A Dog Year

by Jon Katz

  Despite his dark streak, Devon also had his good moods, especially when the morning was under way. Then he would trumpet a series of joyous roo’s, scaring the hell out of me and the Labs and charging off downstairs. It was the call to work; he was telling us to get off our asses and join him in the day’s tasks, which he always undertook with great enthusiasm.

  But our tasks weren’t so simple. On the leash, Devon remained a nightmare, tugging and yanking. Off the leash, he was worse, galloping down driveways and into backyards, chasing across lawns after squirrels.

  Deanne pondered my accounts. “He’s like his mother,” she mused. “Very headstrong and willful.”

  In fact, Devon was by far the most stubborn and dominant creature in the house, Paula said, with the exception of me.

  Furthermore, having finally found someone he was beginning to attach himself to, he couldn’t bear it when I left him; he was convinced I wouldn’t come back. Or maybe he was just pissed off at being left behind.

  Devon always wanted to come along—always. Beyond loneliness or neediness this was a display of the intense curiosity that characterized the breed. Border collies always wanted to be in on the action. Accompanying me on errands, he rode with his nose out the car window, then raced from one side to the other.

  There was lots to see in New Jersey—cars, trucks, buses, other dogs, walkers, joggers, packs of kids—and he took it all in. But when I left him in the car and went into a store, he jumped nervously between the front and back seats until I returned.

  What occurred to me, with Deanne’s help, was that Devon was finding me interesting, and had taken me on as his work. He was putting his pride, stubbornness, intelligence, and neediness into this new relationship. I had a strange, recurring feeling that Devon thought that with some effort, he could help me sort things out.

  “You can’t keep a dog who’s wild, who’s behaving that way,” Deanne warned. “You are either going to have to convince him that you can make him do what you want, and that you aren’t going to abandon him, or he’ll have to come back. Do you want to try?”

  I understood this moment for what it was, a crisis between a dog and its overwhelmed new owner. I couldn’t go on like this indefinitely. It wasn’t fair to Devon, the Labs, Paula—or me. If I wasn’t yet at the decision-making point, I was rapidly approaching it. Change is invigorating, but chaos is destructive. On the mountain, it seemed unthinkable to ship Devon back. Despite his running away, there were fewer issues or disputes up there. Back in New Jersey, life was a lot more complicated, and I felt less certain.

  But there was no denying the mushrooming love I was feeling for this taxing creature, even in so short a time. If this conflict wore on much longer, I knew I really wouldn’t have any choice; I wouldn’t be able to send him away.

  Deanne was giving me the out. She was telling me that this was the time to surrender and send him back. In my mind, I pictured the return trip to Newark Airport, where I would stuff him back into that crate and watch as the baggage handlers wheeled him off. Not an appealing image.

  I was quiet for a moment. “I’d like to try everything possible,” I said, “before I even think of giving him up.”

  Deanne was happy to hear it, but full of warnings. “It’s going to be rough,” she cautioned. “This is going to be a real test of wills, and the stronger one will prevail.”

  She and I were on the phone several times a week now, talking strategy, plotting techniques. Deanne was in medical school and could ill afford this distraction, but her devotion to her dogs was strong. Despite her workload, she was never impatient or reluctant to talk. She wanted this cross-species adoption to work.

  “You are underestimating yourself,” she advised. “You can do this.”

  Some of Devon’s problems had probably come from his disappointing experience as an obedience dog, she thought. He seemed resistant, even sullen; he obeyed commands, but grudgingly. To subject him to a new person shouting commands could be counterproductive. So, no Ralph to tame the Helldog; the job fell to me.

  “When Devon accepts you as the leader,” Deanne said, “he’ll roll over on his back and show you his belly. That’s the gesture of submission. If he does that, you’ve won. If he doesn’t . . .”

  I went out and bought a shorter leash and two choke chains, one to put around his neck, one to toss and make noise with during training. I cleared my work schedule so I could concentrate on the looming confrontation.

