03/10/2026
Rich said in passing this morning ‘getting Figgy in her crate at bed time is like picking up a water bag’. I asked him to elaborate and basically when he does the dogs bed time, he picks Fig up off the sofa to put her in her crate. In doing this, she worms around her back and goes totally limp.
Now - whilst this is pretty cute to our human ways, this is her saying ‘please don’t pick me up’ and, if ignored and this persisted for a while, you could start to see an escalation in her attempts to not be picked up. This I do see often within my behaviour work.
I realise I’ve never had this situation as I’ll never lift them and if they do roll on their backs, I’ll decrease any interaction from myself. This is where I’d use food or just calling them and giving them another cue to get them to move. So for me at bed time, I’ll say ‘in your bed’ and she’ll happily go in and I’ll give her a treat for doing so.
But here is a good illustration that, as humans, we don’t know dog language until we actively learn about it. My other half didn’t know this body language meant ‘please leave me be’ and without this, it could have lead to Fig learning to growl and possibly even snap in the future (because if we don’t listen to the whispers they will learn to shout to be heard).
I do think the vast majority of dogs just never do escalate as they’re extremely tolerant of us, but maybe for one dog and owner reading this, it could help change their relationship.
NB I wrote this whilst the kids are running wild - so there may be some interesting sentences where I’m doing a few things at once 🫣
