A Good Dog

by Jon Katz

  Yet before then, Orson needed more, to my mind, and I was determined to give it to him. He needed a lot of exercise, so I took him to run in parks at five a.m. when no one much was around. He needed to explore things, so I walked him off-leash at odd hours, when commuters weren’t rushing about and kids weren’t heading to school. Usually this worked out fine. Sometimes he got into trouble, and the fault was mine, not his.

  Like his owner, Orson was rife with contradictions. He exhibited great sweetness and true craziness, in almost equal parts. Orson liked women, of almost all ages, any shape or size or color. What he did not like was anyone coming through what I call transition points—doors, gates, fences. He didn’t much like men. He didn’t like men wearing dark clothing. He especially didn’t like men wearing dark clothes and carrying tools.

  I don’t know whether these aversions stemmed from some atavistic border collie herding behavior, from a tendency toward hyperarousal, from an overdeveloped territoriality, or from plain insanity.

  One afternoon in New Jersey, a landscaper walked by carrying a rake. Orson leaped up without warning and began biting the rake, trying to pull it out of the guy’s hand; the poor man dropped the rake and ran. What was this about? Had someone once hit Orson with a rake? Did he think it his job to keep people with sticks away from me?

  I didn’t know. I would never know.

  Orson loved kids, but where did he acquire a visceral loathing of lunch boxes? He loved strollers, nosing around behind the babies for food. He was drawn to anyone in a wheelchair and was very fond of older people, seeking them out, charming them, nuzzling their hands. “What a love,” they would say. “What a sweetie!” Fifteen minutes later, some teenaged skateboarder would be running for his life. There is a big difference between nipping and biting, but it’s a distinction that’s often (understandably) meaningless to the recipient. It’s no excuse for my dog to nip somebody because he’s a border collie. I have to be aware that a dog like Orson may nip fast-moving things, and take the necessary precautions.

  I sometimes forgot what Orson illustrated so dramatically—that dogs have alien minds, often beyond our understanding.

  On the farm there were different cycles, new realities.

  That first year, we were alone much of the time, especially in bitter winter. Days would pass without anybody much coming by the farm, which allowed Orson, for perhaps the first time, to settle into a calm routine. There were just fewer things around to fire him up, fewer people, trucks, dogs, sirens. He got to work out his aggression, or defensiveness—whatever it was—by tearing around the woods several times a day, wearing himself out.

  Orson’s outbursts were reckless. He plowed into a tree while running down a chipmunk, cracked his leg (two fractures) leaping over stone walls, sliced his paw on some ancient barbed wire still lurking in the woods. But he liked his creature comforts, too. On bitter, snowy days, he was happy to curl up indoors while I worked, whereas Rose would happily sit outside in a blizzard until she became a featureless mound in the snow.

  My friend Anthony, who perhaps knew Orson better than anyone upstate besides Paula and me, loved Orson dearly, but approached him carefully. He understood Orson’s crossed wires.

  Country kids often have to run from roaming dogs, though they can’t always run fast enough. They tend to respect dogs’ natures, while city dwellers and suburbanites seem more likely to forget that their dogs are animals.

  So Anthony knew that Orson might try to nip him if he reached his hand over the kennel fence or walked into the house, no matter how much Orson appeared to recognize him or how many times Anthony said his name. He would come in, saying, “Orson, Orson, get back.” Sometimes he tossed a biscuit in first, to distract Orson and calm him down. Orson seemed to regain control of himself and come over to Anthony for a pat.

  Joking with Anthony about Orson’s nipping, I began to research the legal definition of a dog bite. In most states, I learned, a “bite” requires penetration, either of flesh or clothing. Nips, on the other hand, generally are not considered bites if they cause no damage and leave no marks.

  “He bit me!” Anthony would shout on those occasions that Orson took off after him. “No,” I said. “He nipped you. Under the law, he hasn’t bitten anybody.” This was joking banter, yet it was also an excuse I was talking myself into, a way of avoiding my fears about this dog.

