'Personal Space' What is it and how does it work?

By RUBY PAUSTIAN, Magic With Dogs guest columnist and stunning girl-dog-about-town

My BFF Jago, Cattle Dog Hero of the Carolinas wanted me to talk to you about Personal Space.  Why the holiday pic you ask?  I say when you look this good go with it!  Gorgeous is gorgeous no matter what time of year.

So I live in Tenefly, NJ, with my humans Rob and Lily.  My other two humans, Luke and Theo, hang out somewhere called collige…collage…college?  Whatever.  The place where humans go to learn stuff.  Anyhoo I'll be seeing them again v soon.  Cannot wait.  Seriously.  Even if it gets way exhausting I’ll be making sure everyone gets enough attention from me; so no one feels sad or ignored.

So where was I?  Right, guests and personal space.  Ok two things happen when we have guests over.  Number one Rob cooks, so there's more food around, yay!  Number two - most important - is that I get a boatload of attention.  Amazing.  However I always feel there's the danger I might get overlooked and no Doggo wants that.

I have to make sure this doesn't happen by getting in there quick and taking action.  This means I'll probably have to jump a lot.  After all I have to get up where I can see the faces, right?  So I'll know what they're saying to me.  I know this works because when I jump, the humans jump around too.  Sometimes they push me down.  Great! This means they want to wrestle!  Even better!! Sometimes I'll enter into the spirit of the occasion by taking someone's hand gently in my mouth, or pulling playfully on their clothes.  The humans always 'bark' back encouragingly, which means they're loving it, right?  So I should bark, mouth & nip some more. The more they keep it up the more I join in too. Yay!

If they sit on the couch or crouch down on the floor I show my versatility by jumping on them there too.  Because I care I make a special effort!  It could take half an hour or longer for me to take a break on that.  Or who knows I may just keep up the fun the whole time their friends are over.

I think this may be where the 'personal space' thing comes in.  Let me explain how we dogs see that.  Direct eye contact's big with us.  When I want someone to give me some space - ie. back off a little - the first thing I do is look politely away.  If that doesn't work I may have to walk away.  If it's an extra cheeky puppy who's totally not getting it, I might even have to tell him off sharply once or twice rrrrrfffff!  So it's super clear to him what I mean.

Makes sense, right?  If you join in with me by yelling, jumping, wrestling around etc, that means you're enjoying it and you want more.  If you ignore me, turn away, walk away, you want it all to stop.  We dogs make it really clear when we need space.  Why don't humans do that??  Gorgeous though I am...even I can't be center-stage 24/7.  Why didn't they just say they needed space?  Weird!!!

Think about it, discuss, and get back to me <woof>

Personal Space,  working perfectly...