A quintessential trick in most pet training books or videos today is the ‘paw-shake’—a gesture comparable to a handshake where the pet puts forward his or her hand and rests it on yours. In our world, it’s a lovely gesture of reassurance and companionship, and pictures of pets paw-shaking with their humans are indeed cute! But, what purpose could it serve in the pet’s world? Unlike us, they don’t greet each other with paw-shakes or paw-bumps! Instead, they sniff, stare, whimper, bark or use other signals. Since the time I had dogs at home, neither I nor my parents bothered teaching paw-shakes to them. Our ‘training’ lessons hardly progressed from a ‘sit’, and all their lives, our dogs still seemed to know what we wanted from them and responded well.
When Pippi came into our lives, I was hoping to communicate with him rather than ‘train’ him to display behaviours we consider acceptable. After all, who was I to decide what’s permitted in his world? With outdated ideas of commands and obedience training thrown out of the window, it was time for us to learn a dog’s language and appreciate what they intuitively know, how they naturally behave and what they expect from their humans.
During his street-dog days, Pippi had had a taste of positive reinforcement training! Kids in our neighbourhood were extremely enthusiastic about teaching him a few tricks, including the paw-shake, which they dubbed ‘shake hands’. Every evening, with a packet of glucose biscuits, they’d come to him, teach him to sit, shake hands and kneel down. As long as there was an assured treat, Pippi would raise his paw as high as they wanted him to and did everything asked of him. The moment the biscuits were over, Pippi seemed to forget all he knew. No treats? No tricks!
In a dog’s world, paws primarily help them walk by gripping the ground beneath and providing the necessary traction to push forward, just like our feet do. The paws have a layer of sensitive skin, with nerve endings that provide tactile signals to the brain about the kind of surface our pets are walking on. When roads turn icy here, which they often do, Pippi instinctively spreads out his claws to get a better grip as he walks. When a grain of road salt gets in between the webbing, he immediately starts to limp until we get rid of the bothersome salt. Despite the discomfort, he refuses to wear shoes as that seems to interfere with his gait and the purpose of his paws.
Paws help dogs dig the ground—be it to sniff out a rodent or make a warm bed. Most street dogs, who love to sleep on sand piles, dig up a hole to tuck in on a cold night. Paws can also ‘hold’ food, mainly bones, until the dog chews it to its heart’s content and sucks the juicy marrow out. Paws double up as swabs if there’s something bothering the face, in the eye or the ears — just like how we use our hands and fingers. Finally, dogs use paws to communicate with other dogs — they lift their paws to make peace and tell their conspecifics that they don’t mean any threat.
But, over the years, Pippi has shown us what extra swag his paws have. With his dominant left paw (dogs can be right-handed or left-handed), he can push a slightly-opened door and run in and out of a room. In the first few days since he became ours, he used his skill to open the gate and go for a walk on his own. When he needs more strength to open something, he uses his snout to push. Of course, if the door opens in the opposite direction, he ends up locking himself in and uses his paws to scratch the door and call for help. Before you ask, yes, we have doors with paint scraped off!
Pippi also uses his paw to grab our attention and nudge us to do something he desperately wants, like parting with a piece of buttery bread. When he sniffs bread toasted on a pan, he is at our feet the next second. If we eat a couple of bites without sharing, the paw lands on the thighs to remind us of his presence. Ignore him, and the claws come out! It’s a similar drama when it’s time for a walk, and the shenanigans continue until we are out of the door. Who knew all these powers lurked in the mushy paws of my power-pawed boy?
Tailspin is your monthly column on everything that’s heartwarming and annoying about pet parenting.
The writer is a science communicator and mom to Pippi, a five-year-old rescued Indie, who is behind her drive to understand dogs better. She tweets @RamanSpoorthy