I never really thought of these traits as particularly unusual, and certainly not as maladaptive. .... Don't beat yourself up too much with comparisons to some mythical "normal" human.

*points at this*

I'm not a professional in the field or anything, but my strong impression is that there are an immense number of ways to model / deal with social interactions - there is no "normal". (More-common vs. less-common, sure, but no single "this is how the majority of people work" way.) So while the canine model is probably a fringe case, the majority of people you meet are probably also working off of fringe-case models - just different ones (both from you and from each other).

I can't think of any social-advice I've ever heard/read which doesn't involve some level of "it is useful to be able to communicate well with those who have different interaction styles from your own" - because it's a ubiquitous problem; everyone is constantly dealing with people who have (sometimes dramatically) different interaction models.

(And FWIW, it looks like you [hazlia] have two solid foundations for doing so / learning to do so: you know that you model social interaction differently than other folks, and you're communicating how you think/react to people with whom you frequently interact.)