The relationship between Wendy and Chance had been damaged, not destroyed; without repair, the damage would forever limit what was possible between them. The restoration of trust and joy that had once flowed between them began when I asked her to see the world through Chance’s eyes. He was simply a dog, and for all his intelligence, his understanding of his world was shaped by what the person he loved and trusted had done and allowed to happen. He did not understand good intentions. He did not realize that her mistakes had been the result of misplaced faith in trainers. He knew only that there was no joy left in working with her, that she had repeatedly ignored or misunderstood what he told her when he lay on the ground in mute resignation or when he fled fearfully away, pushed beyond his limits. In every way he could, Chance had told her how he felt, but she had not heard him. He was simply a dog, and he had no way to solve this. He was left only with his prayers. Once, perhaps, he had prayed to be heard; now he prayed for escape.
Gently, for I had been in the same place where this sad, sweet woman now stood, I asked, “If you were Chance and all that you just described had happened to you, would you feel safe? Would you trust your person? Would you look forward with joy and anticipation to working together? Would you want to be in a relationship like this?”
Her face sagged as she shook her head. For a long moment, she stared at her feet, then raising her head, looked me in the eye: “I love my dog. I never wanted to hurt him. I just wanted to train him, give him freedom. And I trusted that those damn trainers knew more than I did.” She paused, struggling not to cry. Taking a deep breath, she asked, “What do I do now?”
To reclaim the trust that had been lost, Wendy and Chance were going to have to learn new ways to work together. In everything she did, she had a choice: She could either support and enhance the relationship with her dog, or undermine it. She would need to learn to see the world from her dog’s perspective, so that she could understand how and why her actions either dimmed or encouraged the light in his eyes. With consideration for the differences between herself and a dog, she needed to treat Chance as she would want to be treated, with the loving respect she would treat any beloved friend. Communication would improve when she learned to say what she meant in ways the dog could understand, when she was able to listen to what Chance told her in his body language and responses. Her dog would never lie to her, but she had to learn to trust that what he told her was his truth at that moment. Everything she did with Chance had to be guided by this one elemental point: Does this help or harm the relationship?
“But where do I begin?” she asked. In my head, her question was an echo of so many other students who had also asked, “How do you do this?”—as if building or repairing a relationship with an animal was a specific skill that could be explained and taught like teaching their dogs to heel or come when called. In trying to answer them, I have always felt a bit like the artist who, when asked how to paint, responded, “It’s easy. You put the red where the red goes and the green where the green goes and the yellow where the yellow goes… .” I also remember Matisse’s response to a woman who thoughtlessly asked how long it had taken him to paint a picture: “A few hours… and my whole life.”
I know what it is to long for a recipe, to hope for magic knots, to want a shortcut to knowledge that can be gained in only one way—practice, persistence and experience. When I was first studying with Linda Tellington-Jones, I asked her which place on an animal’s body was the best place for beginning the hands-on work. Linda replied, “Anywhere is fine. Unless the animal tells you otherwise. Then pick another spot.” This answer initially maddened me. I wanted what I did to be perfect, and I wanted the precise recipe to achieve the results I so admired in Linda’s work with animals. But I slowly came to realize that the reply that so frustrated me was a completely truthful answer, one that contained a great deal of the wisdom that informs Linda’s work with animals. To begin the dialogue between human and animal so that a relationship may develop is like starting any conversation. You have to pick a starting point, and if that doesn’t work, you pick another one, and if necessary another, until at last you find a point of agreement. And then you begin to explore the common ground, feeling your way as you go, always listening to the animal, the only one who can tell you when you’ve got it right.
“All right,” I told Wendy. “Here’s how we’re going to start repairing this relationship. Leave Chance where he is—it doesn’t matter that he’s not looking this way. I want you to say nothing but take a step parallel to him. Don’t move toward him; just keep taking slow steps until Chance notices. He will. And when he looks your way, don’t say a word. Just toss him a treat.”
