I'll admit, I can't say I've ever really understood what some people meant when they talk about how some dogs are too smart for their owners. I'm sure a lot of them are and can be, but what did that mean exactly?
I think I finally get it.
First of all, what I've noticed about Clyde is that sometimes he only needs to do something once or twice and he gets it. You give him one, he'll take two and if you don't realize it, he's going with it from then on.
So let's think back to his bad habit of scratching at the back door to be let in. I would like to say, he's stopped, for the most part. I did comment that I didn't know what would happen if we left him sitting there too long. I figured he would try to scratch again. Which, he did, does and will, if he feels he's been waiting too long.
Everything's been cool, not too bad, he hasn't really been scratching. Then one evening, I hear him scratch again, almost as soon as he got to the door. What? He hadn't been doing that. I ignored him and waited a bit for him to get up, come back and sit again. Then I got up and opened the door for him.
Over the next week or so, I began realizing that Clyde almost never scratched at the door during the day, when it was just me at home (I ignore any scratching). But in the evening, when B was home, he would come straight to the door and jump up and scratch! What was up with that??
One morning, I heard him scratch at the door and moments later, I heard B open the door to let him in. I realized what was probably happening. I'm assuming in one incident, Clyde was waiting particularly long and decided to scratch. B, probably almost immediately, walked straight to the door and stood there (we have a glass door Clyde can see through). Clyde, in response to B standing at the door, sat down and got let in.
To re-iterate, Clyde picks things up right away. I'm assuming this happened a second time, where B responded to his scratches by instantly appearing at the door, Clyde sits, and gets let in. I'm not sure how many times B did this before I realized what was happening and told him to stop, but we did go through another short period where Clyde would come to the door and scratch a bunch of times before giving up (again, this only happened when B was around).
I can see how this would be a perfect example of why so many dogs (like Clyde) get turned into the shelters because their owners don't understand why their dogs are doing the "bad" things they do. One might think that since Clyde sits as soon as B appears at the door, that he knows he should be sitting at the door and is just scratching to be a brat. But I think what Clyde was actually thinking was that he needed to scratch the door so that B would come to the door and see him sit.
I think he's really stuck on thinking that we need to see him sit for the door to be opened, as opposed to just sitting to make us appear and open the door. Sometimes, he'll just stand and stare at the door for awhile (without scratching). A lot of times, it's not until he sees that I'm watching before he'll respond by sitting.
That all being said, sometimes when he's being really hyper in the yard, I swear he gets great pleasure from running full speed to the back door, launching himself up and thumping his feet on it. The little twerp.
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