The discussion of dog behavior reminded me of this, discovered about ten years ago when we were learning about dog behavior and training. It's a useful approach to mutual understanding from the dog's point of view. Here's an excerpt from "A Study of Human Behavior" by Dr. Ranger P. Snufflebutt, PhD.:

One final observation on Dog-Human playtime interaction involves a peculiar Human activity called “fetch”. Every Dog that plays with a Human will eventually be confronted with this bizarre behavior. It is difficult to explain, but essentially the Human has an object such as a stick or a “toy”, and is very proud of this possession. Suddenly, the Human is no longer proud of the possession, and using its malformed front legs and paws with their deformed “opposable thumb” claws, inexplicably throws the possession as far away as possible, relinquishing possession of the object with a loud and excited bark.

The Dog will see this as an opportunity to gain possession of the apparently highly desirous object, and run after it. Once the Dog has possession of the object, the Human for some reason invariably decides that it wants the object back, and begins frantically barking at the Dog to retrieve it and return it to the Human. When confronted with this odd behavior, most self-respecting Dogs simply run away from the Human, and, being very proud of the newly acquired possession, bury it or otherwise protect it from being taken away by the Human or some other animal.

Some members of the Dogs race, however, have been genetically altered over the years by their evil Human captors such that the poor mutant creatures are instinctively predisposed to obediently return possession of these abandoned objects to the Human. Dog scientists continue to study what specific defect in Dog genetics is being exploited to perpetuate this disturbing behavior.

Read the rest of the comprehensive study here.