Puzzled, she did as I said. Still deep in his prayers at the end of the leash, Chance glanced over his shoulder when he caught Wendy’s movements in his peripheral vision. He was surprised by the unexpected treat that landed next to him. Briefly, he looked at Wendy before reaching for the food and then turning away to resume his prayers. She took another step, and again he glanced over his shoulder. Another treat and this time a long contemplative stare from the dog before he turned away. A few more steps, more tidbits, and then it happened. Chance swallowed the food and then slowly approached Wendy. He stood looking up at her, clearly questioning this unusual turn of events. She fed him a little more, and while he ate, we could see the wheels turning as he thought over the situation. As if to test what he believed might be happening, the dog turned away from Wendy and stared off into the distance. “Wait,” I told her, “don’t move and just wait.” For what seemed an eternity, Wendy and her dog stood motionless, frozen in a tableau of disconnection. Then, deliberately, without being asked, because he chose to, Chance turned back to her and looked straight into her eyes, his tail wagging.
From that moment on in that training session, there was no getting rid of him. Like Mary’s lamb, wherever Wendy went, Chance was sure to go. Amazed and delighted, Wendy moved in every possible direction, even trying to run away from him, but Chance was always there beside her, his eyes shining. Over and over she kept shaking her head in disbelief, saying it couldn’t be as easy as that.
“I know it sounds too simple,” I agreed, “but look at your dog. What is he telling you?”
With a wistful smile, she looked at the dog who stood watching her with bright eyes and a softly wagging tail. “He’s telling me that he’s happy.”
“Then believe him!” I smiled. “He’s never lied to you, and he never will. If you want to know if something works for Chance, ask him. He doesn’t care how silly or simple something may seem to you. If it works for him, that’s all that matters.”
For Wendy, the repair efforts of the next few months required concentration and focus, but it was work she gladly embraced. With each day, their relationship grew stronger. In Chance’s resistance, she no longer saw a dog with “a will to displease.” She saw a beloved friend saying “I don’t understand” or “This bores me” or “I can’t do that.” And then she helped him understand, or made it more interesting, or switched to something more exciting, or asked for something he could do. She opened her eyes to the subtleties of his every movement and began to understand what a flick of an ear or a glance really meant. Chance no longer needed to bolt away or lay down to be heard. He began to trust that Wendy saw the quieter messages written in the slight drop of his tail or the folding of his whiskers against his muzzle. Confident in her support, he began to try harder, now willing to work with her in partnership as they joyfully mastered new skills together.
NO RECIPES
At work in all our intimate relationships is a desire for harmony, for togetherness, for friendship; we long to both love and be loved, to understand and be understood. What is the recipe for such a relationship? There isn’t one. There can’t be. Recipes are only a beginning, a guide by which you begin to learn the basics. Without recipes, we must reinvent the wheel, which, though possible, is time-consuming and not always successful. Imagine if each of us had to learn to
make a cake from scratch, but we had no guide as to what ingredients went into a cake. Even though we have seen cakes and eaten them, unless we had watched someone else make one from scratch we might stare at the cupboard for a long time (eternity?) before thinking to blend some butter, sugar, flour and eggs to create a tasty treat. A recipe is a shortcut to a limited form of knowledge, though not necessarily to experience or even success.
The basics of dog behavior and the training of dogs can be learned through recipes. At this simple level of training and relationship, there are basic ingredients that you will need to know about. This book trusts that at some other time, through the many “cookbooks” available, you have already mastered the basic recipes for a life shared with animals. But there is a limit to what such books can offer. There are only a limited number of ways by which you can teach your dog to sit on command or walk politely at your side, just as there are only a limited number of ways to make an ordinary cream pie. This book trusts that you want to know more. While an ordinary pie is delicious, it is possible to create something even more remarkable and memorable, something that satisfies far beyond a basic level.
