Don't Dump The Dog
Page 3
Happy Ending/Quick Fix Recap for Hyper Dogs:
Walk the dog every day.
Buy twenty tennis balls, put them in a pillowcase and throw them across the yard for the dog to retrieve.
Alternatively, teach the dog to catch a Frisbee.
Consider adopting a companion for your energetic friend.
CHAPTER TWO
The Escape Artists
Hi Randy:
I adopted a wonderful bully mix from the pound a year ago. She was a sixmonth-old stray that was injured and wasn’t going to last long there. She has been sooo sweet to our kids and our other rescue dog.
We have had two incidents in the last two weeks where she has gotten out of the house and jumped on neighborhood children. We have been asked to find a new home for her, and we are devastated.
Would you be able to help me find a wonderful home for Sadie? She is house-trained, fun, energetic, lovable, and cuddly. She’s got the cutest little tail wag you ever did see.
Sincerely,
Dolly Dumper
Dear Ms. Dumper,
I know exactly what’s going through your head. You are the bad neighbor, the one everyone is whispering about, because you have an uncontrollable mixed-breed rescue dog instead of a gooey-eyed yellow Lab, which makes the neighbors question your genetics, your childrearing abilities, your team spirit, and your social IQ.
But this is really about your inability to stand up to the neighbors. Read on.
Sincerely,
Randy Grim
I can just hear the neighbors: “Pretty soon, they’ll have truck tires, abandoned refrigerators, and rusty RVs in the front yard ...” and you, Dolly Dumper, alone will be responsible for lower property values, higher neighborhood death rates, and declining school test scores because your uncontrollable mixed-breed rescue dog jumped on the neighborhood children and traumatized them so much, they can no longer do arithmetic. So you hide in your house and pray for a worse neighbor to move in.
Believe me, I know. You’re talking to a guy who lives in a gentrified urban neighborhood and has several mixed-breed rescue dogs, one of whom has to wear a wire-basket muzzle, like Hannibal Lecter, just to be within 100 feet of any other human besides me.
Charley doesn’t take kindly to strangers. I rescued him from a pit bull fighting ring, and while he loves me to death, he wants to devour strangers with a nice Chianti and some fava beans. (It’s not his fault; I place the blame on the Michael Vicks of the world who think organized dog fights are fun sport. Someday I’d love to introduce Vick to Charley, sans muzzle. I’ll bring the Chianti.)
Charley has certainly done nothing to boost my social standing among the neighbors, who’ve invested whole retirement accounts to update the turn-of-the-century houses we live in. While I’d like to say that I don’t care what they think about me and my mongrel horde—which has turned my backyard into a muddy Sahara—the truth is that I do. I’m just so far gone in their eyes, it’s all I can do to keep from being tarred and feathered.
So picture this: It’s a rainy spring morning. I’ve just woken up, and I’m standing at the kitchen window on the second floor in my underwear, sipping coffee, looking down on the backyard and admiring the brand-new $5,000 privacy fence I had constructed to placate the landscape divas on either side of me who claimed Charley “scared” them.
Charley’s out there taking a dump in the rain, and I’m about to call him in when I see a Ford Escort tear down the alley behind the house, followed closely by a police car with its lights flashing. Just as my brain registers what’s going on, the Escort veers, skids on the wet pavement, and then plows straight through the back of my brand-new fence.
And right into Charley’s yard.
The last thing I remember clearly about the pursuit that ensued was the wide-eyed masked bandit running toward the police with Charley, in his wire-basket muzzle, not far behind.
The rest I can only imagine, and I now obsess daily about what my neighbors saw running past their windows that morning: A terrified guy in a ski mask, followed by a terrified policeman in uniform, followed by a large dog in a wire-basket muzzle, followed by yours truly in his rain-soaked underwear, screaming, “Charley, sit!”
Charley wasn’t brought up on attempted murder charges that day, but had I not been the director of the only nokill animal shelter in the city, I too might have considered dumping my seventy-pound would-be serial killer in someone else’s lap.
