Animal Magic

by Carolyn Press-McKenzie

  I introduced fun and enriching training programmes such as clicker training, mini agility courses, hide and seek games and hand signal training. We also began to use Halti head harnesses when walking the dogs so they learnt to defer to their human companion and not to pull on the lead. We gave massages to our more stressed-out charges—some of whom were addicted to adrenaline—which calmed them down and released endorphins. I was also grateful that at the time of my employment the SPCA’s board members had just approved a dog walking programme, something that had never been allowed in the past. Things were looking up in the battered old shelter. The powers-that-be were accepting that things needed to change and the animals were certainly benefiting from it.

  One morning I arrived at the kennels extra early, in the hope of getting my head around the day before it started. No sooner had I put my bag down than I noticed a new face in the line-up. His head was low and he looked stoically unengaged among all the chaos and barking. I read the chart attached to the front of his kennel, which said the inspectors had brought him in to the shelter during the night. Apparently his owner had been pulled over in his car by the police and when the officers had carried out a routine search they had found this inwardly staunch dog trapped in the boot of the sedan. The guy was detained by the police for drug-related issues and the dog was taken to the SPCA.

  I looked down at the dog in front of me—still no reaction to the environment. It was too early to ascertain whether his subdued demeanour was acceptance or denial. One more glance over his kennel chart told me that he was to be held in SPCA custody until a court hearing, or until he was signed over or returned to his owner. In the meantime, the name slot on his chart was empty. As I kept reading I found out that this impressive dog had been trapped in the car boot all the way from Taupo to Wellington—almost 400 kilometres. That was it. I grabbed a pen and in the blank name slot I carefully wrote the word ‘Taupo’.

  Taupo was one of those dogs that anyone would stop and look at twice. Although this big tan Staffy cross was impressively muscular and would absolutely be the pride of any tryhard’s collection of staunch animals, I noticed that even in this high-pressure situation he wasn’t baring his teeth and foaming at the mouth. Far from it, he was quietly minding his own business, staying out of trouble and just existing.

  For the first few days I didn’t really lay a hand on Taupo. I would open his run, allowing him access to the outside yard where he would sniff about, poo and pee and wait to be let into his kennel again. Probably due to a slight fear of the unknown, I had chosen to go with the formula of quietly allowing us to suss each other out with no pressure, which mostly had worked in the past for these types of tough-guy dogs. Seized dogs were often different from the usual family pets that came into the shelter. Although the environment was stressful for all incoming dogs, often seized dogs dealt with the stress in a different way. The sort of dogs that the inspectors uplifted, pending their owner’s possible prosecution, had often been chained and/or abused or were from unkind or ignorant homes. They were the sort of dogs that were emotionally damaged, broken or angry and usually more edgy as they were mostly not desexed. They had been through the wringer by the time they were placed in the custody of the SPCA.

  I would watch the seized dogs come and go and I learnt not to handle them as I would the family pets. Seeing their scared and reactive behaviour, my instincts would tell me just to leave them be and to allow them the time they needed to accept their new environment. I would watch them watching me. I was calm and reliable, I tended to their needs and I placed no pressure on them. There were big signs all over their kennels ‘keep out’, ‘do not handle’ and ‘dog handler only’.

  Taupo and I got into a rhythm; he learnt to trust and anticipate my movements and after just five days of detoxing from his old life he subtly wagged his tail when I approached. I smiled and gently offered the back of my hand for him to sniff and then it happened—he looked at me! His big brown eyes were gentle and relaxed. It was the first time since his arrival that Taupo had made any eye contact, the first time he had acknowledged me. So for the first time Taupo and I went out into the yard together, he walked off to have a pee and a poo and I sat down on a wooden platform with my back to him. A few minutes later we were both sitting on the platform side by side, not talking, not touching, just sitting and enjoying the sun as it shone down on our backs. I could feel the emotion of this amazingly stoic dog. People had not treated him with respect in the past and yet he had such a capacity to cope and remain indifferent—I couldn’t help but respect him. And as he leaned into me I knew the feeling was mutual.

  The scary thing about forming a relationship with a seized dog is that their destiny is completely out of your control. Sometimes the cases make it all the way to court, and the ideal outcome is of course that the owners are prosecuted and made to be accountable for whatever cruel or heinous act they have inflicted on the animal. Sometimes there is no court hearing, but the inspectors still manage to have the dog signed over to the SPCA. And sometimes the inspectors just can’t make a case stick or get the owners to hear reason and the animal has to be returned to its former unsafe life. As the dog handler I very quickly learnt that in many cases none of the above outcomes were ideal for the animals, not even the wins.

  When I first started work at the SPCA my colleagues told me of a beautiful and gentle pitbull terrier that had been seized by the inspectors. She had been treated very badly, was malnourished, emaciated and pregnant and there was a very strong prosecution pending. Over the best part of a year they nurtured the mum dog, and she gained weight and confidence, giving birth to eight healthy pups. Because there was a court case pending, neither the mum nor her pups could leave the shelter; they were essentially just waiting in the system as wards of the court until an outcome was reached. Finally the day came and the inspectors celebrated when they won the case. She was officially free from the abuse, and her puppies, who had grown up in the shelter, would finally be able to move on to find safe and loving lives of their own.