  I think Devon sensed that we were going to duke it out, and gave no quarter. In this context, we were both true to our natures. He could have given in, I could have looked the other way. Somehow, I didn’t think that was going to happen. The battle was joined.

  When it was time to go out walking, he lunged ahead of me and pushed open the door, sometimes breaking away to challenge people or other dogs outside. He jumped toward buses and trucks, sometimes pulling me down, or twisting my bad ankle. He got crankier about sitting, lying down, or staying, things he had actually begun to do.

  The more insistent I got, the more he dug in. Deanne had nailed it: this was a battle of wills, and victory would go to the most stubborn and patient. I couldn’t really say I had him beat on the first count, but I had an edge on the second.

  As the campaign kicked in, I grew tougher with him, ordering him to sit, then throwing the choke chain at his feet if he didn’t.

  If he still wouldn’t sit, I pressed my hand down on his rump until he complied. People in the neighborhood saw me chasing him through hedges and across lawns and wondered aloud why I hadn’t been content with those two wonderful Labs. Devon seemed actually to grow angrier and more defiant as the training progressed. Perhaps this was a window into what had happened to him, why he’d been abandoned in the first place.

  One time, he took my hand in his mouth when I pushed down on his hindquarters to make him sit. Openhanded, I swatted his rump so hard that my hand stung. Then I pushed down again, and he mouthed me again. I spanked him again. We repeated this three times before he sat, slowly and resentfully. I wasn’t happy, either; I was growing too angry.

  Other than a mild nose tap for a puppy, I’d never slugged any of my dogs. But I couldn’t let him win this round. It would be the end of us, of his life with me and, perhaps, of his ability to live with anyone.

  Exhausted, increasingly anxious, and frustrated, I was also increasingly resigned: I was getting nowhere. Perhaps my books were right: border collies weren’t for everybody, and they weren’t for me.

  The morning after I’d hit Devon—who had neither flinched nor winced, nor seemed to really notice—I got up at 6:30 a.m., when I knew the streets would be quiet. It was a cool spring morning.

  I gave Devon the “heel” command and he walked placidly alongside me for a few paces, then started creeping forward. This was the problem with Devon: even when he obeyed, he managed to subtly defy. His will was both impressive and infuriating. I praised him anyway, then leaned over to pet him.

  As I did, he lurched, pulling the leash from my hand—for a medium-sized dog, he’s extraordinarily strong—and charged into the street toward a small private school bus.

  He leaped right in front of it. The driver slammed on his brakes, the tires screeched, and I heard a couple of kids yell in fright.

  There was something shockingly willful about the incident. Devon was no dummy; he knew quite well that he wasn’t permitted to run into the street—we’d been working on it ten times a day since he’d arrived.

  I ran into the street, grabbed the leash, and, apologizing to the driver, roughly pulled him back onto the sidewalk. There I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “No! No! Bad dog!”

  I sat down next to him on the curb and talked, more quietly but just as intensely, into his face. “Listen, pal, we’re going to work this out or tomorrow only one of us is going to be here and it isn’t going to be you. You understand me?” A neighbor on the way to the train to Manhattan had stopped in response to my yelling and gave me an odd
glance. “Hey, you okay?” He was a great admirer of Julius and Stanley, who were back in the house, still dozing.

  “I guess I’m not, not at the moment,” I said wearily. In fact, I thought, I’m nuts for battling with this screwed-up dog.

  Devon wore an expression of deep concentration. He was fearless about disapproval and physical punishment, though he did seem interested in an explanation. He was able to do anything I wanted, but really, why should he? Merely performing held no particular appeal. Was there a point?

  How could I get through to him that this wasn’t a silly command in an obedience event, that this meant the difference between his living with us, being my dog, and not?

  We started off again, and he walked along perfectly and calmly. Once again, I reached over to pat and commend him—positive reinforcement—and, once again, he seemed to be waiting for an opportunity.

