Bones Would Rain from the Sky

by Suzanne Clothier

  For those intrigued by the infinite possibilities of what can happen when we nurture the dynamic quality of our relationships with dogs and others, the only requirement is a constant awareness that at every moment we are choosing to create events of quality. To do so, we must invest ourselves fully in the moment, bringing our awareness and curiosity to even the simplest acts of connection. Nothing in life is free, but our investment of ourselves is richly rewarded in profound and moving connections with our dogs, and in turn, a powerful connection with the natural world around us and with our deepest selves.

  5

  WALKS WITH DOGS

  You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown,

  and a dog as large as myself.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  IN JUNE, THE ROAR OF HAYING EQUIPMENT fills our farm’s fields. It seems chaotic, this noisy movement of man and machine, but flowing like a cool green wake behind the tractor there appears an orderly row of cut hay, heaped gently to dry awhile before being baled. All day, diesel fumes hang in sunlit haze over the fields but are gone with the cooling breezes of evening. A mosquito buzzes my ear as I walk in the emptiness between the sweet, wilting piles, thinking of the coming winter when these simple grasses will fill our cattle’s bellies.

  For my dogs, there are no thoughts of cattle or of winter. They have only a passing interest in the cleared areas where I walk, but with an intensity that seems unusual in these familiar fields, they move along the long piles of hay. Methodically, they work row after row, tails wagging furiously then stilled for just a moment as they swallow something before moving on. I know what they are after, though I often do not tell visiting guests who think this scene a most pastoral sight: The dogs are searching for and eating the hapless victims of haying season. Mice, birds, snakes, rabbits, moles, shrews, frogs and voles have all appeared at times in the drying hay. My dogs have learned that hay season means a potluck dinner.

  But for all their intensity as they search, for all the delicious (only to dogs) snacks that they find, the dogs never forget that we are together. Between mouthfuls of mouse, they glance up to check my progress through the field. Sometimes, I am content to sit and watch them scavenge, thinking about stories I have read of fox and coyote following farmers who are working to bring in a hay crop; the easy pickings of hay row cuisine are not a secret known only to my dogs. But sometimes, I am headed elsewhere and pass through the hay field only as I must. As I move, the dogs keep track of me as completely as I keep track of them. We share this responsibility of togetherness. Noting that I’m about to enter the hemlock woods and head to the creek, they grab one last mystery morsel and race after me. Though they may range away in search of a tantalizing scent or to furiously mark where the coyotes have left their messages in the night, the dogs circle back to me as I choose another trail or stop to investigate a small patch of hepatica growing under the hemlocks’ shade. We are, at every step, together, without the need for words, bound by the heart’s invisible leash, unmistakably connected.

  A CHOICE OF TWO

  Baseball great Yogi Berra summed it up rather neatly: “You can observe a lot by just watching.” And he was right—few things tell me as much about the quality of the connection between a person and a dog as what can be observed as they just walk along together. This sounds so simple—to be with a dog as we walk. What I mean by “with” is a connection that is not easily defined but that is evident in its absence. It is a choice of two to be together, not a matter of tying someone to you with leash and collar.

  At my seminars, I make a routine practice of standing where I can watch people and their dogs entering the building; at home, I watch clients take their dogs from the car and walk them toward me. If there were a single snapshot moment that encapsulates a relationship, it might be simply this: how a person and a dog walk together.

  My friend Rosemary has driven from Illinois to spend a few days at our farm with her four dogs. She is tired from the long drive, and after hugging us, asks if she might walk her dogs. As she opens the side door of her van, I can hear her talking quietly to the excited dogs. Although they are good travelers, even the best of dogs grows weary of confine ment after fifteen hours on the road. As she leans into the van and gathers their leashes, I see Teddy’s nose appear over her shoulder, nostrils flaring as he drinks in the farm scents. Poking out past Rosemary’s hip is Zena’s black button of a nose, and though I can see only a little of the graying muzzle, I can tell that she is wriggling in the delight of arrival.

