Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs

by Suzanne Clothier

  where the animals lead me Through childhood and beyond, a veritable Noah's ark of animals have accompanied me on my life's journey. Long before I read Joseph Campbell's wise advice to "follow your bliss," I was already following my heart's desire. There were other opportunities available to me in life-my high school art teachers urged me to attend art school, my English teachers pushed me toward a career as a writer. My grandfather, aware of my great love of books, offered to pay my college tuition if I agreed to become a librarian. I was surrounded by disapproval and dire warnings of inevitable failure if I pursued my dreams. My stubborn insistence on following my bliss created conflict and pain in my relation ships with those who could not understand why I spent my teenage years at a nearby stable, why I pursued an animal husbandry degree only to abandon that to leap at a chance to work with a guide dog organization and then move on from there to manage a stable and kennels and to ultimately become a trainer. At every crossroad, I took only the path that would lead me where I wanted to go-toward a deeper understanding of a life shared with animals. I write this book in a house filled with wonderful animals-seven dogs, seven cats, a pair of tortoises, a parrot and a box turtle. From my window, I can glimpse my horses, the donkey and some of the Scottish Highland cattle that grace our pastures. There is mud on my jeans, left there by Charlotte the pig's affectionate greeting. I know that in the warm glow of the barn lights, my loving husband is tending to the nighttime chores, talking to calves as he hands out treats of stale bread, settling the turkeys, chickens and quail in for the night. In my relationship with each of these much-loved and complex beings, including my husband, there are ghosts and echoes of all the animals that have shared my life, and the seedlings of a wisdom crafted from both joys and sorrows. I am grateful for the immeasurable love bestowed upon me daily by my husband and my animals. Sometimes, I question whether I deserve such blessings. If I have somehow grown into a person who deserves what she has been given so freely, it is in large part the reflection of the grace and forgiveness granted to me by the animals who have accompanied me thus far on my life's journey.

  Those who do not know better label me simply as an "animal lover" and find it charming, if odd, that a parrot flies freely through the house, that a turtle tells me quite clearly he'd like a cherry tomato for lunch, that my dogs find it not at all unusual to go for a walk in the woods with a turkey or a pig. I give these people amusing tales of waking to find a cat's gift of a dead mole on my pillow or the inexplicable presentation of a live, unhurt baby bird, and we laugh at the dogs' latest adventures. While sometimes impressed by my knowledge of animals and their ways, many people are bemused by my insatiable lust for an ever-deeper, fuller understanding. For them, it is enough to have a pet, to "love animals." And they leave our farm with an incomplete view of our life and of who I am. I am not an animal lover or a pet owner. I am, perhaps, an animal husband in the oldest sense of the word, but it is much more than even that. These animals are my friends, my partners, my fellow travelers on life's journey. I do not "h" animals as I have collections of art or books. I have relationships with each animal; some are more intimate than others. I try to listen as carefully to each animal as I would to any human friend. To be sure, tending to the needs of so many creatures gives shape and rhythm to my life and to my husband's. Our plans and goals are often delayed or altered in response to crises as simple as an unexpected puddle on the floor or as complicated as caring for a critically ill or dying animal. There are times when we chafe, individually and together, against the constraints of a life with so many animals in our care. But the immediate and undeniable reality of the animal world grounds us in ways we cannot fully articulate though we can feel it working its peaceful magic deep within our hearts and minds. Fortunately, my husband understands that he did not marry an "animal lover" but someone who travels daily in the company of animals, forever trying to be open to the places they may take me, to the sights and sounds I might have missed were it not for them. To travel in the company of animals is to walk with angels, guides, guardians, jesters, shadows and mirrors. I cannot imagine how it is to travel bereft of such excellent companions. In my journey, seeking to know animals more fully, wandering in their foreign lands, struggling for fluency in these other tongues, I found much more than just the animals themselves. As all travelers do, no matter how far they may go, no matter how exotic the terrain or bizarre the culture, I discovered myself. The thirst for a deeper understanding of animals and the desire for relationships with them is not unique to me.

  Everywhere I go, I find others who are equally passionate about animals, who want to know more. With great joy, I have made it my life's work to help others better understand the dogs with whom they share their lives, and to help them explore new depths in their relationships with animals. This is not a onesided process of simply explaining the beautiful nuances of canine communications or the structures and protocol of canine culture. It is important to understand how and why our dogs behave the way they do and to open ourselves to a different perspective on the world: the dog's perspective of life, love and relationships. This book offers the reader the knowledge that is necessary to more fully appreciate these gentle predators who share our beds, and with this knowledge comes new insights and greater awareness. But more than that is needed. Relationships-if they are to achieve the depth and intimacy that makes our souls sing-are built on far more than good information about how and why others act as they do. As with any relationship, a fuller understanding of ourselves and what we bring to the table is necessary. Of all the gifts that animals can offer, perhaps the greatest is this opportunity to delve deep inside ourselves. Without judgment or timetables, with patience and an amazing capacity for forgiveness, animals are the ideal guides through our inner landscapes. In moments of glorious agreement as well as moments of frustrated disconnection, our relationships with our dogs serve us well, gently nudging us to a greater understanding of the dynamics of two beings in willing partnership and to new insights into who we are. Once we begin the journey toward the authentic connections we long for, we cannot help but be profoundly changed, often in ways we did not expect but welcome wholeheartedly. A life lived in relationship with an animal has the power to make us both fully human and more fully humane. And this spills over, as a fullness of soul inevitably does, to other relationships, weaving its magic across our entire lives. This book is for those who also may have spent their youth considering the world from beneath the dining room table, for those who wished as desperately as I did for a tail to wag. It is also for those who never once licked a knee or barked at the pizza deliveryman. It is a book for those who would become fluent in Dog and other tongues, and for those who would learn for the first time these most eloquent of languages. It is for those whose hearts have been shaped and filled by animals now gone, and for those whose hearts have yet to be broken as only an animal can break them. Most of all, this book is for those who would journey through life with dogs and other animals as their fellow travelers, and in doing so, perhaps discover themselves.

