dogpersonalities

My Dogs Personalities Are Defined by the Way They Treat Doors

Ryan O'Meara
K9 Magazine

My dogs are defined by doors.

I worked it out today. The way each of them deals with doors is pretty much the summing up of their individual personalities. It really is as neat and tidy as that.

Here is Chloe. She’s 9, a working-bred Labrador Retriever.

Chloe thinks "If I can't see Mia she's not there"

She is, as the image might suggest, a peace loving Labrador. A Labra-hippie. She is a gentle soul who tends to go out of her way to avoid conflict, to avoid any trouble and to steer clear of doing anything likely to provoke a negative reaction in people or other dogs. She is kindly in her nature and her control of non confrontational body language is masterful. She could take the sting out of wasp’s tail and sit down with it for a tea party, she’s that good of a diplomat.

Chloe’s treatment of doors: In all her years I have never seen Chloe ‘barge’ a door, never. Not once. She always gently nudges a closed door and pokes her head in as if to get the green light to enter from whoever may be on the other side. She’s got manners. She softly opens doors and always makes doubly sure she’s got full clearance to enter a room.

This is Mia. She’s a 2 and 1/2 year old Rottweiler (although younger in the photo below). My first dog of this particular breed.

Mia in the garden

She’s….-how best can I put this-…., she’s, well, erm. She’s not Chloe, let’s put it that way! No, she’s very, very different in just about every respect.

Unlike Chloe, Mia seems to thrive on noise, on ‘action’, she loves to provoke a reaction in people, she doesn’t seem to mind whether it’s negative or positive provided she’s getting some kind of response. She deliberately picks out toys which create the most racket and she will always take them to the one room in the house that has a hardwood floor as she enjoys thrashing them about and creating an almighty din.
She’s the only dog I’ve ever owned who is a danger to the windows in my house having perfected a method of thrashing a rubber ball on a rope and then releasing it at the point of maximum leverage and ‘thrash velocity’ so that it flies into the window and makes everyone gasp. She threw it at my face once. I genuinely believe she was aiming it at me too as I’d previously turned down her forceful challenge to ‘try and get this toy off me then’. I blanked her as I was busy working on my laptop, within 30 seconds I was very aware of a yellow blur sailing inches from my nose. Mia looked at me and her face told its own story. I tend to take up her invitations to play now.

She either lacks or simply does not attempt to practice ‘good’ dog body language. What I mean by that is, she tends not to ‘read’ other dogs, she will simply go and put her head in the other dog’s face and she’ll insist the other dog stands still whilst Mia gives them a full body search. She never adapts her behaviour to account for the situation or the personality of the people or dogs she meets, she’s just, well, Mia. Where Chloe is masterful at adapting and behaving in a manner appropriate to the situation, Mia just does what Mia does and that’s the way it is.

Mia is a dominant little dog. Where Chloe will wait until you’ve left the room before emptying the bin of its discarded sandwich wrappers and crisp packets, Mia will unashamedly empty the big RIGHT IN FRONT of you. She’ll look you in the eye when she’s doing it. Then you’ll stop her, tidy up her mess and she’ll go right ahead and do it again.

Mia’s treatment of doors: Mia only has one way of entering a room, with a bang. She seems utterly incapable of accepting that a door may be shut - let alone that it may be shut specifically to KEEP HER OUT - so she charges at them like a little Rhino. Head first ’smash’ - if the door doesn’t avail itself to allowing her to enter, she’ll smash it again. If the door does happen to be slightly ajar, she’ll gladly smash her way in and take out whatever or whoever may be standing/sitting on the other side. I’ve lost count of how many times I may have been working in my office with the door shut only to hear ‘trot, trot, trot, THUD’ as Mia has plowed into the closed door. I find it hard to fathom how or why she hasn’t calculated that not all doors are open. She seems to presume they either are open, or if not, they soon will be!

This morning I failed to properly shut the bathroom door, Chloe spotted this - ‘gentle nudge’, “Would it be OK if came in here with you?” her face seemed to quiz. “Erm, no Chloe. A little privacy would be appreciated thanks.” No problem, Chloe reversed and waited outside.

Like a fool, I made the same mistake an hour or so later, I left the door ever so slightly ajar, only this time it wasn’t Chloe who came to find me…..

…..’SMASH’, “Hey, what’s going on in this room? What’s this do? What do you use this for? Are you eating that toothpaste or can I have it? What do you call this thing then? Is this a shower? Can I have a shower? Can I get in this shower? No? Can I see what’s in the bath? Can I get one of those? Is this a toilet brush? Is this MY toilet brush? Yes, I think this is my toilet brush. What are you doing with MY toilet brush? Oh, hang on, can I see what you’re doing? Can I do what you’re doing? Are you nearly done?……I’m bored now, BYE.”

Mia nearly took the door off its hinges, in fact the door was barely able to stand the force at which she nutted it, it was still swinging as her whirlwind 2.4 second visit to the bathroom was completed.

It then dawned on me, my two dog’s personalities are pretty well summed up by the way they treat doors. Chloe is a respectful enquirer. She’ll gently open the door, careful not to create too much fuss or to invade someone else’s space without getting their consent. Mia, doesn’t do any of those things. She smashes doors open and she (regularly) smashes into closed doors on the assumption that they *may* be open. My dogs are defined by doors.

So what say you? What sums up your dog’s personalities?

Author Details
Ryan O'Meara is editor-in-chief of K9 Magazine, the lifestyle magazine for dog lovers. He lives in the East Midlands with his own two dogs, Mia and Chloe.

reprinted with kind permission from Ryan O'Meara
K9 Magazine