  With all leashes securely attached, Rosemary steps back. The dogs stand eager but contained, waiting for her quiet “okay.” When it comes, they flow from the van, a river of feet and tails, ears and eyes and noses busy trying to take in the whole farm at once. Despite their excitement, they do not lose track of Rosemary, nor do they pull on their leashes. As she shuts the van door, they glance up at her as if to ask, “Are you ready yet?” While they wait, impatient but polite, she carefully organizes the leashes in her hand and says, “Let’s go, guys.” And off they go, together in every sense of the word.

  Not surprisingly, Rosemary has an excellent relationship with her dogs—in every moment of her interactions with them, she makes it clear to them and to all watching that she is truly with them. In turn, they are decidedly with her, whether in the quiet empty moments or when working on a task. Any difficulties, when they arise, are a matter of miscommunication between Rosemary and the dog or an inability on her part or theirs to work together in just that way, not a failure of clear leadership or the result of conflicts in the relationship itself.

  Walking the dog is the stuff of cartoons for good reason. The eternal question: “Who is walking whom?” is amusing only on the surface, just as jokes about henpecked husbands are only superficially funny. Examined at a deeper level, there isn’t anything funny at all about relationships or leashes taut with tension. Perhaps the humor arises from a wry recognition that relationships are not always what we’d like them to be, from our unstated relief that others have the same difficulties with their dogs or spouses or bosses or children that we do. But we are uncomfortably aware—if we take a moment to think about it—that an unbalanced or frustrating relationship is no laughing matter.

  How important is the quality of connection? How critical is it that we learn on the most basic level to truly walk with a dog? It may be, quite literally, a matter of life and death. The leading cause of death in dogs in Western countries is behavior—unacceptable, uncontrollable, inappropriate behavior. Not disease. Not being hit by a car. Not neglect or abuse (though an argument could be made that a failure to train a dog so that he can act appropriately is precisely a form of neglect and abuse). If we fail to develop a high quality of connection with our dogs, we may fail them in the most terrible of ways, and they may pay for our failure with their lives. Whether we care to admit it or not, we reveal a good deal about our relationships with our dogs in the simple act of walking together. Do we excuse our dogs’ behavior? Ignore them? Helplessly allow ourselves to be towed along like so much baggage? Are we really with them as we walk along, attentive to their comments and interests, ready to help or defend or reassure them as needed? Trainer Sherry Holm has a lovely way of looking at the simple act of walking with a dog: Is there a balance between dog and person, or is the energy flowing too heavily in one direction? Pulling on lead, at a very fundamental level, is an exchange of energy. When two are moving together in harmony, there is a balance that gently sways back and forth across the two. Moving together toward a common goal or with a mutual purpose, there is no pull of energy one way or the other.

  Imagine that everywhere you went with a human friend, you had to hold his hand and he yours. Now imagine that at every step, he was pulling hard. Would you want to go for walks with such a friend? What we would say to such a friend is this: Why can’t you just be with me? Just walk nicely here, by my side, and we’ll go together.

  Consider how the connection with your dog feels. Do you feel
as if you are being towed? As if you must struggle to guide or direct the dog? Does the thought of walking with your dog bring up feelings of joy or is there some frustration? It is considerably annoying to walk with a constant struggle, and few of us like having our arm pulled (sometimes quite hard) by our canine friends. Yet with our dogs, we may think that saying “Just walk nicely by my side” is not possible, or even if we wish it were, we don’t know how to say it. If we view the leash as merely a restraint that keeps the dog safe, we may view pulling on the lead as the end product of the conflict between what the dog wants to do and what the leash allows him to do. We resign ourselves to the struggle, never realizing that it is not necessary, unaware that we are perhaps undermining the very quality of our relationship.