  He lunged and was suddenly gone again, the leash slipping right through my chilled fingers, in pursuit of a bigger and louder school bus. This round, he threw himself at the moving front tire. It was especially horrifying. I thought he was within inches of being hit, but as the bus passed, he barked and jumped back.

  There was something primal about the challenge Devon had thrown down, even at the risk of his own life. This was pure, calculated defiance. I hadn’t brought him to New Jersey to see him crushed under a bus. Simply put, I snapped.

  I was not thinking rationally; I wasn’t thinking at all. I wasn’t recalling training manuals or border collie books or Deanne’s good advice or my own instincts and experience. We were back in a prehistoric era, caveman and semidomesticated animal.

  The bus rumbled away—the driver hadn’t even seen him—and Devon stood tauntingly in the street, almost daring me to do something.

  I was on him like a bear. I picked him up, one hand on his collar, the other on his haunches, and hurled him five or six feet onto the grassy strip next to the curb. He was light and agile and landed on his feet; he darted a few feet away, saw me charging, and stood his ground.

  I have to give him credit: he would fire off like a rocket after a squirrel, or just for fun, but he would never duck a fight. He braced himself. He saw me coming and could have taken off in a flash. He didn’t. And at that moment, I was beyond empathy. I threw the metal pooper-scooper at him, intending it to clang loudly on the sidewalk in front of him, but it skidded and hit him squarely in the shoulder, causing him to start. I threw the choke chain at him, too. I was screaming, cursing. This was no training technique, it was pure rage, a nearly unprecedented eruption from a veteran wuss.

  I lurched onto the sidewalk, tripping over the curb and falling onto my knees. He was still standing there, watching me. I ran to him, smacking him in the side, knocking him into a shrub. “Don’t you understand?” I shouted at him. “You can’t stay here like this! You’ll have to go back!”

  I was panting and red-faced when a green Subaru station wagon pulled up alongside us, the window slowly rolling down. I turned and saw a woman and her daughter, perhaps ten, sitting beside her.

  “Excuse me,” said the woman in a particularly grating tone of voice. “But my daughter doesn’t like the way you’re treating your dog.”

  A classic and typical moment in my Boomer town. It might have been the whole scene, or it might have been that mommy turning even this into a child-welfare issue, but I was not inclined to have a discussion with this idiot.

  “Lady, mind your own business!” I screamed. I was mortified—I couldn’t recall ever yelling in public that way, let alone in front of a child. Ordinarily, I would have been only too happy to share my laments over this dog.

  But. But. Doesn’t like the way I’m treating my dog! Let her tour my fucking house and see the imported food, the multiple dog beds, the heaped collections of chewbones and balls and squeaky toys. Let her train this evil bastard! I was purple with fury.

  I turned back toward Devon.

  He was on his back, feet in the air, tail curled underneath, ears back so far they nearly folded into his head.

  I stood frozen. We were both shaking; I’m not sure which one of us was more upset. Talking to Deanne earlier, I had made my decision. Now Devon had made his.

  The woman in the car may have been obnoxious, but she wasn’t wrong. I don’t believe in treating any dog the way I’d just treated Devon.

  I can be moody and brooding, but I’m not a violent person. I’ve never struck another human being in anger, or spanked my daughter, or even, to my memory, shouted at her.

  Apart from sparring with authority figures and editors who tell me what I can’t write, I go to great lengths to avoid even minor confrontations. I can’t bear to tell a cashier if I’ve been overcharged.

  Yet I know there’s plenty of anger in me. Devon rekindled some of that the minute he shot out of his crate, perhaps because he viewed the world the same way. And he’d been stoking it ever since.

  I’d tried to keep that emotion in check. But that morning, I was terrified at the sight of his nearly being run over by a bus. And I was worn down, physically and emotionally, from the miles of walks, the constant shouting and correcting, the eternal vigilance required to prevent Devon from killing himself, driving the other dogs nuts, and wrecking our house.

