Vegas' Quirky Personality

On Vegas' page I talk about his independent streak.  It's a bit difficult to describe in general terms so I thought I'd write up some examples to better show you how this trait expresses itself.

Vegas is, simply put, a control freak with a sense of humor.  He has to have a sense of some sort of control of his environment.  It is, I believe, a primary motivation for Vegas. 

Example:  I have a very small kitchen.  When we first moved to the house I allowed the dogs into the kitchen for a period of a few months, but we quickly figured out that having them underfoot in there was a pain in the butt.  They had all been fed in there, so the kitchen was an official Great Place to Be. 

I decided to train the dogs to stay out.  This was done by using the "get back" command which then turned into "get out of the kitchen."  They all readily learned what it meant, and the entire family was extremely consistent with making sure they dogs got immediately kicked out of the kitchen if they ventured in.  Presto and Cypher learned right away that the kitchen was off-limits.  All dogs knew that the line was where the laminate flooring met the linoleum at the kitchen doorway. 

Vegas, however, in true Vegas fashion, had to make it into a "I've got control of the game" thing.

If I told the dogs to get out of the kitchen, Cy and Presto would go right out.  Vegas, however, would go partially out, turn around and stand with two front paws over the floor line, and cock his head and look at me.  I would then give him an additional command, after which he would back up, then lie down with one toe over the line, cocked head, looking at me.  I would then give him an additional command, after which he would pointedly back up and get his toe back into allowed territory, sigh contentedly "I made her ask me three times!  See how I manipulated my environment."

Example:  I often make my dogs sit and wait to be directed to their food, into the car, out of the crate, or in/out of doors.  Vegas manipulates this routine in many different ways.  If I am preparing food and tell them all to sit, he will lie down instead.  Then when I direct him to his bowl he will go to another bowl, making me grab him and bring him to his.  Now keep in mind that this is a highly trained agility dog that knows what body language means...if I direct him with my arm to a bowl he knows damn well which bowl he should go to.  If I insist that he sits, he will sit, then as I put the bowls down he will lie down or stand.  He'll never break a stay.  If I tell him to lie down he sits.  He just has to make it "HIS WAY."

If I make him sit before going out the door, then direct him to go out, he will often go around to the other side of me (instead of straight out) just so that the doorway was, in the end, "HIS WAY."  If he is in a sit and I tell him to go out, often he will lie down first and wait for me to tell him to up/sit and go out.  Making me do things!  Most of the time if he does this I will just walk away from the door, but there are times with the three dogs where it's more convenient for me to just let it go...and he knows this, and knows there's the possibility of "his way" working for him.  Sigh.

Example:  I was teaching a clicker clinic and using Vegas as "demo dog."  During these clinics, I teach the basics of using clicker and then allow several participants to teach my dogs behaviours using clicker.  Leslie, one of the participants, had the clicker and the behaviour she was trying to teach Vegas was to jump up onto one of the chairs in the room. 

She clicked him for passing by the chair.  She clicked him for touching the chair with his nose, then again for touching with his foot.  At that point he gave her a curious look and began going all around the room, touching things, jumping up on people, mouthing things, doing all his old tricks and some new ones as well.  This went on for several minutes during which time he pointendly stayed away from the chair.  He was having a great time.  He would offer something, turn and look at her, then offer something else.  After a few minutes of this, everyone in the room was commenting, "he knows exactly what you want him to do and he's just prolonging the game."  So I intervened, said out loud to Leslie "just put the clicker in your pocket, get up and walk away." 

She did.  As she was walking away, he trotted over to the chair, jumped up into it, jumped immediately off as if in disgust, then walked over to her and asked for a treat.  The entire room roared in laughter and Vegas wiggled his little stub tail, mouth open and eyes dancing.  Ha ha ha.  I manipulated an entire room.

Now keep in mind, there's food in this equation...Vegas knew if he continued the game as directed by Leslie, he would get food.  It was more fun for him to make the game HIS than to get the delicious morsels of weiners.

