I’ve never been with a k9 that was mine and was wondering if he will be different around me after.
What’s the good and the bad.
Thanks I hope this is the right thread
yes. what I noticed, especially in hindsight, was that it was all an evolution of our relationship. I can no longer refer to them as a possession. if you treat them like a possession, they will act like one, or at least that was my experience. when I started treating them as their own individuals, they grew into their own much much more than I could have ever expected. I have never "trained" them. I spoke to them as though they could understand (not expecting that they could), and what happened next was totally amazing. The one that surprised me the most was a German shepherd, husky, wolf mix. He understood plain English. On multiple occasions, I would be talking to someone else within earshot of him, telling them about something he did, and going on to say something along the lines (jokingly) "I wouldn't be surprised at this point if he did xyz next."... Next day, he goes and does exactly what I was talking about to someone the day before. He also had a sense of humor. I once farted on him because he was laying by my ass... He turned around and farted back on me! He would also see me doing something in the yard, and without any provocation, start trying to help me. The first time that happened, I was moving brush from a large pile, into a smaller pile to be burned. After watching me for 5 or 10 minutes, he started doing it too. At one point, I was moving a particularly large piece, which was actually a small pine tree about 30 feet long that was tangled up in the large pile and took quite some effort to pull it free. After pulling it a little ways, I felt what I thought was it breaking free from the large pile. I looked back, and in fact, it was still tangled, but the decrease in resistance I felt was him jumping in on his own to help me pull it out.
I know this has gotten lengthy at this point, but all of that has totally changed me and how I relate to them as a whole. I no longer try to control every aspect of their lives. If I call them, and they look at me and decide to go play in the woods, I don't push the issue. I've found that if I reserve that sort of thing for times when the need for them to listen concerns their own safety, like getting out of the road, that they actually listen a lot more, plus retain the knowledge. House training now consists of telling them "Don't do that inside." I've got one now that I said that to exactly once!
My point is that I have found through experience that they can be much more thoughtful and capable than what most humans could imagine.
Funny how most folks consider them "beneath" us in terms of intelligence, when clearly they are capable of understanding us to that level, and most of us are still trying to understand them on even a basic level... who's the dumb one now? lol
But back to your original question, the answer is "absolutely!" If you let yourself explore with them, you may find like I did, that many things they do have an analog in our human/human relationships. It's just that they do it a little differently than we do. They kiss, hug, get jealous, love, and tons more. The biggest things is that if you let them, they will wear their hearts on their sleeves in ways that we can't because we are stuck with the judgment of the world l, whereas they usually aren't subject to that kind of judgment..
Sorry for the length, but I hope this helps!