Instead, I called my therapist, Dr. Gupta.
“Have you ever heard of Wilfred Trotter?” Dr. Gupta asked after I’d told him how worried I was that my neighbors saw my butt crack when I finally tackled Charley and lugged him back to the house in the pouring rain.
“Exhibitionist?”
“No, a neurologist and social psychologist who coined the phrase ‘herd instinct’ back in the early 1900s. He compared the human need to be part of a group with that of a dog whose ‘terror of loneliness’ gave it the ‘capacity for devotion to a brutal master.’ ”
“And ... ?”
“And, people stick with the crowd because it’s safer than being on their own,” Dr. Gupta said. “They will believe, submit, and do almost anything to be part of the herd.”
The trick—which is a trick if you’re as socially phobic as I am (I’ve hosted parties I did not attend)—is to understand and use herd instinct to your advantage.
So I went home and called my neighbors.
“We’ve got to do something about crime rates,” I said before they could demand that I get rid of Charley. I then quickly suggested organizing a neighborhood watch group, demanding more streetlights from the city, and encouraging “our neighbors” to all get dogs like Charley who would scare away criminals, and, in extreme cases, like this morning, help the police track and apprehend them.
To a person, my neighbors applauded the idea.
You, Ms. Dumper, are terrified of rejection by the herd, which is understandable, because every human being, deep down, wants to be cool. It’s instinctual. The problem in this situation is that you’re so insecure about your status that you’d give up a friend who’s a little in the wrong. Just how much respect do you think that will gain you in the end? If you don’t get rid of the apologetic, groveling, just-wipe-your-shoes-on-me attitude and start acting like a herd leader, dumping little Sadie will be the least of your problems. Once the pack establishes you as its most-inferior member, even the way you prune your azaleas will come under group scrutiny.
Now I’m not talking about fake leadership—you know, the kind where you act like you think a leader should. Once, when my rottweiler/mastiff mix escaped and galloped into a neighbor’s backyard party, sending the guests running before devouring the abandoned chicken on the barbecue, I responded to their hysteria with a fist-pounding, “DOGS HAVE RIGHTS TOO!” This did nothing to help the deteriorating relationship and nearly landed me in jail. So I’m not suggesting that you bang the table about your place at it.
Instead, act cool, very cool, and establish in less than ten minutes who is superior to whom. First, bring the neighbor some store-bought cookies (heated in the microwave and put on a plate to give the illusion of homemade) and then commiserate with her about her children’s fear-of-dogs neurosis. Make sure to use that word. No parent wants a neurotic child who will repeat everything to a psychiatrist twenty years down the road. Then suggest that the kids might get over their neurosis if they help you walk Sadie every day, and if that doesn’t cure their neurosis, you will, as a superior neighbor, build a fence to keep Sadie in her own yard, which won’t cure the kidsneurosis but will keep them out of an institution for at least a few more years. Finally, gossip about some other neighbor to take the spotlight off you.
Then, go get the big yellow phone book out of the hall closet, open it up to the “F” section, and turn each page until you see the following sequence of letters: F-E-N-C-E. Pick one of the numbers, any will do, and then dial it. When someone answers on the other end, give them your
credit card number and your address.
Do not say anything else. Do not go on and on with the fence person about what a bad neighbor you are, or about your uncontrollable mixed-breed rescue dog, or about the “cutest little tail wag you ever did see,” because the fence person will immediately peg you as a—let me grab the thesaurus to find a more tactful word for “pushover”—as a “ninny,” and will consequently take advantage of you and charge an arm and a leg.
If you really can’t afford a fence, consider some good old-fashioned dog training. Sadie, as well as your neighbors, needs to understand who steers the ship.
First, teach Sadie to sit for everything and anything that she wants. To do this, place a food treat on her nose. Then raise the treat over her head so that her eyes will follow it and her disobedient little rump will fall to the floor. As soon as this happens, immediately give her the treat.