  I was hiding behind technicalities, insisting that a nip was unpleasant but more or less natural for the breed, while a bite was different, something other dogs did—so I reassured myself. Until, one day, one of my neighbors came by. He wanted me to know that Orson had lunged at him and torn the cuff of his sweatshirt. He showed me the shredded sleeve.

  What happened? I asked, alarmed.

  He’d come to the back door, and Orson had charged the gate of his backyard kennel, barking furiously. The guy had reached over to calm and pet Orson, whom he’d previously met several times, and was stunned when Orson lunged and tore his sweatshirt. “He got me pretty good, too,” he added.

  My first reaction was annoyance: Didn’t my neighbor know it was foolish to approach an aroused dog on his own turf? Why would he ignore Orson’s barking, his obvious upset? Why reach a hand over a fence toward a dog that was out of control? Wasn’t that asking for trouble?

  But I quickly realized that I was being presumptuous, insensitive. Yes, that was not the best way to approach an aroused dog, but could my neighbor really be expected to know that? Why was my first impulse to blame him rather than myself? It wasn’t a question of fault—Orson didn’t mean any harm, and neither did my neighbor—but a question of facing reality.

  My subsequent reactions were more troubling. Neighbors walked up my hill all the time, often with their dogs; children came by to see and feed the donkeys. Elderly people drove by to see the farm, which many had visited in their youth. Technically, my neighbor had behaved foolishly, but others would act similarly. I didn’t want them to be bitten, nor did they deserve to be.

  Too many dog owners have told me that it wasn’t their dogs’ fault that some kid got bitten; the child should have been taught to stay away from strange dogs. I don’t—can’t—agree. If I own a dog like Orson, it’s always my responsibility, and in some way my fault, if somebody gets bitten. Legally, perhaps, Orson had not crossed the line. Yet I tended, as many dog lovers do, to dismiss and rationalize. Yes, he nipped—but only at people coming to the gate. He was just doing his job; it’s natural for dogs to protect their humans and their territory. Sure, he could be a bit frightening, but only to people who didn’t understand dogs.

  I even engaged in some of the moral rationalizing that I strenuously object to among other owners: The victim deserved it. He should have known more about dogs, approached the gate more carefully, avoided eye contact, noticed that the dog was excited and backed off.

  But that didn’t let me off the hook. Orson didn’t wake up in the morning and decide whether to be polite that day or not; dogs can’t make conscious moral judgments. He reacted instinctively, for reasons I might never fully understand.

  But I was wrong to permit any dog to frighten, nip, or bite, then try to explain it away. Every time Orson, or any dog, ferociously charged a gate or nipped a visitor, any time any dog bites a human, the life of every dog suffers. With dog bites an epidemic American health problem—millions of people are bitten every year seriously enough to call the police—I see a particular urgency in making sure my dogs don’t hurt anyone.

  My first year at Bedlam Farm, we had few incidents, and those that did occur were easy to explain. I lived quietly on my forty-plus snowy acres. Much of that stormy winter even Paula often couldn’t make the drive from New Jersey. Delivery people came infrequently. The mailbox was across the road, so the letter carrier didn’t have to approach the house. Icebound, focused on writing my next book, I settled into a fairly tranquil routine with my two dogs. We never saw anyone on our walks in the deep woods, and our working and herding lessons took place early i
n the day, out of others’ sight and hearing.

  But as the seasons advanced, several developments upset Orson’s peaceful equilibrium.

  One was the publication of the book we’d been writing together so cozily, The Dogs of Bedlam Farm. People who read about our first year on the farm started visiting uninvited, sometimes bringing their own dogs, sometimes walking up from the village or driving by slowly to take pictures.

  Rose ignored most visitors. Sitting by a window or in the yard, watching her sheep, she greeted visitors with a couple of perfunctory woofs. Orson went after each passerby, agitating himself and disrupting our days. Nothing made him crazier than to go outside and see a strange dog down in the pasture, or even in a car across the road. It drove him wild to have people pull up in front of the house to take pictures or stroll around. It made me a bit crazy, too, to have to deal with unexpected visitors, though they were well meaning. Perhaps our reactions were connected.

