calliecritturs
Posted : 9/2/2012 4:32:33 PM
It all depends on YOUR habits and what you've trained.
If the dog stays in the living room and you come out dressed for jogging then no -- Fido is not going to know where you keep your My U jogging shorts.
However -- If Fido is with you and you wear sneakers most of the time, but you go to the bedroom, open your drawer, put on your shorts and say "Let's go" -- yeah, that dog is probably gonna know drawer + stripes = walk
Back when David and I were newly married, I had an older alpha "Mike tha Dog". Some sort of retriever/spaniel mix and he truly kept everyone organized.
Monday night and Thursday nights he would, about 9:00 p.m., go into the kitchen and SIT in front of the cupboard that held the trash bags. they were high up -- so Mikey would just SIT ... noise pointed right at the bags. If you didn't happen to wander into the kitchen by about the appropriate time, he'd go into the living room, stand in front of my husband and LOUDLY SIGH. Then LOOK pointedly at the kitchen.
He'd repeat that until he was such a distraction David would go to the kitchen, where by Mike would pointedlly LOOK AT the cupboard ."Oh yah --time to take out the trash, huh Mike?"
Monday night was easy -- it was the night of the first night we'd both go back to work. I never did figure out how he identified Thursday night, but yes, trash pick up was Tuesday morning and Friday morning.
The more an animal is reinforced for deductive thinking (and oh yeah, they do!!) the more they will attempt it. Especially if it gets them something they want -- like to accompany you on a walk that is really a JOB (this was just Mike and David -- no other dogs horned in on this!!) or something fun like a run in the park.
They pick up on far more subtle cues than we mere humans realize -- maybe your laundry detergent isn't a great as you think it is -- he may be able to smell those jogging shorts from OUTSIDE of the drawer!!