For years, your dog has been perfectly happy to sleep at the other end of the couch. She’ll follow you into the kitchen if something smells promising or check where you went when a door closes, but usually she drifts back to whatever she was doing.…
You’ve spent most of the day in bed with a fever, which is already unusual enough to get your dog’s attention. He’s abandoned his normal spot by the window and settled beside you instead.…
Before your dog ever follows you down the hall, he may have already noticed that the day feels different. Your voice is quieter. You’re moving more slowly. Your face is less animated, you’ve spent longer than usual on the couch, and the walk that normally happens after dinner hasn’t happened.…
Of all the places your dog could put his rear end, why choose the four-inch patch currently occupied by your hand?
You are petting him on the couch. Your hand pauses beside his hip.…
A kid bolts out of the playroom with a foam sword, cuts through the kitchen for a handful of crackers, then bangs through the back door because someone spotted a lizard.…
Most furniture does not suddenly get down on all fours. Your dog may consider this a design flaw.
You crouch to pick something up, stretch out on the floor, or lean over during play, and suddenly there is a dog on your back.…
There are easier places for a dog to sit. The couch has cushions. The floor is spacious. Your lap was specifically engineered by human anatomy to be available while reclining.…
Some dogs see the narrow gap between your legs and apparently think, “Excellent. A hallway built specifically for me.”
You are standing at the kitchen counter, waiting at a crosswalk, or trying to have a normal conversation with another human when your dog walks directly into the space between your knees.…
Your shoes carry more information about you than they look capable of holding.
They spend hours in close contact with your body, collect odor from skin and sweat, travel through different environments, and often return to the same place near a doorway, bed, or chair.…
At a dinner party, deliberately turning your back on someone would be questionable manners. Dogs have apparently declined to adopt this rule.
Your dog walks over, settles directly beside your legs, and then rotates until his face points toward the room and his back points toward you.…