Oh, do you need help with that? Don’t worry, I’m on my way!
Whether I’m carrying your socks around the house, waiting by the letterbox or bringing you my favourite toy, we dogs love helping our humans and feeling involved in what they’re doing.
My pet parents like it when I help them out too. I can tell from all the praise, attention, and treats! But you may be wondering why helping humans comes so naturally to us. Do dogs understand humans, or are we simply looking for attention and interaction?
Today, I’m going to do my favourite thing and help you! We’ll explore why we help our humans, how we help in everyday life and how to encourage helping behaviours for your pooch.
Naturally, us dogs are a very social species, and our innate pack behaviour makes us cooperative. Our history of working alongside humans means we’ve developed strong pro-social behaviour over time.
Dogs helping humans not only comes from our cooperative nature, but also from a desire for social interaction, mental stimulation and positive reinforcement. Over the years, my canine companions and I have learnt that helping is a way of building a connection and interacting with our humans.
There can be situations where your dog may try and help without any prior training, simply because they can sense you’re in need of assistance, a bit like the reaction of a toddler (even though in my opinion, I’m definitely smarter!). In fact, studies have shown that over 75% of dogs and toddlers engaged with helping their caregiver despite receiving no training or reward.
Dogs helping also strengthens the bond between us and our humans. So not only do we help to be useful, but we also do it to build our human-canine connection!
Now, you may be thinking that if we know when to help, do dogs understand humans? Well, the answer is yes, but in our own way.
Us dogs are very good at observing and can notice patterns such as routines, tone of voice and body language. We can also understand simple cues, like “walk” and “sit”, which helps us to follow instructions. We can also use our observation skills to pick up subtle signs about human emotions like excitement or stress.
So, when this is all pieced together, we can start to understand the meanings behind things in our own way. For example, when you pick up your keys and put your shoes on, I quickly learn that it usually means a walk or that you are leaving the house.
We learn and understand our humans through repetition and reward, trial and error, social cues and routine. We like to be involved in what you’re doing to watch and learn more about what different things mean in your world.
Even if you might not notice it, you’ll find dogs helping humans in everyday life, even without special training. So, if you’re wondering how us dogs help our humans, it’s often in lots of little ways throughout the day, such as:
Helping humans benefits us both mentally and emotionally. It helps strengthen the bond we share with our humans, and the positive reinforcement also builds our confidence.
When we find tasks fun and rewarding, they can provide benefits such as:
If you’d like to teach us some helpful new skills, start with something simple and take it one step at a time. We learn best when big tasks are broken down into smaller, achievable steps. For example, before we can help close a door with our nose, we might first need to learn a cue like target training, so we understand exactly what our humans are asking us to do.
When training your dog to help humans, keep sessions short and fun as we can sometimes lose interest in longer sessions. Using reward-based training is great as a tasty treat lets us know we’ve done well! However, I also love some words of praise or even a scratch round my ears.
Just like any training or activity, when encouraging certain behaviours or actions, avoid forcing us to participate, and respect our individual preferences and abilities. Consider your dog’s body shape, age and health as you may need to shape an action differently, provide additional steps or props to help your dog be successful.
Sometimes we can become a little bit too overenthusiastic, which may lead to what we think is “helping” turn into other behaviours instead. If your dog is helping too much, they might show the following signs:
Some dogs may want to be too involved in everything their pet parent is doing, which can also be a sign that they are feeling unsure or finding it hard to relax alone. That’s why it’s important to make sure your dog also has opportunities to rest, relax, and feel comfortable spending time independently.
When I’m feeling a bit stressed or unsure, my human plugs in an ADAPTIL Calm Diffuser to help me feel more at ease at home. They’ve put it right by my bed, and it sends out those comforting “everything’s okay” messages that help dogs like me relax and settle. It makes my little resting spot feel extra cozy and secure.
We don’t help our humans because we have to, we help them because of the closeness we share with them. Being able to interact with our humans feels rewarding, comforting and fun.
Whether you’re chasing us to get your sock out of our mouth, teaching us a new training game or simply letting us follow you like a shadow from room to room, we value the quality time spent with our humans.
At the end of the day, helping is just another way we can be the best furry friends to the people we love most! And while many of us are happy helping out around the house, some of our canine friends have very important jobs. Assistance dogs, medical alert dogs, search and rescue dogs and other working dogs help humans every day, showing just how special the bond between dogs and people can be.
For more expert tips and advice on supporting your dog’s emotional well-being, explore the rest of the ADAPTIL blog. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with the latest guidance and support for your dog.