Fantastic post

A dog jumps up because he/she has four feet on the ground, and we have two and we tower above them. Dogs have inwired behaviour to lick the faces of their mothers, and bigger dogs, as part of growing up & appeasement.

A dog may jump up to get to our faces for these reasons. You can't blame it for doing so - and it's not doing it for control. If anything it is to calm us down, to apologise, to reinforce bonds, as it would with another dog with four feet on the ground and several feet lower down.

If we are good dog owners we can divert that into more appropriate behaviour where the dog feels just as reassured... if we're bad dog owners we might punish the dog for making amends or making (what it sees as) a friendly gesture. How confusing and ultimately soul-destroying, for a creature that only originally wanted to make friends or say sorry.

According to many people now dogs can form concepts.

Certainly the collie on the recent tv programme had a concept of a small ball/large ball and could relate pictures to objects-----all measurable concepts.

You don't need speech to form concepts, if you did no dumb person could have them.

rune

Exactly right - I wish people would take the time and trouble to look and think about what their dogs are doing and how they are trying to communicate. My dogs have always tried to jump all over me, but have managed to keep their feet on the ground (most of the time) they just do a tap dance up and down, but if I get down on the ground then I am fair game for a good licking and mauling. It certainly keeps you warm with an 80-lb dog sitting in your lap on a cold night