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

by Suzanne Clothier

  In the end, even the most brilliant of dogs are working with a crude vocabulary not unlike a tourist in a foreign land. And just like the tourists, dogs learn the words and phrases that have the most meaning for them: "Where is the toilet?" or "I need a drink." (granted, only dogs would actually link these two phrases into one meaningful question.) Looked at in a certain light, this points to a very practical intelligence at work that probably prevents dogs from dying of boredom or going mad in the face of our seemingly endless babble. Countless authors of dog-training books as well as trainers themselves urge dog owners to remember that their tone of voice is all-important. If we view dogs as non-English-speaking guests in our world, then it's easy to understand how important tone of voice can be. Depending on my mood, I find the whole tone-of-voice advice bit hysterically funny or deeply sad because it reveals an underlying truth: We're in need of being reminded how to speak to our dogs. Why does this advice about the tone of voice even need to be said? Isn't tone of voice important in all our conversations, at least the ones in which we are addressing someone we love? I doubt most of us would appreciate having our friends and family come up and bellow "I love you!" in a belligerent tone. If we snarl "Give me the salt," our loved ones might understandably take offense, though they still might pass the salt. I haven't seen any child- raising books that feel the need to urge mothers to use soft, loving tones with their babies-"After thorough study of the vocalization patterns of maternal behavior in a wide variety of cultures, it appears that babies prefer not to be shouted at for any reason." Nor have I seen any dating advice that tells a man that he'll get further with a woman if he refrains from shouting in her ear and slapping her on the back like one of his buddies down at the bar. If we want to be successful in our relationships, we shape our conversations to reflect the love and respect we feel for the other. Unless we've lost all basic civility (been to Long Island at rush hour?), unless we no longer care about the person or the relationship, unless we have lost control of our own feelings, we don't interact with others that we care about in harsh, demanding tones, ordering them about in peremptory ways. And we certainly don't like it

  when we're addressed that way; it is not a loving or even a respectful way of conducting conversation. One clear warning sign that trouble is brewing in a relationship is the way in which we communicate. We no longer speak with love or patience or respect in our voices. We grow shrill, angry, demanding, dismissive, impatient; we don't listen. (and we may get the same in return.) If we love our dogs, if we respect them, if we view ourselves as being in a relationship with them and not just as being their drill sergeants or keepers, then our verbal communications to them need to be as loving and respectful as to any human. This seems to me to be at the very least simple common courtesy. Within a loving relationship, it is more than that-it is a critical ingredient without which we may not succeed. And when we lose our way, when we find ourselves shouting at our dogs or treating them in ways we would resent for ourselves, we need to hush so we can hear the echoes of fear or anger in our own voices. Of course tone of voice matters. In the tone of our voice, regardless of the words we use, there is a world of information. Dismay, anger, happiness, alarm, frustration, fear, sadness, surprise, encouragement, confusion, warning, urgency, approval-all these and so much more can be communicated just in the tone of voice. Our voices can be marvelous tools of communication, allowing our dogs to hear clearly what we are trying to say. But focusing on our tone of voice without also learning to control the rest of our bodies is pointless at best, and terribly confusing to the dog. Dogs just don't buy the "do what I say and ignore what I do" garbage humans hand each other. It is the whole message of voice and body that tells a dog what is really being communicated. Although we humans pride ourselves on our linguistic skills and often believe that we communicate mostly through a verbal to written language, the truth is that we're not all that different from dogs and other animals. Nonverbal signals comprise an amazingly high percentage of human communication. Some researchers estimate as much as 80 percent of our communication is contained in our gestures and body language. I think it is worth remembering that some of the most

  moving human experiences are the moments of inarticulate emotion, where words fail us or seem only something to fumble with while we search in vain for some new means to express what it is we feel. At such times, we may resort to precisely those silent gestures animals use-a head pressed against a friend, a hand laid quietly on a shoulder or leg, a body gently folded around the contours of someone's grief and pain. We proudly claim language as that which sets us apart from animals, and yet, when language fails us as it often does in the face of profoundly moving experiences, the animal quality of pure gesture is all that we have left. To my way of thinking, it is not a sad commentary on animals that they do not have a verbal or written language by which to express their feelings, be that love or sympathy or joy or grief. It is, I think, a rather telling note that when we are most deeply moved, we return to the pure eloquence of communication that animals use all along. We are, sometimes, most eloquent when we are dumb.

