With the coming New Year our family sits down and does what we call roles and goals. These stem from Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” They are not resolutions.

Those get broken within the day, week or month. We work toward goals and adjust efforts as needed. Every member of our family does role and goals, even the dog.

The first habit is to be proactive. It means that each individual is responsible for his or her own self and actions.

In Ranger’s case, it means that he knows that if he sneaks down in the middle of the night and stands on the child’s stepstool for cooking, he can reach and then eat anything that is left down. In other words, he is completely in charge of his extra curricular snacking.

Habit two is to begin with the end in mind. Ranger is very good at this also. Remember the time that I was looking for the milk replacer and had to call my husband who was out of town to find out where it was.

While I was on the phone, I repeated the location, but did not get it. That night, while visualizing his goal, he jumped over the baby gate, snuck downstairs, carefully lifted the milk off the stand and proceeded to rip the bag, eat all the contents and lick the insides clean.

I am certain that he had one or two obstacles in his way, but since he knew exactly what his goal was, he was able to adjust to still get the reward.

The third habit is to put first things first. I think dogs in general are pretty good at this.

When you come home from a long, extended 15 minute trip, they greet you like you have been gone for weeks. You are the most important thing in their world and they let you know it.

If it is doing their job or cleaning the stainless steel off the bottom of their bowl, everything gets all of their attention.

Habit four is to think win-win. I like to think of this as “win-win or no deal.” Having Ranger in the house is a good deal for him and us.

When he turned the stove on which started melting the plastic that had been set on a pan, he made sure to alert us before the house burned down. Okay, so he alerted when the husband did the same thing with pans out of the oven. Ranger, also, doesn’t like strangers. At all!

The fifth habit is to seek first to understand, then to be understood. Dogs are extremely good at picking up on body language and pheromones.

They are much, much better at picking up these nonverbal clues than spouses. Once they understand just how bad a day at work we had, they are much better at figuring out just how much to push the “I wanna go out and play.”

Habit six is to synergize. Synergy is a wonderful cooperation where two or more beings come together and make something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

One plus one equals more than two. Think about home defense: Ranger’s hearing is much better than mine, so he alerts when there is danger (real or perceived).

I have higher cognitive skill and opposable thumbs so I make a reality determination and can get my finger in the trigger guard.

Therefore both of us are much safer than either would have been by themselves.

Sharpen the saw. This means if you do not stop and take time for yourself, you will dull. Ranger could do a little better in this area because he tends to eat everything in sight and doesn’t like to exercise for the sake of exercise. However, he is great about insisting that I get up and do some exercise and play with him. And pet him. And be with him.

As our family is working through these habits, we know we have roles. Ranger’s include being a family member, a good canine citizen and kitchen cleaner. Each of these roles have goals associated with them.

A family member goal might be to get along better with his sister. A kitchen cleaner goal might be to actually wait until the items are headed toward the floor and not intended to remain on the counter or stove.

You know, I said, every member of our family does, but that is not quite true. The cat does not participate.

Dr. WIXSOM owns and practices at Guardian Animal Medical Center in Flatwoods, Ky. More info at www.Guardian Animal.com or 606.928.6566