Whatever dogs may think of us, it is also true that it is no easy matter to have an intimate relationship with an animal who communicates in variations on a theme of ears and tail, who mutters under his breath in dark rumbles when displeased, and who enjoys rolling in decomposing creatures. But for all the difficulties and differences that lie between us and our dogs, we love them, and we want to understand them. We look at our dogs and they look back, and the sense that our dogs are trying to speak to us is unshakable. Equally unshakable is the nagging feeling that we often fail to understand what they have to say. We are right on both counts. But what we long for is not necessarily what we get, at least not without having to learn some hard lessons along the way.
What Wendy wanted from Chance was companionship and more of the joyful connection she had shared with her first dog, Mel. What she got were knots in her stomach and a very complex relationship with a dog she loved but did not understand. This was not Wendy’s first experience in dog ownership. Her first dog, Mel, had died at the grand age of nearly seventeen years old, every one of those years spent as Wendy’s constant companion through troubled teenage years and into young adulthood. Confident, gentle, intelligent, Mel was easily trained, and her excellent manners—no matter what the situation—made her welcome everywhere. Whether on the leash or off, Mel was never far from Wendy, quick to respond to any command. Wendy had only to ask, and Mel gave all that was in her power to give. In everything she did, this dog lived as if she had but one purpose in life: to be with the person she loved most and make her happy.
When Mel died, Wendy’s grief was immense; she had truly lost her best friend. She did not want another dog—somehow, this seemed disloyal to Mel. But as her grief became unmanageable, and the emptiness left by Mel’s death became more insistent, she began to consider another dog. One morning, on impulse, she drove to the county animal shelter, hoping to find a dog who needed a second chance at life. And there he was, his face so much like Mel’s that she knew instantly that this dog was coming home with her. But from the very first moments, Chance made it clear that he was not Mel; he was a decidedly different dog.
Ten months old, Chance had already spent six of those months in the shelter, surrounded by the chaos and sadness of so many unwanted animals, his world limited to what he could see from the confines of the narrow kennel run. Set free in Wendy’s living room that first day, he was overwhelmed and could only spin in circles, the same behavior he had used in the kennel to entertain himself, the only game he knew. For hours, Wendy watched in amazement and then growing dismay as he paced and circled, unable to relax until she put him in a crate where he promptly fell asleep, exhausted. He did not understand this new freedom; he only understood the limited world of confinement. Nothing in Wendy’s experience prepared her for this challenge. As she lay in bed after the first exhausting day of trying to help Chance learn about the newer, larger world she could offer him, she wearily asked herself, “Who knew dogs were so much work?” Looking back, she says now that if Chance had been her first dog, she probably would have returned him to the shelter. But she did not take him back to that terrible place. Mel had taught her what was possible, and Wendy was determined to find a way to help Chance enjoy the same life and the same freedoms that Mel had enjoyed.
For all his problems, Chance blossomed under Wendy’s patient care. In their first obedience class, he proved himself a quick learner, and they graduated at the top of their class. At the next level of training, problems began to appear. Though extraordinarily precise and happy in their practice at home, Chance seemed capable of only three responses in class: He performed well, he lay down as if in complete surrender, or—given the opportunity—he bolted away. This puzzled Wendy. How could a dog who worked so well at home be such a problem in training class?
Trying to understand his paradoxical behavior, she received a bewildering array of assessments. One trainer informed her that his problems were the result of a nervous system that didn’t develop correctly due to having spent six months in the shelter. While she agreed that perhaps he had missed important puppyhood experiences, Wendy could not understand how this explained why his behavior was so different outside of class. Surely if this was a lack of proper development, the behavior would appear in many contexts. Another trainer, pointing to Chance as he lay on the floor, labeled him “fearful and submissive.” Yet another trainer claimed Chance’s frustrating behavior sprang directly from his “will to displease”—that while the dog knew what he was supposed to do, he was deliberately choosing to be obstinate. And each offered different solutions for the problem, none of which made sense to Wendy and none of which ultimately made any difference in her dog’s behavior.
It seemed to Wendy that she owned two dogs—the exasperating dog she had in training class and the funny, intelligent dog who lived with her. She desperately wanted to understand Chance and to give him the life and freedoms she wanted him to have. Like countless dog owners trying to understand their dogs, Wendy asked every question she could think of. She asked about the dog’s health (he had a few allergies and she adjusted his diet), tried to figure out how his mind worked (were food or toys or some reward the best way to restore his enthusiasm for working with her?), considered his puppyhood and everything he had missed while living at the shelter. She even tried to figure out what breed char acteristics might be floating around in his Heinz 57 background—was his behavior in part a genetic legacy? And like so many determined, loving owners, Wendy tried different training methods and training equipment, hoping to find the magic technique or perfect collar that would resolve the conflicts. Telling herself that these were the experts who knew more than she did (or why would she be having these problems?) she ignored the uneasiness in her heart when trainers recommended techniques that seemed harsh to her. But no matter what book she read or what trainer she turned to, no matter how many questions she asked, the answers were not what she was hoping to find. Though she did not know it yet, the answer was always right in front of her, clearly written in her dog’s eyes. She simply didn’t know what the question was.