  I was also starting to resent his intrusion into my work. People who work at home, especially writers, are highly vulnerable to disruption; they need a lot of space and concentration, and mine was suffering. And I felt guilty about Julius and Stanley, who, for all their faithfulness, found themselves in the middle of a battle, their routines disrupted, our peaceful existence together made tense.

  By this point, I thought taking Devon might have been a mistake. I was well aware that none of this was his fault. He hadn’t asked to come. I knew he was just following his instincts, but it seemed that I was doing my part and he wasn’t doing his. I thought our relationship wasn’t going to work. At times, I couldn’t bear this drama, which seemed to be pulling me back to dark places, where old feelings of fear and rage bubbled up. I knew what it felt like to be disliked, abandoned, and unsuccessful. We were soulmates, kindred spirits, on the same frequency to an amazing degree. But we were also driving each other berserk.

  Had Devon been a person, and our relationship turned that confrontational, we would have gone into therapy together. There was no question that I had come to love him deeply.

  Yet I had no trouble making the distinction. He was a dog. He had to accept my authority in ways I myself had furiously resisted my entire life.

  If we could pull this off, we would make a great pair. We could make some bigger statement about both our lives, too: about patience, about rewriting history and healing wounds, about not giving up on each other, about not walking away. This was partly about faith and commitment. But that’s a lot of baggage to put on a dog—too much.

  I understood instantly after the brawl that something of enormous importance had happened. Devon was transformed. At first, it was a wrenching sight, those flattened ears, the beseeching eyes. This was his Appomattox. He had fought long, hard, and with valor. He needed to be permitted to surrender with dignity.

  I approached him slowly, knelt by his side, turned him over. He crawled into my lap, his head in my arms. The fear, confusion, and defiance seemed to peel away.

  I felt for him. For a proud dog with centuries of independence in his blood to lie on his back in abject submission is a potent show of trust. Pressing his face next to mine, he licked me tentatively, once, twice, then a hundred times. His tail began to swish. I was no longer angry. In fact, I was deeply sorry. I had violated all my own principles.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I told him. “I love you. You’re home. You’re home for good. I’ll never abandon you, I promise.”

  I stroked his head and neck. “And I’ll make a solemn promise to you. We’ll go find some real sheep as soon as things settle down, and you’ll get to herd them. I swear.”

  Devon’s whole demeanor had changed. It was
as though a different dog had emerged from the battlefield haze.

  Some cars and more school buses came by. Devon didn’t even give them a look, though we probably provided an odd sideshow for the commuters and schoolchildren, whose numbers were beginning to grow. A few of the drivers slowed for a closer look.

  They saw, at the intersection in front of my house, a black-and-white dog, lying in the lap of a large man as if he’d been shot. Debris from the battle lay scattered around—the pooper-scooper, my baseball cap at the curb, his leash, a choke chain.

  We both got to our feet and began walking down the sidewalk, chagrined and on our best behavior.

  Some of the reasons for this change were obvious: Devon understood that he now had a leader, someone he had to obey. He knew his place in the pack. This seemed to calm him, soothe his anxiety. I think he understood my promise, which I could now make freely and could truly mean: now he could feel my love, relief, and appreciation. Whatever happened, this dog had a home with me.

  I had gained his respect, or at least his obedience, in a primal way that felt utterly alien to me. But the brawl had allowed him to let go of something, old fears or struggles, resentment perhaps. We’d entered into a binding contract: he had decided to trust me. I had decided to love him.

  Devon has let me know, since that morning, that he has by no means surrendered completely. Our conflict moved into a lower-intensity, guerrilla phase. Some of our struggles were, in fact, just beginning. But the war was over.

  Since that brawl, however, he can walk off-leash almost everywhere, although I’m selective about where. He has never run away from me or darted into the street. He’s never nipped at a child, chased a school bus, refused to come when I call. He has never jumped the fence or dug under it; he no longer tries to loosen the slats. He’s damaged no more windows. He’s lost all interest in leaving me.