  But that’s when reality hit. The staff all knew the rules and probably should have seen it coming a mile away, but the blissful denial they chose to live with was blown apart when the orders came from management instructing them to destroy the mum and her babies because they were pitbull terriers and the SPCA did not rehome pitbulls. So after a year of saving this beautiful gentle girl’s life, and enriching and teaching her eight amazingly special pups, the staff held them in their arms and sobbed as the dogs shut their eyes for the last time. They were told that at least the mum wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. But the thing was they hadn’t seen her suffer for an entire year; they had seen her blossom and her true nature shine. She was beautiful on the inside and out, and so were each and every one of her fun-loving puppies.

  The day the inspector came down to the kennels to tell me that Taupo’s case was not going to court and that he had been signed over to the SPCA, I stopped breathing. Taupo was truly such an amazing soul, but what if no one else saw in him what I did. I talked further to the inspector about Taupo’s rehoming options and then made the long walk up the steps to the CEO’s office. Thank goodness she respected my opinion.

  Her first question was whether I considered Taupo to be a pitbull type.

  ‘No, absolutely not, he’s a Staffy cross.’

  Did I think he was aggressive in any way?

  ‘No, absolutely not, he is a calm and considerate dog.’

  Did I think he was rehomable?

  ‘Yes, absolutely. We could definitely find him a wonderful home.’

  And that was that.

  Pending a formal temperament assessment that was to be carried out by me, Taupo would be allowed into our rehoming programme. Phew!

  Temperament tests are funny things. When I was starting out as a dog handler I completely bought into the hype, going on courses and listening to speakers from America. In my mind if they said it then it must be right. I was young and initially didn’t sto
p for a moment to ponder the realities of what they were asking a dog to do. I learnt that if a dog passed the temperament test it lived and if it failed it would be allowed a second test and if it failed that it died. It was as simple as that.

  But the more I worked with the dogs the more I realised that environment plays a huge factor in a dog’s temperament and ability to cope. And a shelter environment was more than most could bear. The reasons why they acted the way they did or, more to the point, reacted, wasn’t about whether they were a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ dog, it was about their coping skills. The same could be said for the cats in the cattery. But in the kennels the tests were so terribly contrived. They even included walking a large terrifyingly creepy doll towards the dog, and if they lashed out, growled or barked at the doll a big black mark went on their temperament test sheet. If they growled or reacted to the plastic hand on the end of a stick that was jerked up and down in their food bowl, same big black mark. Or if they reacted to a staff member running into the compound yelling and waving his or her arms at them, then more black ticks.

  It was my job to assess these dogs, but, seriously, the more I saw the wide-eyed and confused looks coming from the dogs, the more I realised that temperament testing was no more than an awful prank played on an unsuspecting victim. Each dog carried heartbreak or pain, so why not allow them the dignity and respect they deserved? Why not give them the time to process their grieving? But in shelters throughout New Zealand the formula was the same, rules and hoops were in place and time was the one thing that these beautiful, confused and desperate animals were very rarely ever allowed.

  As part of our rehoming programme, we had just struck up a deal with a dog training school. The head trainers would come into the SPCA a couple of times a week and take some of the dogs off site for some training. I was so pleased to see the nine or so dogs in my care have more opportunities to learn, and I was even more excited that they also had an opportunity to escape the compound for a few hours.

  The trainers were lovely ladies, all pepped up with the training buzz. And of course they were following to the letter all of the trends from America. They had been coming only for a couple of weeks and I initially handed them the easier dogs, the ones who had had full and enriched lives before their families moved away or had had human babies and no longer saw a place for a dog in their lives. There were so many reasons that these amazing and intelligent animals had been dumped at the shelter and sadly it was never through any fault of their own.

  The ladies would return from the sessions thrilled to bits with progress; the dogs had been angels, interactive and keen to learn tricks. The ladies patted themselves on the back for a job well done and I thanked them for enriching the dogs that day. They had been trying out clicker training, which is a type of positive reinforcement for the dogs, and things were moving along swimmingly. Of course I was very familiar with the benefits of clicker training as I had used it to break down and teach behaviour in my movie work. Clicker training is a great upbeat method that can be taught to any species.

  As an aside, I remember one year teaching cows to do kung-fu and aerobics movements for a TV commercial. The clicker training was so effective that the cows just couldn’t get enough of it. We made the mistake of leaving their exercise step in the paddock while we took a lunch break. We came out from the barn an hour later to find the girls all lined up on their steps ready and waiting for their treats.