In cooking, there is a level where the basics have been thoroughly mastered so that recipes are no longer necessary or even desired. At this point, experience and knowledge become a springboard for cooking as an art, each creation as individual as the cook herself as she selects the ingredients and proportions that delight her. Beautiful improvisations on a theme become the goal. A chocolate cream pie previously concocted of instant pudding, Cool Whip and a store-bought crust may now be made of the finest Belgian chocolate laced with elegant swirls of raspberry liquer and nestled atop a delicate crust of hazelnut and gingersnaps. Because such a creation springs from a desire to take the experience to new heights of intensity and subtlety, because it is created from feel from a little of this and a touch of that, the cook herself may be unable to offer a precise recipe. Attempts to get such a recipe creates the maddening scenario where a budding cook tries to get Grandma to surrender the recipe for her famous piecrust only to discover that Grandma long ago lost the need for measuring cups and just puts in what’s needed until “it feels right.”
It is not possible to develop a deep relationship with an animal simply because you know and can recite the basic ingredients, no more than you can match Grandma’s famous pastry armed only with the information that a piecrust is made of flour, shortening, and a splash of ice water. While you need to know these basics, such knowledge is not enough. You’re going to have to make as many piecrusts as Grandma did, until it feels right in your hands, until the sense of what makes a piecrust right is in your bones. Grandma may give you useful tips to help you as you practice, but the experience and excellent results will come only with time and effort. You may choose a poorer-quality flour or a different shortening or decide not to invest so much time in perfecting your piecrusts; the results will reflect your choices.
In reaching for this book, you are moving toward the deeper levels in a relationship with an animal, where recipes are no longer useful or even possible. The stories in this book will not help you create predictable, wonderful results with the animals in your life; instead, they offer useful tips that when combined with experience and practice, help you get it “just right.” I can tell you what ingredients seem to be common in healthy relationships, but it’s up to you to create your own special recipe, one that uniquely reflects how you share your life with animals. The specific techniques that worked for the relationships in this book may not be appropriate or useful for you. From this point on in the journey, you must collect your own ingredients and brew them, stew them or swallow them whole as it suits you and your dog and your relationship.
I do have one recipe I can pass along. It may seem all too reminiscent of Grandma’s piecrust, but it’s a good one.
Take one lifetime with animals. Grind it hard against mistakes and misunderstanding. Season heavily with the desire to get it right, and layer generously with the forgiveness of every animal who passes through your hands. Stew for years, being sure that gifted teachers (animal or human) stir the mess from time to time as needed so it keeps cooking. Serve when it begins to get clear. Yield: a few precious drops worth having.
Each relationship with an animal and a human is a bridge uniquely shaped to carry only those two, and so must be crafted by them. Though the work of a lifetime, the building and repairs are done slowly, in the heart’s time, one beat after another. And it is thirsty work, as work of the heart always is, for the heart thirsts after the things that are invisible to the eye, things you cannot grasp with your hand. Simple notions, these few drops I’ve thus far distilled from a lifetime of learning from animals. But they are surprisingly satisfying to a thirsty heart.
Chance and Wendy have become my good friends. They live not far from us, and happily, they share our passion for the farm’s open spaces and hemlock woods, for shaggy cattle with horns and afternoon walks with a pig or a turkey. Chance now has the life and freedom that Wendy had always wanted for him. Some days when Wendy works, Chance stays here with us, and the black plume of his tail waving in the tall grass is a familiar sight as I look out my office window onto the yard and the pastures beyond. My nickname for Chance is Einstein, meant as a tribute to this dog’s intelligence. When I call him by that famous name, he always smiles. I know that his namesake long ago defined the speed at which light travels, but each day, this good black dog reminds me of an even more amazing phenomenon—the speed at which forgiveness travels in a dog’s eyes.
