You want the dog to learn manners: To be obedient, not to use the house as a bathroom, not to bark at night, not to jump on guests, to stand still when he is bathed, not to want the food from the table, to know what time he is fed and to appear immediately, to eat whatever rubbish you give him and be happy with it, to learn that the puja room is taboo in spite of the prasad in it, not to be a nuisance in any fashion.
And you expect him to make out the difference between human and human: Know the difference between the night colony patrolman and a thief, to be gentle and patient with children, to be frisky with the master and run for balls which are meaninglessly thrown for him, to slow down and be attentive when he walks with the lady of the house.
So the dog is supposed to understand everything. But do you understand a single thing about him? Do you know why his tail rises in different degrees and why he howls?
The fact that a dog can discriminate between words shows that he has a developed power of reasoning. All this from an animal you consider to be less intelligent than humans. The only thing about him that is less intelligent is that he will adore you even if you are a bad, immoral, careless, cruel owner.
When I moved into Maharani Bagh (Delhi) in 1984, there was a dog called Moti who used to sit outside my neighbor’s house and growl at them when they came out into the car but never to anything else. Soon I found out that two years ago they had taken Moti who had been a most loving and intelligent pet of theirs for three years. Moti however was Indian in pedigree, not foreign, and this embarrassed this man, a former Indian Member of Parliament. He put Moti into the dicky of his car and threw him out in Chandni Chowk at the other end of Delhi.
It took two months for Moti to come back and to sit outside their house accusingly. He did not take food from them but would not let them forget how mean they had been. It took me two years of leaving a bowl of food in front of him to respond to me and then only he entered my house – and that too as a favor to me. He never spoke to or came near a human again.
So the dog is supposed to understand everything. But do you understand a single thing about him? Do you know why his tail rises in different degrees, why he scratches himself (nothing to do with an itch), why he howls, why he sometimes defecates where he is not supposed to, why he rolls over, why he bites some people and not others? Can you interpret his smile? Do you know how he says ‘I love you’ and what he expects in return? Do you recognize his bad temper or when he is feeling ill?
I will give you a few pointers. When a dog grins and hangs his tongue out, he is not smiling, he is totally fed up. He is either in pain or tired or in a situation which he hates. When you call a dog and he suddenly sits down and starts scratching himself, it is because he does not want to come but does not have the courage to say no, so he invents the scratch and will continue scratching till your attention is diverted elsewhere. When a dog looks at you, open his mouth and then closes it without a sound, he is saying ‘I love you’. If you open your mouth and, looking at him, lick an imaginary cone, you are saying ‘I love you too’.
When you scratch a dog and then stop, he will sometimes pick up a paw and rub it over his face. This means please scratch me some more.
When a dog is completely happy, he will lie on his back and offer you his stomach. This is his most vulnerable part and he is saying ‘I trust you’. Some dogs when scolded do this. Again, it is a form of total surrender. When the dog wants you to play with him, he will stretch out his two legs and bow in front of you several times. This may be accompanied by a high-pitched yap. When you want a dog to play with you, you could do the same. Maybe someday we might be able to compile a dictionary of dog language.
(Writer is an Indian Member of Parliament and founder of Friends of the Animals.)
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