  After a few weeks of watching the ladies and watching the dogs, I noticed that the trainers had a real sense of accomplishment about them; with clickers in tow they firmly believed they had this dog behaviour business nailed. So bursting with curiosity as to how they would handle him, I passed over Taupo’s lead to one of the trainers. I gave full disclosure, explaining his temperament and his story. I told her that she would need to take her time and get to know him first. So off they went.

  I knew Taupo was going to be safe but what I didn’t know was if he was going to be understood. So I spent the next few hours with half my mind on the work in front of me and half my mind on Taupo. As the clock struck 3 p.m., in strode the trainers. They looked annoyed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, my eyes searching frantically behind them until they rested on a very disinterested looking Taupo.

  ‘This dog is not safe, I just don’t trust him,’ replied the trainer. She then went on to explain that he wouldn’t look her in the eye, he wouldn’t respond to commands, and he wouldn’t take a treat. ‘We just don’t trust him and he is absolutely not suitable for rehoming.’

  I explained to the trainers again that Taupo was a very special soul and that although clickers and treats and tricks were a wonderful learning tool for some dogs, Taupo would only work for trust and respect. I suggested that they take him out the next day and just calmly spend time with him, maybe sit with him and breathe. I said that it wasn’t about what he could do for them, it was about really opening up and showing him what they could do for him.

  The next day the trainers arrived looking concerned. They had been chatting among themselves and felt that I was putting them in a very awkward and unsafe situation. I asked them to trust me and off they went with Taupo. They were gone for hours and I was starting to second-guess my motives—maybe they’d never understand. But at 3.30 p.m. they walked through the doors of the shelter, Taupo at their side, all three of them smiling a tranquil calm smile. It was clear that Taupo had worked his magic.

  They started to explain to me how completely they connected with him and what a miracle it was. Speaking to the trainers before the session with Taupo had been like talking to a Kardashian-style dog trainer, all wrapped up in what the new hot trend was and because they knew the latest and hottest they expected all the pegs to fit into their fancy round holes. Talking to them now was as though they had just come out of a meeting with the Dalai Lama. The transformation was incredible. These ladies were so invested in gimmicks and teach-me-quick tricks that they had totally missed the most important part: the realness of the animal, the connection, the uncomplicated truth. But through Taupo’s steadfast silence they had learnt to stop talking and to listen.

  A few weeks later an amazing woman came into the shelter. Her elderly dog had passed away months earlier and she was ready to love again. She knew at once that Taupo was the dog for her. I watched them connect immediately. It was perfect.

  CHAPTER 13

  Desperate to belong

  Knowing that animal behaviour was my passion, the girls from the SPCA cat run would often call on me to help with an extra tricky case.

  One day they asked for advice on an extremely timid cat, Patsy, that they had recently rehomed. The new family were super lovely, but were seriously reconsidering their choice of feline companion as they very rarely got to see her. She had been in their home for nearly five months and spent most of her time hiding under the bed. When she was let outside for the first time she went bush immediately and days later they had to set a trap to bring her back home. They wanted to know if there was any hope. After pondering the question for a short while, I asked if I could speak to the owners. I asked them if Patsy ever popped her head out from under the bed when people were present and they replied that she was only ever brave enough if there was food. I smiled. There was our window of hope—food.

  So I set about explaining the concept of reward-based clicker training to the family. Stage one was to condition Patsy to the sound the clicker made. I explained it was much like Pavlov’s theory: when Patsy heard the clicker I wanted her to think food over fear. My hope was that over time, through exposure to her surroundings, she would desensitise and be able to function as a relatively normal cat in constant search of pleasure. I asked them to click as she ate her meals. The motive here was to get Patsy to associate food with the clicking sound. I then asked them to put morsels of Patsy’s favourite food on the floor at the foot of the bed and click when she bravely reached out to get it. After a while the family were able to click the clicker and Pat
sy would pop her head out from under the bed in anticipation of the reward. They would then offer her food and click again when she bravely took it.

  Soon they were playing games with Patsy. One of the owners would hide around the corner or in the wardrobe or up the stairs and click and Patsy would shyly but surely come looking for them. As well as offering her her favourite food the family would tickle and stroke Patsy which she was starting to allow them to do without flinching; in fact purring was becoming her new normal. Finally Patsy’s confidence was so great in the home that she would bat the family with her paws to initiate the game and the food and the pats.

  My theory was that Patsy rated food over all else, even fear. I had been working the family to a point where they could eventually let her outside. What had gone so wrong in the past was that when outside Patsy would be so overcome with fear that once she found her way into the bush at the end of the garden she was just not brave enough to find her way back. But with the clicker promising her food, safety and love there was no stopping her bounding in through the back door.

  Jake the dog had been signed over to the SPCA because the family just couldn’t keep him on their property. They owned a motel so there was plenty going on and yet as soon as his owner’s back was turned he was up and over the 1.8-metre-high fence. His usual routine was to cross a few main roads and head for the river where he would meet up with other dogs and play for hours and then head back home to the motel for dinner. Lately Jake’s owners had resorted to chaining him. They were all miserable.