Through the grace of a dog’s forgiveness, and by keeping the relationship with her dog as the defining factor in all she did with him, Wendy and Chance ultimately achieved more than she had ever dared dream possible. One day, a trophy unexpectedly arrived in the mail, accompanied by a certificate declaring Chance the top-scoring obedience dog among all mixed breeds in the Northeast, an honor Wendy was unaware they had won. But how far they have come in their relationship is not best defined by any trophy. For Wendy, the watermark was an incident at a practice competition. Competing at an advanced obedience level, she and Chance had done very well. As Wendy set him for the final exercise, the broad jump (an exercise that requires the dog to stay while the handler walks away and then—on command—jump a low, wide hurdle), she was extremely pleased with their performance. Turning to face the jump, she noticed that the trainer who had tried to “fry his little brain” was standing outside the ring, only a few feet from where Chance sat. Realizing that Chance had also seen the trainer, Wendy understood the message contained in what her dog did next. Chance looked at the jump, at Wendy, and then, with a brief glance at the trainer who had been the source of so much pain, quietly got up and walked away.
The judge, not understanding that the dog had good reason for what he had done, was surprised when Wendy softly called Chance to her and prepared to leave the ring. “Don’t you want to take him back and try that again? It’s a practice show, so you can try again if you like.”
Wendy knew it was impossible to explain what Chance had said so clearly in his behavior. “No, sir,” she said. “I think my dog has done well today, and I am very pleased with him.”
The puzzled judge shook his head, questioning her decision. “All right,” he said with a shrug. “It’s your dog.”
With a big smile, Wendy agreed. “You’re right. He is my dog.” And she and Chance walked out of the ring as they had entered it—together.
I haven’t seen Chance pray in a long, long time. He has no need. All his prayers have been answered.
3
DANCES WITH DOGS
Folk will know how large your soul is, by the way you treat a dog.
CHARLES F. DORAN
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE TURTLE THOUGHT. I hope that any fear it may have felt quickly disappeared, leaving only a vague, dreamlike recollection. For me, the memory is a sweet, clear picture: It is a summer’s evening, and as I ride, the tall grass brushes in whispers against
my feet, keeping time with my pony’s steps. At the edge of the field where the grass grows thin and short under the shade of the trees, I can see my dog Bear sniffing at something. I turn my pony in that direction, and as we approach, Bear looks up, his eyes bright with excitement. “What have you found?” I ask, and in reply, he turns to gently pick up a box turtle.
“Give it to me,” I tell him, leaning down from the saddle, and he strains to offer me this gift. I cannot reach that far, and seeing this, Bear stands on his hind legs, bracing his front paws against the pony’s shoulder. I take the turtle from him, thanking him for this lovely surprise. As I examine the intricate tracery of colors and grooves, the size and the wear on the shell tells me this is an old turtle who has seen much, though I suspect his brief journey in Bear’s mouth was a new experience. As my pony stands patiently waiting, I hold the turtle level on my hand, hoping he will peek out. Cautiously, the wrinkled head appears, and for a moment, the tables are turned—one deep orange eye unblinkingly considers me, the color shocking against the dull brownish gray of the turtle’s head. Finding me of little interest, the eye snaps shut and the turtle closes into himself once more.
“We need to put him back now,” I tell Bear, and once again he rears to stand against the pony. With surprising delicacy, his powerful jaws close on the turtle, and with infinite care, he places the turtle on the ground right side up before stepping back to stand watching for what might happen next. Impatient, Bear gives it a little push, his wet nose cutting a trail through the dust of the turtle’s back, revealing a splendid dark tapestry of color. But the turtle doesn’t move. I turn the pony away, and calling my dog, we continue on our way.
When I think of Bear, it is memories like this that fill me with joy. But our journey together was not always as uncomplicated as that summer’s evening ride that had no purpose but to move through the fields on an old gray pony with a dark wolf of a dog beside me. It would be nice to report that all my moments with animals were sweet and good ones, that from the day I was born, people mistook me for the sister of Saint Francis of Assisi, or perhaps Dr. Doolittle’s daughter. I would prefer to write a self-congratulatory tale of how I instinctively treated all animals with the utmost respect and tenderness. I wish that I could claim that I cannot fathom how or why people who say they love animals are nonetheless willing to use horrific techniques in the name of training. But none of that would be true, though most of my mistakes and selfish acts went largely unnoticed, private affairs between me and an animal.
Bones Would Rain from the Sky Page 4
