What my little dog meant...

Sometimes my little dog Trey comes to the kitchen holding a toy in his mouth. He looks at me, he looks at the back door. What do you think that might mean? I generally assume it means he wants to go outside.

But why is he bringing a toy with him? He's kind of a nervous dog so maybe it gives him a sense of security? Maybe it's his transitional object?

But the thing is, most times he leaves it outside.

Maybe he likes the way it smells when it’s been outside? Maybe he’s perfuming it?

Whenever I try to "help" by bringing it back inside, he brings it right back out.

Maybe there’s something wrong with it? Maybe it has fleas?

What do you think it might mean? Because he won’t tell me. He knows a lot of words, like “toy” and “outside” but I don’t speak dog very well apparently.

He started bringing more and more stuffed toys outside until every one of his toys were out there. We used to argue with him about this, where I would grab the toy from him on his way out the door, and say “toys stay inside” but it didn’t work.

One winter there was a whole line of them that froze over and were there until the thaw came. We got him a couple new toys for Christmas, and he brought them all outside too.

Then one time we had mice in our house, and he would stand and stare at the wall, wherever he heard the sound. He would lay with his nose under the fridge, where we already suspected mice were living

When spring came, he started doing the same thing outside. He would go lay with his head in the hole the groundhog dug or sit and stare at the stone foundation of the neighbor’s house.

Our exterminator had told us that those old foundations have so many gaps in them it’s almost impossible to keep critters out.

One day he was begging to be let out, with a toy dangling out of his mouth.

He set the toy down next to the wall where he had been staring. He seemed very worried.

Then he looked at me purposefully. He looked back at wall by the toy, then at me, then at the wall.

Less than half an hour later he repeated this with another toy. He set it down by the wall, then looked at me, back at the toy looked at me. Scientists tell us that dogs do indeed communicate with that following gaze, so I think he was trying to tell me something. [i]

What do you think that might have meant?

We decided that it meant he was trying to keep a perimeter of dog smell around our house so critters wouldn’t come in. I don’t argue with him anymore, I just let him take them out and put them along that wall.

Recently, he started bring a few toys out front. I figure it might be trying to ward off the skunk that sprayed him, or the cats that like to sleep on our porch. Or maybe he just wants to let the new dog that moved in next door whose block this is. What do you think it might be?

That family next door also has a toddler, so other neighbors assume that the toys belong to the little boy and that he has dropped them; they put them on the neighbor's porch to “return them.”

Sometimes it’s really hard to know what someone is trying to communicate- even if you are both humans, even if you both speak the same language.

I’ll never really know why Trey does that thing with the toys, even though he’s tried to tell me. I tell myself lots of different stories about why, but they are just stories. I like the story where Trey and his toys are heroes saving us from being overrun by critters.

[i] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/not-bad-science/dogs-follow-the-gaze-of-humans-especially-when-there-8217-s-food-involved/