Example:  This is not an example of Vegas trying to manipulate just for the sake of having things "his way."  This is an example of Vegas being able to understand what I was thinking and being able to influence me and show me what he wanted. This is a skill that is not supposed to be able to be performed by dogs.  As a matter of comparison, dolphins usually can't do it, some parrots can do it, some chimps can do it, and some 4-year-old children can do it.  In all the scientific texts I have read this is a skill that is present only in the mammals of extremely high intelligence.  Here goes.

When Vegas was my only dog, I had trained him to ring a bell on the door in order to go outside.  He didn't learn only that, though.  He learned that ringing the bell got my attention and got me up and interacting with him.  He used the bell all the time to get me to the door.

Before I took the bell off the door (it took this dumb human a few months to realize how Vegas was using it) something very interesting happened, the magnitude of which should be fully thought about after you read the following.

I went to the store to get groceries and bought some beef marrow bones for Vegas to enjoy later.  I came into the house, hauled all my bags into the kitchen and Vegas did an overall sniff of the bags.  He discovered the bones.

I then put all of the groceries away, bones in the freezer.  I often give the dogs the bones frozen with all the marrow inside, and let them enjoy them for 30 minutes or an hour, then put them back into the freezer.  Favorite, favorite thing for Vegas...scraping frozen marrow out of a bone.

Hours went by.  Vegas rang the bell.  I got up and opened the back door (in the kitchen) and directed him out.  He sat, then did his "back-up scoot" trick, and cocked his head at me.  I shut the door and returned to my book.  He rang the bell again.  Same thing, I directed him to go outside, he sat, backed-up-scooted, and refused to go out.  Frustrated, I sent him into the living room and directed him to lie down and stay.  After a few moments I let him get up.  He rang the bell again.  I went to the kitchen, and told him off.  STOP IT, LEAVE IT, NO.  He then sat down, backed-up-scooted, then slowly and never taking his eyes off me, turned and stood up on his hind legs and put his front legs on the freezer section of the fridge.  He then sat down, still never taking his eyes from mine, and backed-up-scooted. 

Clear as a bell, he had communicated.  He wanted something and tried to ask me.  He realized that I had no idea what he was asking.  He then proceeded to inform me what he wanted.  I got the bones out for him.

For weeks afterward I churned and twisted the whole incident through my mind, trying to find a logical answer for what he had done, trying to find a past history example that would have allowed Vegas to learn that he could ask for things by showing me the item.  I am a dog trainer!  I don't anthropomorphize!  When I hear hoofbeats I look for horses, not zebras!

But no matter how hard I tried, I could find NO ANSWER other than Vegas cognitively reasoned out how to solve his problem.  No history that could have possibly allowed Vegas to learn that this would work.  Vegas did know that he could get my attention and ask for things...but how did he know that he needed to SHOW me what he was asking for?   This is a stunning example of how Vegas' mind works, and a real big deal.  No literature that I have ever read, no esteemed dog trainer that I have ever spoken to, says that this kind of thinking is possible in dogs.  I even wrote to Jean Donaldson and Pam Reid about this.  They wrote back asking me the same kinds of questions I had already asked myself, about previous learning processes.  No answer!  Vegas showed original, cognitive, creative reasoning.  In an animal with a brain the size of a walnut.  Not supposed to happen.  But it did.

Example:   I had a Golden Retriever bitch boarding at my house.  Left her in the wire crate and left Vegas loose when I went out.  Came home, GR bitch and Vegas greet me at the door.  What?  She had been left in the crate!  Crate door standing open.

Later in the day I confined the GR bitch to the crate again while cooking supper.  Vegas came over and sat down and gave me "the look."  Cocked head, asking for something.  I ignored him.  He waved HI and did a back-up-scoot.  I ignored him.  He did more tricks.  Asking for something.  I didn't know what the hell he wanted.  Out of curiousity, I said, "OK, go ahead!"  He then trotted over to the crate, nosed up the latches, and let the GR bitch out.