wonderful.

He looks at them with that look on his face but they don’t notice because they are so pleased that he has his first dog license. People sure are strange.

One day his owners (his family we shall call them) get a long snaky thing and attach it to his collar, now its really like a noose,  then to his total horror they pull on it, dragging him around the yard. He wonders what has got into them, what happened to his freedom? His rights? Gone out the window on a dog leash. And when the little kids get a hold of the leash they “really drag” him around the section.

Now everytime they want him to leave the yard he has to wear this thing and be dragged or led everywhere. Freedom is in his soul, its his nature. And people sometimes wonder why most dogs don’t “go” easily with a leash.

When he was a puppy the entire family gathered in the lounge while the puppy was trying to sleep in his dog bed. The mother of the family, she is the kind one who pats and smiles at him, feeds him and screams at him at the strangest times, she is holding a small black box and everyone is “so” excited.

The puppy sits up to see what the fuss is and the next thing he knows is that a huge flash of light greets his big doleful puppy eyes and blind him for a short while. He blinks and blinks and while this is happening he can hear the family laughing and full of joy. And for the next half an hour the black box is flashing light at all of them, but… they seem to like it? Confused…? Well your puppy is!

Mostly the dog is with the mother a lot, the father seems to disappear in the morning in a bad mood and the wild little people run around the house jumping for joy and then leave to go somewhere with bags on their backs. The human mother “smells funny” and often looks different. Sometimes she walks into a room and comes out later with different coloured fur on top, the dog looks at her in that strange way and wonders what has happened. Sometimes he growls at her because she doesn’t smell like the human mother he knows and she has black fur instead of white. Huh, thinks your dog?

Sometimes the mother wears strange, flowing things around her middle with different patterns on it.

Once he put his nose under and up it to see what was in there and she screamed at him and made a big fuss. He never made that mistake again.

He wakes up one morning and smells around the yard. “Hmmm, another dog has been here” he heads for a tree, smells it, sure enough “it” has dried up but that darn dog has “left his mark” on the tree. Your dog lifts his leg and starts to cover the other dogs mark with his own and then one of the family is running across the yard with a shovel waving in the air because the dog is about to “do it” on the prize blah blah tree. He runs away thinking “Heck I was only doing my job”, when he is safely away he looks back at his family with that look on his face. He wonders “Why did they get a dog if I can’t be a dog?”. “Maybe they really want a muppet?”

The dog walks into the lounge and there is the father of the family he is 40+, on his tummy making gasping and grunting noises. But hold it, the man is going up and down, up and down over and over again.

We humans call this press ups but to a dog it must look pretty funny, have you ever considered what it looks like to your dog when you are jogging on the spot? He stares at you (and he has that look on his face) while you run like mad to go – nowhere.

Some people run with their dogs around the block. The dog wants to stop to sniff a tree, but you the owner tell him to keep moving. The dog thinks “I’m a dog not a toy”, er oops, “I’m a dog not an non-thinking object, please let me sniff. Its what dogs do among other ‘things’ “

One day he runs into the lounge (sitting room etc) he sits down and looks at his family they are all facing him, they are all in chairs. His tongue hangs out and he expects many smiles and pats because they have noticed that he is there and they love him.

The next thing he knows is that they are all yelling at him “Get out of the way”, “move dog” or things like that. “Huh” he thinks, “What did I do wrong?”

He sulks and walks out into the kitchen shaking his little head in wonder. He sits down and looks back into the lounge and his lovely family are all staring straight ahead as if they were in a trance. All staring at a big plastic box, noises are coming from it. He looks at them with that strange look on his face and wonders “Just what have I got myself into?”

Your dog loves being the center of attention and he loves your “loves”. Its what he lives for, other than what you feed him or what he can steal from the neighbours cats dish.

But oh what a surprise, he walks into the lounge to see… a rock walking across the floor. He stares, then he runs over to it and pounces.

To his total confusion and horror its arms, legs and the stubby thing that stuck out at the front all disappear and all that’s left is the rock, he bites it and nearly breaks his teeth. He sniffs it in wonder. Members of the family tell him to move out of the way and to leave the poor turtle alone. He looks at them and then the rock with that same strange look on his face.

A week later he sees another strange thing walking across the back yard, its small and appears to be furry. He runs at it, its his hunting instinct and the want to protect his family, he pounces on it, he yelps and runs with his tail between his legs. It bites, or at least it hurts when he touches it. His family are all falling around the yard laughing because he just attacked a hedgehog. He looks at them with that strange look on his face and wonders.

One day his family wake up to find that the family dog has gone. He has had enough and he wants out of this relationship. A dog-family divorce is a good idea he thinks.

The entire family goes on a search of the neighbourhood, they put an advertisement in the paper and then finally they find him, to his total dismay. Because of the way they have treated him in the past he thinks he had better be nice to them so he wags his tail in greeting and licks a few faces. They fall all over him with truckload’s of love and affection.

Then they put that snaky thing on his pesky collar and have the nerve to drag him back to that place the call home again. They are so nice he thinks “Hey, maybe they have changed”, “Maybe I will see what’s in the “little room and I will find out why it makes that strange noise when they leave it”.

But alas no, it stays the same.

One day he finds that finally someone has left the “little room” door open, your dog walks in with his tail wagging and he finds this huge white bowl with water in it. This suits your dog fine and he puts his hairy head into the bowl and drinks the water – yes you guessed it – the mother comes in screaming at him for drinking out of the toilet.

A few days later he sees the “little room” door open again so he sneaks in because he is sooo thirsty. He hears a noise to his right and he thinks he has been caught out again, but good luck, its just one of the little boys that live in the house. The dog puts his head into the bowl to have a refreshing drink and then just as he takes his first lick – his ears fill with noise as bundles of water pour all over his head. Yes the little brat has just flushed the toilet. The dog runs out shaking the water off his head and looks at the boy with that look on his face and figures “its time to go”. The boy is rolling all over the hall floor laughing himself silly.

The dog walks over to the boy brat and lifts his leg and leaves his mark on the boy, who is now looking at the dog with a stunned look on his little innocent sweet face.

The dog makes another “break for it”. This time he goes further away and he adopts another family.

He is older and smarter now.

But no “they” find him again. And so on it goes, his “family” never, ever figuring out that he wants out for good. They think he is just wandering. Does your dog ever run away?