The Second Little Book of Dog: 60 Years Spent Communicating With Dogs

By Max Ray

The Second Little Book of Dog further explores the dog/human relationship with special emphasis on the dog's actual thought processes that Max has observed over his sixty-year career. The Second Little Book of Dog is Max's second book in his series that deals with how dogs and humans process abstract thought in their everyday communication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098391744

Book preview

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© 2021 Max Ray All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Print ISBN: 978-1-09839-173-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-09839-174-4

Published by Cabbage Palm Publishing

Photography by Daniel Ray

Edited by David Ray

Contact Max Ray at [e-mail]

Contents

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

1

Let’s Play Games

2

Let’s Do Puzzles

3

Let’s Perform

4

Let’s Be useful

5

Let’s Get Clinical

6

Let’s Be Human.

EPILOGUE

INTRODUCTION

The original The Little Book of Dog was conceived and written as a forum for discussing my experiences in dealing with dogs from all walks of life on an almost daily basis, as well as caring for and hunting with a myriad of my own intriguing canines. The main thrust of the book was to explore and expound on communication between man and dog … if any and to what extent it was understood or effective from the viewpoint of each participant.

The viewpoints I expressed in this first book were strictly from my experiences, with all dog viewpoints extrapolated from these personal observations.

Even though I have spent 60 years working on and with these sometimes quirky beasts, my admiration has never dimmed and communicating with them remains as intriguing to me today as it did some years ago when I finally realized just how challenging human-dog communication is.

And so, I must confess, even though I fussed and cussed within the vaporous dogma of Yes, dogs can be understood, one just has to be smart and try to think like they do, the idea of writing anything significant about human-dog communication never occurred to me until very late in my career, coming into clear focus only a few years before I finished the first book.

If the realizations about human-dog communication came on me like a king tide, then the theme of The Second Little Book of Dog was a full-blown epiphany, appearing in my mind suddenly, as if spiritual. I realized at that certain moment that all of these years working with dogs had affected me – had to have affected me - so I assumed a deeply introspective mode to find out if, in fact, I had learned anything from my quasi-intimate, long-term relationship with these fascinating creatures or was it just a fool’s errand.

I think that so much has been said and written about the dog-human relationship that the dog fanciers and much of the bystander dog world is totally benumbed by the sheer volume of it and automatically block out serious processing of putative new data or ideas. My delving into the communication aspect of dog-human interaction was strictly because I desired to provide the best medical and health care I possibly could; however, the faint, seductive fragrance of viable dog-human communication always seemed just over the next hill or, hopefully, between the next set of book covers.

That never materialized.

As I pondered The Little Book of Dog and gradually thought my way to a conclusion I felt comfortable with, I realized that my previous attitude about someday being able to have meaningful communication with my canine patients, hunting partners and just plain pet dog friends was never going to happen: However, I found that by highlighting the two main themes of the book I could make significant improvements in my ability to care for these canine patients.

Accepting two of the main premises in The Little Book of Dog: That the canine brain cannot form an idea and that sensory organ selection and override is not under complete conscious control of the dog greatly enhanced my relationship with all dogs, not just my clinic patients and became my yardstick in trying to understand what I had learned from 60 years of continuous interactions with them.

Having always admired the sleek, automatic body movement and instant reactions to learned commands, yet knowing that they could never be mimicked by a human gave me pause in trying to seriously determine if I had learned something from dogs. It wasn’t until I homed in on interspecies communication that I began to realize that the actions themselves may offer something to me that would prove beneficial and thereby improve my own performances, both personally and professionally since meaningful conversation was not an option. Thus did I decide to analyze the various aspects of dog action from a viewpoint of the dog and what it’s motivation, actions, reactions and post action behavior was, could be or simply had to be; all in the context of the The Second Little Book of Dog’s themes and comparable human endeavors … when and where possible.

It was then that I began to focus on the word, ADEQUACY: The quality of being good enough or great enough in amount to be acceptable … a noun. Vocabulary.com dictionary adds the statement, Adequacy is simply the state of sufficiency. There is a current of equality running through the noun adequacy.

It was an interesting journey for my mind to realize that this small, unassuming word could be so misconstrued in the real world of performance when its true meaning was impeccable when properly applied and would completely overshadow any performer’s personality, physique, and intention, along with complete castration of the glorifying aura of all deifying superlative adjectives and adverbs now being used to describe outstanding performance by both man and dog.

This, then, will be the theme that runs through The Second Little Book of Dog and will, hopefully, explain just what I did learn from dogs during my 60 years of caring for – and about – them.

Please join me as I interpret a few interesting behavior quirks from one of God’s most glorious gifts … made even better at the hand of HIS greatest creation: Mankind.

I wish to thank the