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

by Suzanne Clothier

  clients discovered this when dealing with her dog's eating problems. Bella was not a good eater, though her owner, Beth, had tried over the years to provide her dog with the very finest foods available. As she learned more, Beth began to embrace the good sense behind learning to prepare her own homemade dog food; with full control over the individual ingredients and their

  quality, she could be sure of providing her beloved companion with the best possible diet. Using one of the many balanced recipes available, Beth had painstakingly assembled the ingredients and prepared the food. But Bella didn't like this new food either. As she had with all other foods, the dog ate only enough to keep herself alive, though she gladly accepted certain special treats. Watching Bella wolf down a chicken sandwich that fell on the floor, Beth was frustrated. Was this dog just playing games with her? Thinking of the hours she had spent preparing the best possible food, she felt angry and rejected. Ever try to feed an eighteen-month-old toddler a food he didn't like? There's no particular consideration on the child's part for the cost of the food, how good it may be for him according to the nutritional experts, how much effort was required to obtain and/or prepare this magical elixir. If he doesn't like it, he will screw up his face in the universal sign of disgust and refuse to allow you to con him (airplanes, trains and all) to swallow any more of that yucky stuff. Your dog will be equally and brutally honest. Spend all day preparing choice tidbits, and your dog may sniff and turn away. No apology, though some very kind dogs will humor you a tad by taking the treat, wagging their tail and then immediately spitting the food out or placing it gently on the floor. At first glance, I had noticed the dog's appearance-Bella was hardly the picture of good health. Her coat was dull and dry, and her ribs were easily visible even from a distance. Clearly, this was a dog with serious problems that Beth hoped I might help unravel. I asked what she was feeding Bella, and was quite surprised to discover she was using a long- established and very reputable recipe, one that I'd used with my own dogs with excellent results. Seeing my surprise, Beth nodded in rueful agreement. "I know! I thought I was doing something good for her, but look at her. People have stopped me on the street and scolded me for not feeding my dog! They should know how hard I try to do what's best for Bella."

  I asked about the ingredients-raw beef, brown rice, and a variety of vegetables-and Bella's response to her food. "She just picks out a little beef and the carrots and green beans, but that's about it." Beth sighed. But before I could ask another question, she

  went on, her voice filled with frustration and a touch of bitterness. "Of course, Little Miss Picky here is always right underfoot when I roast a chicken. And in the mornings, she'll walk away from her food bowl to sit begging for some of my oatmeal." Now it all made sense. "She likes oatmeal?" Beth nodded, adding, "I have some every morning, and Bella knows it. She sits there begging and going through all the tricks she knows just to get some. I know it's spoiling her, but I give her some every now and then-at least it's something in her tummy." "Did you ever think of using other ingredients? Like chicken instead of beef, oatmeal instead of brown rice?" Beth shook her head, reminding me that the recipe called for beef, not chicken. I assured her that substitutions were fine, and sometimes very necessary. Not all foods suit all dogs, just as people vary in the diet that best suits them. I went on to explain that in my experience, healthy dogs whose food agrees with them are good eaters, enthusiastic and quick in their approach to doing what canines do-gulping down their meals without much chewing involved. (i've had some clients very concerned about this normal dog behavior and have had to reassure them that the design of a dog's teeth offer good clues about how a dog should eat. The impressive array of canine dental ware is designed for grabbing and tearing, not carefully chewing. The dog's powerful digestive system does the brunt of the work, unlike our weaker stomachs that prefer our food at least partially chewed.) When a dog does not eat or eats very little, my first thought is to take this as a very important communication. With basic physiology similar to our own, I've long suspected that dogs are as prone as we are to food intolerances as well as true allergies (different from an intolerance in that allergies involve an immune-mediated response). There is no physiological reason why dogs should not experience these same physical sensations we experience after eating food that doesn't agree with us: gassiness, cramping, nausea, headaches, sour stomach. But they cannot

  tell us this in words-though, as Bella did, they can and do report faithfully in their actions. Far more attuned to their bodies than we to curs, dogs can quickly become aware which foods do not suit them. Nature arms even the simplest creatures with a good memory for avoiding foods that have made them sick. (we have this mechanism as well, but often