In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, there is a running gag where the characters are reminded, “The answer is forty-two.” What no one knows, of course, is what the question is to which that is the answer. Not surprisingly, whatever questions are proposed turn out to be the wrong ones. The people who come to me or any other trainer are looking for answers. But sometimes, even though the answer is right before them, they are asking the wrong questions.
MAGIC KNOTS
At a seminar years ago, I was asked to work with a difficult and very powerful dog. After perhaps half an hour, I had him sitting quietly beside me, able to control himself no matter who ran in or out of the door or who walked by with another dog. This was tremendous progress for a dog who earlier that day had literally blown the door off a crate and bounded across the room to grab another dog. We had started our work with the dog wearing his usual leash, a massive thing that would have been entirely appropriate for restraining an elephant. As the dog had relaxed and learned some self-control, I had switched to lighter and softer leads, first a sturdy but light canvas lead and, finally, dredged up from the bottom of my bag, a thin leather lead with many knots. I remember being surprised when someone handed me this lead—it was my “show” lead, used only when showing my German Shepherds, the knots useful in maintaining a grip on the lead. But it was suitable for my use with this dog, and I thought nothing more about it—all I really wanted was the lightness in my hand.
The dog’s progress was remarkable, and I could see wheels turning in many audience members’ heads. Mentally, I thanked the dog for having given such a lovely demonstration of how quickly simple concepts could translate into changes in a dog’s behavior without the need for force or punishment. “Any questions?” I asked the audience. A woman raised her hand, frowning a bit as she said, “I can see that really made a difference. But I’m not sure how to apply that to
my own dog.” Before I could shape an answer, she continued, “Where exactly do you tie the knots?”
The knots? I stared stupidly at her, completely stumped, unable to answer her at all. She leaned forward and pointed at the dog. “He got much better after you used the leash with the knots. What I want to know is exactly where I should tie the knots in my leash. Is there a specific formula you use depending on the dog’s size?”
My husband later pointed out that I should not have laughed while trying to explain that it was only an accident that my show lead was even in my training equipment bag. Right then and there, he noted with a Barnumesque side I hadn’t seen before, I might have sold her (at a hefty price no doubt) a “Magical Knots” lead, or at least have offered to customize a Magical Knots lead for her and her own dogs. Even though she had watched me at every step as the dog progressed, she had latched onto the lead as the key ingredient in my success with the dog and so had been stuck in the wrong question, “Where exactly do you tie the knots?”
All of us, at some time or another, in a variety of ways, ask about the magic knots. What we really want to know is how to deepen and enhance the connection between ourselves and our dogs, how to encourage the moments where we and our dogs move together through life in harmony and mutual understanding. Books and videos can tell us how to teach them tricks or how to stop our dogs from digging in the garden or can help us care for them throughout their lives. And we read all that and impatiently shake our heads, because there’s something else we want, something else we’re actually trying to ask when we ask about magic knots. Though we may not be able to articulate it, what we want is what Antoine de Saint-Exupéry described in Wind, Sand and Stars: “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
But finding our way to such a relationship is not easy. And even if we’ve been there before, as Wendy had with Mel, we cannot take the same path when we begin another journey with another dog. Each relationship walks its own way. Complicating matters even further, Wendy’s relationship with Mel was a blessing, a gift of grace, not the result of knowledge or deliberate choice on Wendy’s part. While such relationships are powerful and take us to a point of connection we may not have dreamed possible, we may be in for a rude awakening when we find ourselves back at the first step, with a new dog at our side, and not sure how to get where we want to go. We’ve been there, and we think we know the way; and then, when we’re the ones who must set the course and choose the path, we realize that we’ve not done this before. While we have been where we want to go again, we realize with humility and gratitude that it was the old soul of a dog like Mel who had carried us safely there. And now, we need to find our own way.
IN SEARCH OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE
Though she had enjoyed the beginner’s class, Wendy had become increasingly uneasy with what she saw in the more advanced training. It was common to see dogs being dragged across the room by their collars or shouted at or jerked off their feet with fierce leash corrections. Unwilling to do this to her dog despite the instructors’ adamant “this is how it must be done,” Wendy began to attend classes only intermittently, using the situation to work with Chance as she wanted to, trying not to see what was happening to the dogs around her.