  One morning, as Rose and Orson and I went out for our training session, I discovered a couple and their two German shepherds in the pasture. The dogs were barking at the sheep (at least they were on leashes), and the humans were busy with their cameras. “Oh, we were just passing by,” the people said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  I did mind. The donkeys were eyeing the scene anxiously—to protect the sheep, they would definitely charge or kick at intruders. Rose was about to take off after the two dogs. I managed to grab Orson’s collar—he was frantic—before he could do any damage.

  The visitors retreated hastily and apologetically. I wanted to be hospitable, and ordinarily would have loved to show off Rose’s skills, but these folks were endangering themselves and my animals.

  I decided I needed a barrier that would allow the dogs to sit outside and run around safely. There was a dog run out back, but I wanted a fence that enclosed the front yard. It would provide a boundary that visitors and neighbors—and, ultimately, Orson—would respect; it would protect him and them and my privacy.

  So Anthony built an elegant white wooden fence, modeled on those you see at horse farms, around the front of the house. It took a while. He had to hand-drill the post holes and measure the boards carefully. He added a layer of green wire mesh so the wily border collies couldn’t slip between or under the boards. It took a couple of weeks to construct, but once completed it gave me the freedom to open the front door and simply let the dogs out to take in the sun or have a romp.

  I hoped this would offer Orson, and others, protection. My plan was to sit outside with him for a period each day, to make him lie down and stay when a cyclist or hiker or truck passed by, and to shower him with treats when he complied. I would give any owner with a highly arousable dog who loved to run fences the same advice: Use food and calming training to show him, over and over, that visitors are okay. Reinforce and reward him for being calm, instead of yelling and reinforcing him when he barks or chases. Dogs don’t really differentiate between good and bad attention; they love either variety.

  It was growing apparent that when a truck passed—especially one with a diesel engine—or when a person stood by the gate, Orson would simply lose control. He entered a feverish state in which he would throw himself furiously against the new fence, yapping and growling.

  So we undertook more training. At least part of every day was spent waiting for trucks and cars. “Lie down,” I would command. After two or three tries, he would, usually. “Stay.” Then I tossed treats. Sometimes I sat on the grass next to him, stroking his back, calming him as the hated interloper receded. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

  I guiltily reflected that I might have worsened this problem. When Orson (Devon, then) first arrived, he was so out of control that I was desperate to give him something to do, something that would help calm him down and burn up all that energy. The thing I capitalized on was his love of chasing after trucks. I found fenced areas near streets where we could play this game. When a truck came roaring by, I’d say, “Go get ’em!” He loved more than anything to lope after the noise for a hundred yards, then turn back to me. As long as he remained safely behind a fence, it seemed harmless enough.

  It’s not something I’d recommend now, yet it gave him the chance to run hard, to have work, to feel successful. It never caused aggressive behavior. Now his reactions were more extreme, and I was trying to train him out of the response I used to encourage.

  The situation had also changed. It always puzzled me that people would come up to the fence and simply stand there watching while Orson went nuts for ten, even fifteen minutes. They simply didn’t know that they were causing, or reinforcing, a problem. But I remained responsible for the behavior of my dog, no matter which side of the fence he was on, even if I had to fight the instinct to lean out the window and beg people to simply go away.

  The fence did give Orson a boundary. It was a place I could leave him safely, at least when I was at home, while still giving him and Rose some freedom. I always crated the dogs when I left the farm.

  But even with the increase in visitors, this was a rural area. By New Jersey standards, we had scant traffic, few passersby. Apart from the occasional gawker or hapless delivery person who tried to reach over the gate, things were relatively stable for months. Perhaps this would be the pattern of Orson’s life—peace alternating with chaos, each new phase an opportunity to work with him, train him, soothe him. Over time, and with patience and persistence on my part, I was sure he would improve.