  disregard what our bodies tell us.) As a baby, I repeatedly refused to drink from a bottle, and sometimes went so far as to hurl the bottle away from me. The pediatrician suggested I was spoiled and that perhaps my mother was doing something wrong. After wading through the Sea of First-Time Parent Guilt, my mother knew that something must be causing this behavior since I would drink water or diluted juice from a bottle. She began to piece things together, and the truth was eventually discovered -I had a nasty response to cow's milk, the basis of the formula I was being given. Given goat's milk, I happily drank my bottle and became a picture-perfect baby. (i outgrew that, but still hate milk.) Unlike an animal that hunts for its food, dogs have no control over what is put on their plates. Our dogs are unable to gracefully decline and say, "Thanks-you do make a delicious gizzard soup, but gizzards repeat on me something fierce." Worse still, their food often arrives as a blend of many ingredients, and they can't pick out the good from the bad. The whole food therefore has to be suitable or not. All they can do is eat what they must to stay alive, and hope that the next meal might be something more agreeable. Beth confirmed that Bella's behavior fit the profile of a dog trying to communicate a problem with her food. The dog was always hopeful and bright-eyed when her meal was being prepared, but her enthusiasm quickly dimmed when the bowl was placed before her. "She just sniffs, and then looks up at me. Sometimes she eats a little, and sometimes she just walks away. She eats just enough to stay alive." What Bella was saying in the clearest way she knew how was, "I don't like this." Bella's bluntly honest communication held no acknowledgment of Beth's efforts, just the dog's truth. Interpreted through a human's need for acceptance and appreciation, Beth could not clearly hear what Bella kept saying. Trapped in her own emotional response to the dog's rejection of the food she had worked so hard to prepare, Beth couldn't see that Bella had also clearly told her, "I do like oatmeal, and I do like chicken." This is

  understandable-after all, even a well-trained doctor who ought to have taken my babyhood behavior as important information found it easier to blame my upbringing for my bottle-related antics than closely examine my behavior for important clues. But sadder was Beth's question as she considered my advice to replace the beef and rice with chicken and oatmeal: "If I do, isn't that just letting her get her way?" Countless training books and countless trainers urge the dog owner to not let dogs "get away with" misbehavior but forget to mention that behavior is a pure form of communication. If a behavior exists that an owner finds upsetting, there's a problem that needs to be investigated and resolved. The dog has a reason for acting as he does, and it's not always because, given an inch, he wants to take a mile. I found it quite sad that Beth had so thoroughly swallowed the battle cry of dog training com8Don't let him get away with that!"-that she felt it would be somehow surrendering to Bella's demands to feed her chicken and oatmeal. By switching the ingredients to eliminate the things Bella consistently avoided eating and to include the equally nutritious and more agreeable foods, the only thing the dog would be "getting away with" was not being hungry most of the time. Once Beth realized that Bella was not rejecting her or her well-meant offer of delicious food, she was able to see how clearly Bella had been trying to communicate. When I assured her that she had been on the right t
rack, and that her intentions were laudable, Beth cheered up. She brightened further when I explained that she and Bella already knew what the solution might be; all she had to do was give it a try. I also reminded her that in a world filled with rigid recipes, she wasn't going to find too much advice on listening to the dog's body as an important piece of creating the ideal diet for that dog. (this is not the same as the old Bill Cosby routine where a father listens to his children and agrees to serve them chocolate cake for breakfast.) She agreed to try substituting chicken and oatmeal. A couple of months later, I got a call from Beth to report on Bella's progress. The dog was eating eagerly, had put on quite a bit of much needed weight, and her coat was thick and shiny. After telling me about

  Bella's new enthusiasm for her food, Beth went on: "You know, it's funny. When I realized Bella was always telling me the truth, I finally figured out it was my job to figure out what she was telling me. And it's not just about oatmeal and chicken. In training class one day, I asked her to pick up her dumbbell. She trotted out, started to pick it up, and then just dropped it. I was surprised: She knows how to do this-she's done it for years. She just stood there and stared at me. At first I got angry. My trainer was telling me to go make her pick it up but then I remembered how Bella used to stare at me at mealtimes. It dawned on me that maybe she was trying to tell me something, so I didn't do anything. I just stood there, staring right back at her, and thought about the whole thing. I wondered why she might drop a dumbbell right after picking it up. So I walked over to look at her more closely." Beth's voice broke a little, and I could hear her take a deep breath before she continued. "When I looked in her mouth, I was so glad I believed her and that I hadn't yelled at her or tried to make her pick it up. Somehow, she had broken off one of her teeth, and the nerve was exposed. Picking up that dumbbell must have hurt like hell. We got the tooth fixed, and she went back into training and did great. Now, every time Bella needs to tell me something, she stops and stares at me, and I know she's telling me something important. It's made our whole relationship better-I really trust my dog now." A gift of light Accepting the dog's gift of complete honesty is not easy. It requires that we understand our own feelings and that we can make the distinction between what we project onto our dogs and what movie is actually showing at their theater. Learning to accept an animal's honesty is very literally an act of trust, one sometimes made difficult by our human experiences. This has been a difficult process for me-my experience in life has not been one where trust is unfailingly honored, and I've not always been trustworthy. Without question, my experience with the human capacity for deceit influenced my relationships with animals. If trust and honesty are not a part of everyday life, an atmosphere of suspicion develops. Though we may not be fully