The night came when Wendy could no longer ignore what she saw. In disbelief and horror, she and Chance watched as the instructor pinched a young dog’s ear to force the dog to open her mouth and accept a dumbbell, a common technique in use for many decades and hotly defended by those who use it as the only reliable method for training a dog to retrieve on command. In her pain and confusion, the dog only tightened her jaws and fought to get free. Declaring the dog to be particularly stubborn, the trainer instructed the dog’s owner to help her in a “stereo” ear pinch, meaning that while the trainer pinched one ear, the handler would be doing the same to the other ear. The dog screamed in protest, struggling to get away, but the trainer did not stop until—after many minutes—the dog went limp. Looking at this sweet dog who now lay dazed, eyes filled with fear and pain, Wendy felt sick. She looked down at Chance to promise him that she would never do that to him, no matter what. As her dog raised his eyes to hers, she saw an immense sadness in his face. Within her head, she heard him ask clearly, “Why are we here?” It was a very good question, and Wendy knew the answer. She never again returned to that training class.
Although Chance had already earned his first obedience title, Wendy—unable to find a trainer whose approach felt comfortable and right to her—had lost interest in formal obedience training. But she was still deeply worried about Chance’s tendency to bolt. Each time he had run away, she could see that his mind and body were no longer connected. His eyes were flat, empty, his body moving in panicked flight from whatever had upset him. Until he calmed down, he would not return to her unless she or someone managed to catch him. Each time he ran away, Wendy knew his life was in danger; living in suburbia, it was only a matter of time before he was hit by a car and injured or killed. Concerned for his safety, Wendy had tried everything that had been suggested by various trainers but with no success. At times, Chance still ran as though his life depended on it. Although her experience in training class had left her shaken and distrustful of trainers in general, she sought out a well-known trainer and author who promised a “motivational” approach. After briefly working with Chance, the trainer told Wendy that an electric shock collar was the only solution that might save his life. Reluctantly, Wendy agreed.
The private lesson began innocently enough. The trainer carefully fitted the shock collar to Chance’s neck, then suggested that they wait for half an hour or so for the dog to forget about this new collar before they worked with him in a large, fenced-in field. As they waited, Wendy noticed that even though nothing much had happened yet, Chance was already showing signs of feeling stressed. His ears, normally pricked with interest in his world, were held flattened sideways in a position she thought of as “airplane ears.” This was not a good sign. Out in the field, he became even more apprehensive when Wendy removed the leash as the trainer directed and, leaving Chance on a sit stay, walked roughly twenty feet away.
“Call him,” the trainer said, and Wendy did, but even as the words left her mouth, she knew her dog was no longer in his mind. His eyes went blank in that all-too-familiar way. Ears now folded back tightly against his head, Chance bolted past Wendy and began to run in frantic loops along the field’s fence.
“Call him again!” the trainer urged, but Wendy’s command did not register on the dog, who ran on and on. The trainer hit the button on the remote transmitter that sent a signal to the collar. When the shock registered, Chance leaped off the ground, screaming and snarling in surprise and pain, twisting in the air as he tried desperately to bite at the collar itself. Noting, “He probably can’t hear you over himself,” the trainer told Wendy to call him again and again, but nothing penetrated Chance’s terror. At that moment, Wendy’s heart spoke up loud and clear: This is not what you do to a dog you love. No longer caring what the trainer had to say, Wendy moved to catch the frantic dog in her arms. Only then did the trainer take her thumb off the button—she had been sending shocks to Chance all that time.
“Well, that should fry his little brain,” the trainer noted with satisfaction, adding that he might need a “tune-up” session as a reminder in a few months. She pointed out how successful this training session had been. Indeed, Chance now stood anxiously watching Wendy, afraid to let her move more than a few feet from him. It was true that the bolting behavior had disappeared; what was not evident in that moment was the new behavior that had taken its place. After that session, Chance was unwilling to stay in any position for any reason, even if Wendy went no farther than the end of a six-foot lead. For months afterward, Wendy had to return to the baby steps of puppy training to rebuild the confidence destroyed in just a few wretched minutes. Worse still, when Chance was able to once again successfully hold his stays, the bolting beh
avior reappeared with a vengeance. But now he would bolt in almost any situation, and without showing any of the early warning signs that had previously alerted Wendy to a potential problem.
More than two years later, they stood in my training field, the cumulative weight of mistakes and misunderstanding heavy between them. Riddled with guilt for what she had allowed to happen, Wendy had slowly resigned herself to the fact that Chance was going to have a limited life. Only the gentle insistence of a mutual friend had convinced her that I might be able to help without hurting Chance in any way. After attending one of my seminars to watch me work, Wendy had agreed.
Watching Chance and Wendy as we walked out to my training field, I had no doubt that she loved her dog and that he loved her. But I knew from a lifetime of mistakes with animals that love alone was not always enough to carry someone where they longed to be. I understood how bewildering it was to stand lost at the end of a road that had been taken in good faith, each turn made in hope, every step fueled by a deep desire to get someplace that looked nothing at all like this unexpected destination. The road she had taken was a road whose twists and turns I knew all too well. But I also knew the way back. And I knew that all Wendy needed to find her own way back to where she had meant to go all along was contained in one simple phrase: What is possible between a human and an animal is possible only within a relationship.
Bones Would Rain from the Sky Page 3