  reading between the lines Fortunately for us, our dogs are masters at reading us like books, though it's obvious they're sometimes hard-pressed to follow the plot. They're also terribly good at reading between the lines. Our reliance on verbal communication coupled with a lack of awareness of how our bodies also contribute to what is being said leads straight to what dogs must consider very confusing conversations. "Come here," we tell the dog who has slipped his lead. Assuming he correctly understands the phrase, the words register but are balanced by everything else he hears and sees: the anxiety in our voice (we fear he may run out into the road), the tension in our bodies as we lean forward toward him (a gesture that serves to push the dog away from us), the shift in our breathing (telling him something is alarming us, though he is unable to relate that to his actions), all the tiny signs of our growing frustration. Taken as a whole picture, this tense, anxious and possibly angry person grabbing for him contradicts the verbal direction to "Come here." If the messages we send are not under our full control or awareness, we may be very surprised at the response we get from our dogs. When in doubt, dogs disregard words and believe our actions. If I cheerfully tell my dogs that they

  are very bad dogs indeed, they laugh. If I put a different inflection on it, speaking sternly, frowning fiercely, my dogs still laugh. They live with me, and accustomed to my dramatic moments, thoroughly educated in the art of living with a lunatic, they know that I'm as full of play growls as they are, and they recognize my mock warnings as just that-make-believe. Only when a stern tone of voice is matched with the hard eyes, tight jaw, tense muscles and very still posture of an angry me do they take me seriously. A dog who did not know me well might easily mistake my mock warning for a real one, just as we often mistakenly interpret gestures or words of someone we do not know well. Before we open our mouths, even though we've opened our mouths and long after we've opened our mouths, dogs are busy trying to understand the whole message. And they can only understand any of our messages as they are understood filtered through the canine point of view. What we say in actual words might read back nicely on a courtroom transcript where all but the most violent outbursts go unnoted. A stenographer does not make notations such as "sounded tense" or "in an annoyed tone" or "sarcastic." In my experience, when people report to themselves or a trainer what was said in a situation with a dog, it is common for that report to be in roughly the same format as a courtroom transcript-all the subtleties and inflections are missing except for the really dramatic ones. But the dog takes far better notes than any court stenographer, mostly because he has a holistic recording device: the canine brain. Nuances of gesture and voice are strictly and accurately noted. Let's look at a typical scene from the human "transcript" point of view, and then from the dog's holistic recording device. Scene: It is a quiet house. A dog lies dozing at his owner's feet while she reads a book. The doorbell rings, startling the owner. The
dog is instantly up and trotting to the door, where he begins to bark. The owner quickly follows. She attempts to quiet the dog and get him to sit so she can open the door. She's eager to sign for this month's delivery of Doggy Digest,

  an edible magazine meant to be chewed by the dog after the owner has devoured the fascinating articles on "Fleas Flee" and "Top Ten Ways to Tell If Your Dog Is an Alien." Here's the transcript as our drama unfolds: Doorbell rings. DOG: Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark . . . (continues even while owner speaks) owner: Quiet. DOG: Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark . . . OWNER: Quiet. Quiet. DOG: Bark, bark, bark, bark . . . (deliveryman asks if he should come back some other time) growl, growl . . . OWNER: (to deliveryman) No, wait. (raises voice to be heard] I said wait, please. Just wait a minute while I get the dog under control. (addresses dog) Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Hush. DOG: Bark, bark, bark, bark . . . owner: Quiet. Sit. Quiet. I said Sit. Sit. Sit. I mean it-sit. DOG: Bark, bark, bark. Yelp! (oumer has grabbed his collar) Grrrr . . . OWNER: Sit. Sit. Quiet. (adds shake of collar to emphasize her point, and pulls him up) DOG: Bark, bark, bark . . . (sits) bark, bark, bark . . . Now, let's replay that scene told from the dog's point of view: Doorbell rings. At the instant the dog hears the doorbell, he's thrilled. Doorbells mean it's time to play "What's behind door number one?" Could be that nice kid from next door wanting to play; he can really throw a ball. Might be that nice guy that always has dog biscuits in his pocket when he comes to stare at the electric

  meter. Got to go check

  could be an intruder who needs to be chased away from the door. There's that guy that comes every day and pushes strange papers through the slot in the door. He's easy to chase away: just a few barks, works every time.