  aware of it, though we may think that we step outside of it in our relationships with anifhals, distrust begins to color all in ways we did not intend, a deadly gas creeping through the cracks of our self-knowledge. Very early on in my career, when I was eighteen, I was bitten by a young dog. She was an impulse buy from a pet store by people who did not understand exactly how much was involved in raising a very active and determined puppy. Faced with no leadership and plenty of energy, the dog had quickly learned that she could shape the world to her liking with a well-timed show of teeth and a fierce growl. Puffed up with pride and armed with what was appallingly inadequate knowledge, I viewed her behavior as a deliberate defiance of my "authority." (does anyone have less authority than someone who even thinks in those terms?] In retrospect, I can see that my lack of honesty with myself was the driving force; I was not yet able to admit to myself how little I really knew about dogs and dog training. I was also emotionally suspicious, having not yet matured enough to resolve some deeply affecting experiences that had taught me how untrustworthy some people could be. As a result, I was not able to fully trust animals as well, though I was unaware at the time that my "authoritarian" response to the dog was a clear sign of my own fearful distrust. Just as I triumphantly managed to squash the "defiant" dog into a rough resemblance of the desired down position, she told me precisely what she thought of my stupidity and rudeness: She sank her teeth deep into my wrist. I don't remember precisely what my response was, but I do remember bleeding copiously in the client's bathroom and trying to explain to the very upset family what had happened. I've apologized many times in my mind to that dog for concluding the disaster by labeling her stubborn, dominant and difficult. She was the only honest one in that whole scenario. I replayed that fiasco many times in my head-it was a horrible situation that I did not want to repeat. I did not mind the bite, and I value the scars as tangible reminders that I am capable of great stupidity. What I could not shake was the look in the dog's eyes. Over and over, she warned me, absolutely honest in her communications; but faced with someone who would not hear her, she clearly felt she had no other choice but to bite me in order to communicate with me. I also remembered

  the horrified look on the client's faces. In one brief moment created out of my arrogance and ignorance, they had seen their young dog turn into a fierce beast capable of biting and drawing blood. This was not a bad dog; this was just an untrained dog. My glib assignment of blame to the dog was unfair, and I knew it. Much later, I was willing to accept the truth that can be found in a dog's eyes, the sometimes unwelcome but valuable truth about my own behavior. In that moment, I began to understand that a dog's absolute honesty is a gift of light on the darker corners of my soul. There's another twist that complicates the issue of honesty. Though we can trust that what the dog tells us is an honest communication, the dog expects the same from us. And that can present some interesting dilemmas. Firmly fixed in their canine perspective, dogs assume that our communications to them are like theirs to us-honest, straightforward and meaningful. In this, dogs are very much like young children, unable to see us except as we are in relationship to them. My all-time favorite comment on what this really means on a day-today basis came from one of my clients. She was trying to figure out how to solve some minor problems with her three dogs, and as the conversation went on, it became apparent that one of the underlying problems was her inconsistency in her communications with the dogs. Trying to help her understand why it was important that she be consistent in what she said and did, I mentioned that dogs didn't understand how or why it was that she came home each day in a variety of moods. They didn't see her as a hardworking saleswoman with a pain in the ass for a boss. They only saw her as the head of their family group and, as such, paid great attention to what she said and did. They always told her the truth and expected that she also meant what she said. There was a long pause on her end of the phone, and then a gasp as the full meaning of what I said sunk in. "Oh no!" she wailed. "You mean they believe everything I say?" The answer, of course, was yes-dogs do believe what we say. They have no other way of interpreting our communications. The blessing of being able to trust that what our dogs say is what they really mean is not without cost; in return for their trustworthiness, dogs expect no less from us.