  Pulling on lead is, for me, a fundamental issue that both reflects on and affects the dog/human relationship on many levels. Looked at within the context of the overall relationship, pulling on lead reveals disturbances in the quality of attention given and received at both ends of the lead and says something about the degree of togetherness at work between dog and handler. I do not know anyone who enjoys being pulled around by a dog. While dogs do pull, I doubt that they find the experience enjoyable—it’s hard to believe that being gagged and choked is enjoyable. But lacking our perspective and our ability to change the situation, they may believe it is an inescapable part of being on leash, especially since we most obligingly play our part.

  It takes two to tango, and it takes two to pull. A frustrated student once told me that her dog always pulled, no matter what. Unable to resist such an opening, I sweetly asked, “Always? No matter what?”

  She nodded vigorously. “No matter what! It drives me crazy.” When I asked if the dog pulled even when he was off leash and running around in her yard, she looked at me with disgust. “Of course he doesn’t pull then.” So then I persisted, he only pulls when he’s on lead. What if you drop the lead? Does he still pull? Now a bit annoyed by this line of questioning, she answered sharply, “Of course not. I have to be holding the leash.” She stopped as the realization hit her that in order for her dog to pull, he had to have something or someone to pull against. It had never dawned on her that she might be contributing to the problem; she had viewed this solely as the dog’s problem.

  Any of us would take a dim view of someone who was dragging their dog or a child down the street—it is an act that speaks to the person’s insensitivity to or lack of respect for the dog or child they are towing. But we don’t think twice about the dog whose person allows him to pull them down the street. We don’t think about the lack of respect implicit in the act of pulling, or the lack of leadership that allows it. Simply put, we may move through life spending far too much time simply tied to our dogs by the length of our leash, not bound to them through an investment of our attention.

  IN THE UNPLANNED MOMENTS

  At this most simple level of moving together, we reveal the courtesy and respect at work in the quiet unplanned moments of life. I am never as interested in how two work together on a specific task as I am in how they are together in the in-between moments, when no focus or goal drives or shapes their behavior. Focus on a task—especially one that is enjoyable or so demanding that attention is literally consumed by the effort required—can conceal a great deal and give the false impression that all is well. Don’t show me what your dog can do when you give him a command; just show me how you and he walk down the street together, and I’ll know much more.

  When a high degree of quality exists, it is unmistakable. There is attentiveness that flows between the two partners, a mutuality and respect that is evident in everything they do. Simple gestures reveal a world and say more than we may realize about a relationship. And whether we do so consciously or not, we look at the quality of connection itself to evaluate the relationships we see around us. What I see in a dog and person walking together is a rough blueprint for the relationship, a brief overview of the quality of the connection between person and dog. I do not pretend or assume that these glimpses into how people and dogs walk together is indicative of the whole relationship. But long experience has taught me that this is a surprisingly reliable predictor for what else will be revealed as I learn more about the relationship.

  “How can you judge the connection between dog and person based on just that?” the reader protests. “All you are seeing is the dog when he’s excited, going somewhere new, stimulated by the new setting or other dogs or the activity around him.”

  And I would answer, “Yes, that is precisely what I am seeing, along with how the human in the equation deals with the dog in that situation, how the dog and person work together.”

  A client, Margaret, arrives at the farm for a consultation with her fifteen-month-old German Shepherd, Luger. On the phone she has told me about their difficulties in working in a class situation, how her dog barks and lunges at other dogs, and how inconsistent he is in his obedience work despite his considerable intelligence and athletic ability. When she can get his attention, he’s cooperative, but keeping his attention on her is difficult. She has high hopes for Luger, but she needs help dealing with these training problems.

  I stand on the porch, watching as she opens the car door. Luger lunges for the opening, but Margaret is prepared for this. She deftly catches the dog by the collar and wrestles him back into the car, using her body to block his escape route while she puts on his leash. It appears that she’s quite practiced in these maneuvers. The word “stay” drifts to me; though it is muffled the first few times, by the tenth time the volume has been turned up, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it correctly. At last she steps back, and a black-and-tan bullet shoots from the car, nose to the ground and moving fast. Dragged along behind him like unwanted baggage is Margaret, fighting to stay on her feet and control Luger at the same time.