  Built in stages, starting around 1830, my farmhouse is a bit of a hodgepodge. Parts of it are quite elegant, parts in serious disrepair.

  The restoration began modestly, as they often do. The latest twist in my ongoing scheme to convince Paula to abandon New Jersey involved renovating an unused bedroom on the second floor to serve as her office. Anthony was doing a spectacular job on it through our second winter, exposing old wooden beams, replacing the drafty windows and cracked walls, refinishing the maple floor.

  About Paula: I’d been trying for years to get her to move up to the country, and I was beginning, on one level, to get discouraged, to understand that this probably wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

  I was luckily and happily married, and one reason was that we had always supported each other’s work. Paula entered the workplace when it was an inhospitable place for professional women. Work has never been an abstraction for her but a significant part of her identity and sense of purpose. She’d always been a reporter, from the day I met her in a newsroom, through Emma’s early years and beyond. In many ways, Rose reminded me of her—I recognize the risk in comparing your wife to a dog, but those who know Rose and my feelings about her understand this as a compliment—in that work was one of the centerpieces of her life and she would not be happy without it.

  Even when we were apart, though, Paula was anchoring. I couldn’t have lasted a month without her. She helped financially, oversaw bills and insurance and bank statements, came up whenever she could to help with chores, was deeply involved in my work, especially in reading and editing my first drafts. And because we had both worked for many years as journalists, we were used to frequent absences. We didn’t like being apart, but we could handle it.

  In recent years, Paula had suffered her own midlife passages. She’d spent a decade and a half as a New York–based reporter for The Washington Post, a job she loved. When the paper told her she had to move to Washington—not an option for either of us—she left. But she was very sad to go. She also bore the brunt of our decision to unload our New Jersey home. Almost all the burden of negotiating the sale, shedding decades of possessions, finding an apartment, and moving fell to her. She took it on with her usual tireless efficiency.

  Much as she dislikes change, she did well with it. She expanded her teaching at Columbia University, began writing for The New York Times and elsewhere, and started work on a book proposal.

  Yet she remained a committed urbanite, a New Yorker. Moving to the farm would cut her off from work and ma
ke her Mrs. Jon Katz, someone she’d never aspired to be.

  She loved having the dogs around, and was happy to take them for a walk, but was not much drawn to long discussions of their training or emotional lives. She liked visiting the donkeys and distributing carrots, but did not wish to delve into the world of farriers, abscesses, and equine dentistry. She enjoyed walking through Hebron, but would miss indie movies and Thai food and her friends if she moved here for good.

  I missed her. Life always felt strange and off-kilter without her.

  The good news, though, was that Paula, slowly, was coming to appreciate the farm. She began to build her own life in Bedlam, making her own friends, pursuing her own barn routines (such as feeding the chickens, which she admired for their industrious work ethic), fulfilling a vow made long ago that someday she’d learn to cook. This was a high-priority item in a place where the nearest decent restaurant was at least fifteen miles away.

  I was abetting this transition by commissioning her new office. Any place Paula liked had to include her own workspace, and now this one did. Anthony even built her a desk out of beams and lumber found in the barns.

  And since he already had to rent a Dumpster to haul out the resulting debris—so went the reasoning—why not pull down the dog room’s stained acoustic-tile ceiling at the same time? The unused loft above it could contribute to a soaring space.

  The “Dog Room”—as we’d taken to calling it, and still do—was on one end of the house. It looked like a fairly recent addition; I assumed it was an artifact of the early 1960s, with its orange shag carpeting, wood paneling, and fake fireplace.

  That carpet had been soiled, clawed, and chewed by cats and dogs long before mine. It offered so many pungent smells dating back so far that the dogs were happy to claim the room. I put their crates there, and even when they weren’t crated, they gravitated to the place and scattered their toys and chewbones on the orange shag. Dogs don’t mind old knotty-pine paneling or wonder what’s behind an imitation-brick hearth. I did, of course.