"He's smart. My dog lets me know that he needs to go out by s******g on the floor." I laughed so hard my colleagues turned around to look at me xD

You choose to interpret a lot of things we don't know, like the age of the dog. The owner speaks of him with great affection and I don't see any problems with not using his dog's name. After all, it can get confusing for strangers who don't know the dog. He's just keeping things simple, maybe. Or the dog's name is dog (my son's cat is named Miss Cat!). It's just a funny story.