Then, whenever Sadie wants anything—to be petted, fed, played with, let outside—she must sit first. This automatically becomes a habit, what Dr. Gupta would call a “default behavior.”
So if Sadie regularly escapes the house by bolting out an open door, for example, teach her to sit-stay by the door when people are coming and going. Before you teach her to be trustworthy, keep her in another room or crate, (see chapter 14 for crate-training lessons) away from the door, to anticipate and avoid opportunities for escaping.
If you look at this problem from Sadie’s point of view, running away is rewarding. She gets to do all kinds of groovy things like chase squirrels, smell whatever she wants, and jump on the neighbor’s children. Even if she isn’t strictly running away, you are probably like many other dog guardians who let their pooches do their own thing while off lead, and only call them back when it’s time to put the lead on and go home. This doesn’t encourage a dog to want to come back to you, since it means fun time is over.
As with your neighbors, you must use a little Machiavellian cunning and a few treats to get the results you want.
Happy Ending for Escape Artists
If your dog doesn’t come to you in the house when you call her, she sure won’t do it when she’s outside playing. Start at home, then, where you have no traffic or other dogs to worry about if she ignores you.
Walk her only on the lead for a while. If she pulls, a head collar will give you more control.
Put some hard tidbits in a small plastic box or bottle, so you can rattle them. Keep them in your pocket around the house, and three or four random times a day, rattle the container. Call Sadie to you at the same time, and give her lots of praise and a tidbit when she arrives. Get everyone in the family to do the same. Sadie may look at you as if you’re mad at first, especially if you wake her up, but stick to it. That rattling sound will soon mean food.
Do this when you are in the same room at first, and then try it from another room so she has to come and find you. Make sure it’s a fun game with lots of love and praise.
Don’t give her any food at any time (tidbits or meals) unless she responds to a recall command first. Always recall her to have her lead put on, to be groomed or patted, or anything else nice. Give lots of praise and a tidbit when she comes. All of this helps her associate pleasure with coming when called.
Always take her out when she’s hungry, preferably just before a meal, as this makes the tidbits more tempting. Take plenty of tidbits with you in your usual container. Cut her meals down to allow for this—I don’t want the blame if she gets overweight. It doesn’t matter if she gets, say, a third of her daily food like this at first; you can taper it off later.
Play the calling game whenever you’re out, even though she’s on a lead. Call her every few hundred yards, praise her, feed her, play with her—make a big game of it. Do this on the street, as well as where you normally let her off lead. This should make her start keeping one eye on you all the time.
In conclusion, when you take a dog into your family, she becomes a real member of your family. As tempting as it may be to just dump her at times, remember this responsibility, and your life—and your dog’s—will be richer as a result.
And, like me, you’ll probably get a few good stories in the bargain. Like, one time an ice storm knocked out the electricity for several days, and I had to take Charley with me to the swankiest hotel in the city....
Quick Fix-1
CHAPTER THREE
Dogs Who “Play” When You’re Away
Dear Mr. Grim:
Phoebe, the dog we adopted from you, has destroyed our home. You assured us before we adopted her that she was a “sweet dog,” but she has turned out to be a manipulative and vindictive animal who seeks revenge every time we leave the house.
In the two months since we adopted her from you, she has shredded or peed on everything in our house, including (but not limited to) our carpeting, our furniture, our shoes, and our beds. Our neighbors say she howls when we’re gone.
We now understand why she was available for adoption in the first place.
Not only will we be returning this animal to you, but we have also contacted our attorney regarding restitution.
Signed,
Mr. and Mrs. George Wrathful
Nothing sends me to Dr. Gupta’s couch faster than the words “we have contacted our attorney,” and after hours of comprehensive cognitive-behavioral therapy and a one-year renewal of my Xanax prescription, he advised me to redact so many sections of my response to Mr. and Mrs. Wrathful, and this is all that’s left:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wrathful: Sincerely, Randy Grim
But to set the record straight, Phoebe was not a “manipulative and vindictive animal” who sought “revenge” every time the Mr. and Mrs. left the house. Rather, Phoebe suffered from separation anxiety, common with many abandoned dogs—which meant that every time her new family left her alone, she went crazy with fear: She defecated in the house, howled, scratched gouges in the doors, and chewed up anything she could get her teeth into (like I do every time I quit smoking).