  As the dog is getting up to respond to the doorbell, he hears a slight intake of breath from his lady. She is slightly startled by the bell, and the dog notices this. Aha, that caught her off guard too! As he trots toward the door, he begins barking, announcing that the visitor might or might not be welcome, but either way, he's on duty to check all passes. Behind him, the dog is pleased to note, his lady is also hustling. Not much of a watchdog, but at least she tries. He increases his barking to assure her that he's got it covered, and as usual, she chimes right in herself. Strange, he thinks to himself. Human barks are strange. You think they'd know that

  single-syllable woofs are easier to say

  never could get my mouth around the Q

  sound

  but hey, each to his own. Man, she's revved today!. She's barking like a fool puppy, all breathless and high-pitched!. The man says something, and the dog sees the woman get more frantic in her actions and sounds. Oh, boy! That really got her going. Wonder what he said to get her all riled up like that? She's barking at him, she's barking at me, and she's moving

  around quick like

  heck, if she had a tail she " probably be

  wagging it too. Her barking's getting louder, and

  damn, here it comes

  as always, she's forgetting about the guy out there and turning on me. Barking right at me, like I'm the intruder! Owl He wishes she'd be more careful when she grabs that collar. Twisting it like that really smarts. He growls a little to warn her to watch what she's grabbing. Crazy lady-now she's shaking his collar a bit, and pulling him up off his hind legs.

  Better sit down

  when she gets like this, there's no telling what's next. But wait. There's still that guy at the door.

  Bark, bark, bark . . . A different impression could be made on the dog if instead of joining him in his barking-as he is most likely to interpret our excited vocalizations and quick movements-we moved slowly, quietly and with an air of calm assurance. The sum total of our communication in the above scenario is not one of authority but one of excitement and arousal that equals his own and may egg the dog on-precisely what we hoped to avoid in the first place. Arrogantly (though we may not intentionally be so), we insist that regardless of the conflicts and mixed messages of our communications, dogs somehow sort out what we mean and then obey. One training approach would be to punish the dog's actions even though they are in response to our actual communication. But that would hardly be fair- dogs, like us, are not living in a vacuum. They are responding to the world around them and, when interacting with us, to the messages they receive. One of my cardinal rules for dog training is that if I see a dog acting inappropriately my response is to look carefully at the person on the other end of the leash. Quite often, the answer for the dog's behavior can be found there in mixed or unintentional signals from the handler. We are often imprecise or conflicted or careless in our communications, yet we expect our dogs to figure out what we mean and act accordingly. Faced with confusing or mixed messages, dogs do their best to figure out what is meant. Confused, they also often give up and simply do whatever suits them, an intelligent response to a situation where no one appears able to tell them clearly why or why not something should be done. Just like us, until notified otherwise, dogs shape their world to their best advantage. They're not being deliberately bad or trying to "get away with" something. They're simply responding to a lack of clear information and taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves. We may find this quite annoying, particularly if we're unaware that we are being confusing or sending conflicting messages. But think of this as tax loopholes. In the face of unclear tax regulations, humans often shape their interpretation of the rules to best benefit themselves. (when in doubt, do you send the IRS extra money?) Of course, we always have the fear of the IRS lurking in the back of

  our minds. For the dogs, sometimes we are the IRS, stepping in after the fact to sternly say, "That's not what you're allowed to do." Like many a puzzled taxpayer, dogs might justifiably respond, "Well, then why didn't you make that clear in a way I could understand?" When we fully appreciate the exquisite attention our dogs offer us, we realize we have to clean up our act; we, and not our dogs, are most often to blame for miscommunications. Faced with an audience that is listening very hard (unless we have systematically though inadvertently taught them to pay us no mind), failures of communications rest squarely on our shoulders. To understand our dogs, we need to learn to look for the whole picture and listen for the whole message the dog is trying to send. We do this for our human friends, but understanding the vast world of nuance and gesture in human communication is something we've been working on for a lifetime with countless people around us. We've been practicing with humans for a very long time, and still most of us have not yet mastered the communication style of more than a few close intimates.

  Given that most of us have but a handful of dogs in a lifetime, it is not surprising that we are often less than fluent in Dog. With limited opportunities to practice and only so many native speakers of the language to learn from, our ability to communicate successfully with our dogs and understand what they are trying to tell us will not come "naturally." Like any foreign language, Dog takes time and practice to master. But this is joyful work, this exploration into another being's world, and the rewards are countless. We need not be perfect, but we do need to deeply want to know more and then some. My niece Hannah's dream of a dog of her own came true when she was nine years old and her family adopted Ben, a nine-year-old Labrador. A true gentleman in his manners and heart, Ben was the perfect first dog for a family of five despite his considerable size and, as Hannah noted wryly, his "goobers" of saliva whenever it was hot or he was watching people eat. In the first few weeks of Ben's arrival, there were many phone calls back and forth to Aunt Suzanne as my sister and her family integrated this dog into their busy home. Of all the wonderful things that were reported to me, my favorite remains Hannah's enthusiastic