  A black dog's prayers With an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the iife of things. william wordsworth

  I believe that I have seen dogs praying to whatever gods dogs pray to, their prayers as silent but surely as heartfelt as our own. And this dog was praying for the leash to break. He did not strain against the tether that bound him to his owner but sat quietly as far away as the long tracking lead allowed. He sat with his back to us, a gleaming black stillness of dog against the lush green field. As he stared intently across the pasture and beyond, I had no doubts that should the leash break, his escape route was already plotted. The pasture fence that stood between him and freedom served more as a reminder than a meaningful barrier, meant to contain only content dogs who did not pray such prayers and my gentle, elderly horses, who obeyed even a thin string as a boundary. In my mind's eye, this dog would clear the sagging wire fence with one effortless bound and be gone, a bla
ck arrow moving quickly away from us to somewhere more interesting. But his prayers went unanswered, and so he sat, the uninterested blankness of his back a clear message to us as we watched him. If dogs do pray, it may be that they pray as we do, for what we long for, for what we need, and for solutions to situations they can neither solve nor escape. Not all dog prayers are serious ones. My husband's Golden Retriever, Molson, prays frequently and gleefully while we are cooking. As far as we can tell, she prays for us to drop entire cartons of eggs (which we sometimes do), to lose control of whatever is on the cutting board (which happens frequently), and for us to turn our attention away from fresh bread cooling on the counter (we are slow learners). Molson sometimes smiles in her sleep, and we suspect that she is remembering our wedding day, a day when her prayers were answered in a way that may well rank as one of the greatest moments of her life. The wedding cake had been carefully transported home to the farm, where we were to be married, and placed in the cool of the basement, an area unavailable to the dogs. The cake's arrival and resting place did not escape Molson's notice. Ever watchful, she waited for her opportunity amidst the chaos of preparations for an at-home wedding and reception. Inevitably, someone left a door open, and without drawing any attention to herself, Molson seized the moment and disappeared. I had finished bathing the horses so that they looked beautiful for their part in the ceremony, and as I stepped into the basement to put away the bucket and sponge, I was surprised to be greeted by Molson. The ecstatic look on her face was quickly explained by the mound of icing on her nose. Groaning with disbelief, I looked at the cake, which now read, "Congratulations Suzanne and-"The entire corner of the cake with John's name had been eaten. For a long superstitious moment, I stood wondering if this was an omen to be heeded or some form of canine commentary on our wedding plans. (our guests, when served the mutilated cake, also ventured a few interpretations, but they nonetheless ate the cake without hesitation.) Never before or since have Molson's food prayers been answered in such a spectacular way. But she continues to pray, and sometimes, the kitchen gods answer. Molson's prayers are simple ones, easy to interpret. But this black dog's prayers were complicated ones, filled with sorrow and anger and love and pain. To step into a dog's mind requires that you step into his paws and see the world through his eyes. To understand his prayers, you must look for what lights his entire being with joy, and look also for what dims that light. As I talked with Wendy, the dog's owner, I was searching for an understanding of what might make a dog hold himself apart from us. He was clearly loved and cared forwith meticulous attention come inch of his body glowed with well-being, and there was no evidence of his past, when he wandered a city's street, unloved and fending for himself. The intervening years of good food and love had polished this nameless street urchin into a handsome, funny and intelligent dog named Chance. And yet there he sat, removed from us, his mind distant and uninterested. Something had gone wrong; why else would a dog pray as he did for the leash to break so that he might gallop away? Any relationship is a complicated thing at best, springing as it does from an intersection of two lives; two sets of desires, interests and fears; two different perspectives and understandings of the shared world. In our relationships with animals, we find additional mysteries of other languages and cultures quite unlike our own. While the differences between us and animals both charm and attract, they also serve to complicate the whole affair. I am quite certain that every dog on earth goes to his grave mystified by certain human behaviors. My own dogs adore water in any form except that which is found in a bathtub accompanied by dog shampoo. As a result, they are very often wet, especially in the summer when their wading pool is constantly available to them. While on most nights I welcome the comfort of their warm bodies as I sleep, there is something less than delightful about snuggling up to hot, wet dogs. As I shoo them from bed for reasons they cannot comprehend, they throw themselves on the floor with dramatic sighs and expressions that reveal the truth of John Steinbeck's comment, "I have seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that dogs think humans are nuts." 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 h
aving 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 characteristics 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.