If your dog displays any of the following behaviors, then she’s probably afflicted with separation anxiety:
Behavior occurs only when you aren’t home: defecating, ripping at curtains or blinds, scratching up doors, and chewing on clothes, pillows, blankets, or towels.
Neighbors tell you she howls when you’re gone.
Your dog seems hyper-attached to you when you are home (i.e., she follows you from room to room and begs constantly for attention).
In a majority of cases, separation anxiety occurs in dogs who come from pounds or shelters, or who suddenly find themselves, for whatever reason, living with a new family. It also happens sometimes when a dog’s routine changes. If, for instance, you move to a new house, you go from parttime to full-time work, or even when there’s a divorce or death in the family, your dog may go through a short period of freaking out.
Over the years, I’ve dealt with hundreds of dogs who suffer from separation anxiety. I’ve had dogs destroy homes within six hours of adoption, and I’ve paid thousands of dollars for repairs, painters, carpenters, and entire cleaning crews so that strays don’t take a bad rap.
One of my own dogs, Hannah, ate six pairs of shoes and ripped my best suit to shreds the first time I left her alone (I went to buy cigarettes—a seven-minute trip). After that, I crated her when I left, but every time I came home, she was still standing outside her crate, surrounded by piles of poop, tornup papers, and something—usually something expensive—still in her mouth.
One evening, after putting Hannah in her crate and securing it with chains, plastic wire, and a bicycle padlock, I attended a party in the park by my house and invited some people over for drinks when it ended. As usual, Hannah had escaped, greeting us at the door with a pair of my shredded underwear in her mouth. Beyond her, in the bowels of the living room, lay the worst of her destruction yet: the rest of my dirty laundry; the contents of the kitchen garbage can, including coffee grounds, eggshells, cigarette butts, and dirty little secrets like Ho Ho wr
appers; the feathers of three down pillows; the couch cushions; an unrolled roll of toilet paper; and the dirt from a large potted palm, which had turned to mud after she’d added some water from her water bowl. In addition, she’d overturned a can of lime-green paint in the basement and then tracked it all the way upstairs. To this day, Hannah’s paw prints still grace my living-room floor. People think it’s art.
I never did figure out how Hannah escaped the crate, by the way. There were never any visible signs of how she did it. The first time it happened, I called the police because I thought someone had robbed me and for some reason, maybe to be mean, they’d let Hannah out in the process. I now attribute it to UFOs.
In Phoebe’s case, we found her limping down the middle of a residential road, skeletal, flea-ridden, and practically bald from mange. When I knelt down and called to her, she limped right over to me, which meant she wasn’t a wild or feral dog but a scared and confused pet abandoned by her family, and from the looks of her, long abandoned by her family. This in turn meant that she suffered mentally as well as physically, because pack animals who lose their packs lose a part of themselves.
Dogs, like wolves, live for their packs. From the minute mama wolf pops her pups out, the pack dictates every move they make—when they eat, where they sleep, whom they play with, what they think—because the pack structure, fair or not, keeps individual wolves alive. Everything in a wolf pack, from raising pups to hunting food, requires cooperation. For example, when wolf pups are born, the job of the mom, the alpha female of the pack, consists of protecting and feeding the pups in the den, while the job of subordinate members includes bringing food to the mom in the den. When the pups grow old enough to leave the den, they’re “placed” in a rendezvous point by the older wolves who meet there periodically during the day to check on the pups or bring them food. By the time the pups are about six months old, they learn the pack’s hunting techniques, which in and of themselves involve cooperative tracking, signaling, and ambushing among all pack members. If one of the wolves is injured during the hunt, the others usually bring him food until he recovers.