  “He’s awfully excited about being here!” she calls to me as Luger tows her along on his exploration of the front yard. Eventually, Luger is bored with the yard and, lacking anything better to do, turns his attention to Margaret, who leads him to the front steps where I have been sitting for the last few minutes. I mention to Margaret that he is an extremely handsome dog, and she beams at this compliment. I add that I can see that she does indeed have a problem getting his attention. At this moment, the big dog chooses this moment to return to the car, pulling his owner sideways so sharply that I have the impression of an owl turning its head to me as Margaret looks over her shoulder and asks, in all seriousness, “What makes you say that? You haven’t even seen him work yet.”

  Connection is not created through proximity (otherwise everyone on a crowded elevator would become fast friends), though we do use proximity as a substitute for connection, just as we substitute holding a child’s hand or holding a dog’s leash for actually paying attention to them. Truth be told, we often substitute a leash for attentiveness to our canine companions. Consequently, dogs also substitute a leash for attentiveness to us. In essence, we eliminate the need for any deep attentiveness on our part while also inadvertently teaching the dog that he need not really pay much attention to us—we’re right there at the end of the lead. This does not seem to be a terribly bad situation. The dog is safely restrained, and both we and our dogs may move along in some sem blance of togetherness. But in the seemingly harmless act of tethering a dog to us and setting off for a walk “together” in this strained fashion, we have already begun to undermine the relationship itself. We have already chosen less quality for the connection between ourselves and our dogs. Ultimately, this choice may come to haunt us at a later time, in moments of far greater intensity and importance than simply walking together. Think of it like this: In allowing our dogs to pull us along, we are practicing, over and over and over, the quality of disconnection. We really have no right to be surprised when in other situations, when we really want or desperately need the dog to be fully connected and attentive to us, he’s a bit out of practice.

  A healthy relationship maintains
a fairly even degree of quality no matter what the circumstances. We’d all look strangely at someone who said that their husband was a very well-behaved man at home but just too excited out in public to act politely. We’d be skeptical of parents who assured us that while at the park they might appear careless and disconnected from their children, they were very attentive to their kids’ needs at home. If there are noticeable variances in the quality of connection between you and your dog depending on the situation or circumstances, your relationship may not be as strong as it could be.

  Mutual attention—dog to handler, handler to dog—should serve as the first and most powerful connection in all situations. This takes time to create through training and a diligent practicing of attentiveness; a leash can serve as a safety net along the way to handle the bobbles that will inevitably occur, maybe even as a way to begin a conversation that requires no words. Perhaps our language needs to shift so that we no longer “walk the dog” but rather choose very deliberately, with loving attentiveness, to “walk with the dog.”

  And don’t forget—the dog has his own point of view. Interviewed, he might report that at home, you give him loving, careful attention but that out in the world, you are highly distracted, even excitable, and he finds taking you out in public a very tiring experience. Leaning close, his voice low so you don’t overhear him, he might whisper to us, “And, gosh, you ought to see how she pulls on that leash!”

  6

  TAKE IT FROM THE TOP

  There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

  ANONYMOUS

  HAVING TO GO BACK TO THE BASICS IS NOT FUN FOR ANYONE. What I have always hated in any game and in life was the move that required me to go all the way back to the start and begin again. If I could stand on my head and sing “Ave Maria” backward in Cherokee as atonement, I’d rather do it than return to the beginning. Having to begin again, trying to fill in the gaps left on your first trip—well, it’s not something anyone I know enjoys. Why, we ask, can’t I just fix it from here? We point to how much we’ve already accomplished, how far we’ve already come, and wonder why we have to back up so very far. But the truth is, sometimes you have to back way up, right to the beginning, where the root of a problem lies, and as musicians say, “take it from the top.”