Remington knows not to go near Niko when he’s eating. If I’m giving out rawhides, Remington knows that Niko has to have his first. If we do that, they’re fine.
The relationship between Niko and Remy developed over the years. As they grew older, they started sharing a dog bed. If one of them is on the best dog bed, the other one can come up and share it. They obviously have come to a point where the hierarchy isn’t as much of an issue any more. They can just hang out.
When people realize I’m the guy from Animal Planet, many times they say, “Oh, Backyard Habitat, is that like making your yard great for dogs and cats?” I tell them no, it’s about wildlife, not about domestic animals. But obviously a lot of people who like wildlife are pet lovers. A lot of people think, “Oh, I have a big dog, I can’t have a backyard habitat.”That’s not true.
It’s your responsibility to be in control of your pet and not let your pet have a negative impact on nature and wildlife. Cats should be kept indoors, for example. It’s better for them. Cats take an enormous toll on small wildlife. Millions of birds a year are done in by cats.
With dogs, some can be aggressive and predatory. Niko actually killed a bird once. There was nothing I could do; he pounced on it. When you attract wildlife, make sure you are not putting them in a situation where they just get mauled and killed by your pets. For example, you can make sure you have dense shrubs and cover where the birds and animals can run when your dogs are after them.
On the show, we deal a lot with pet issues, particularly in regard to wildlife. There are things people need to know. For instance, the Colorado River Toad is massive, the largest toad in North America. But if you have a dog, don’t make a habitat that will attract it. Toads have glands behind their eyes that produce a toxin. The Colorado River Toads are so big that there have been cases where dogs killed them, ate them, or even just mouthed them, and got the poison, and died.
Then there’s coyotes. Since we eradicated gray wolves, the only predator of coyotes, coyotes have expanded their land. They are one of the few animals that have expanded their wildlife habitat even in the face of urban development. Coyotes eat small mammals, and domestic cats and dogs are definitely on the menu. And right now, coyote country is every state but Hawaii.
A few years ago, I met a guy named Dale, who lived in North Carolina. We had been dating for just a few months, doing the long-distance thing, when I went down to see him. His friends Susan and Lynn had a Saint Bernard named Orson that Dale was just in love with, and they hooked Dale up with the breeder. The four of us went out to the kennel.
There were three in the litter. One little girl puppy had a scratch on her eye. The breeder had taken her to the vet, but the eye was big and bulgy and swollen. We just fell in love with her, because she had this damaged eye, she was adorable, and she was 50 percent off. Dale named her Hella.
We kind of raised her together. When Dale first moved up to D. C. , I wasn’t ready to live together, so we had separate houses. Hella integrated well with Niko and Remington. Remington is friendly with other dogs, but his natural instinct is to go up to them and bark in their face. He acts like, “Don’t mess with me.” But he is completely harmless—all bark and no bite.
Hella figured this out pretty quickly. She was full of piss and vinegar, and she wanted to romp and bite on bigger dogs to get them to play, with those sharp little puppy teeth. She did that once with Niko and he told her, “Uh-uh. You’re not gonna bite me.” He snapped at her and pushed her down, which is discipline doggy-style. There was never another problem.
Remington, on the other hand, would constantly get all riled up and bark at her, which she just thought was the greatest thing ever. She learned immediately that he wouldn’t do anything beyond barking.
So she tortured the hell out of poor Remington, jumping on him, nipping at his paws, constantly going after him. It kind of irritated us, because Remington was constantly barking at her. But Hella integrated, and they ended up being our little pack. We spent all of our time together.
Hella was never alpha to Remington but she could always mess with him because she’s bigger. She weighs about 130 pounds now. Remington weighs seventy-eight; Niko is seventy to seventy-five. Hella is just the most adorable dog ever, with all the things that are endearing about one of these big, goofy dogs. She snorts, she belches. She’ll eat, and she’ll walk away, and go, “Bleh!”And her lips fly out. It’s really cute. Her eye never recovered, but she grew up with it, so she was used to it.
When Hella got big enough, Hella and Remington ended up forging this incredible friendship. Remington, as I said, was never into playing with other dogs, but he ended up loving to play with Hella.
When Dale finally moved in with me, Niko didn’t like him, and he got protective and jealous of me toward Dale on a couple of occasions, which freaked Dale out.
One time Niko was sleeping in bed with me, and Dale came in and leaned over, and Niko kind of growled at him. For me, that’s unacceptable behavior, but I understand why it happened. The solution is to not put the dog in that situation again, because he was doing what comes naturally to him.
Dale wanted to hit Niko. He said, “You have to show that dog who’s boss.”
I said, “No, the dog was protecting me in bed. And you need to understand that Niko is going to be that way, and not lean over me. At the same time, we’ll work on making him understand ‘Never do that again.’”
The solution was to have Dale develop a relationship with Niko so Niko would not feel threatened by him. And eventually that happened. But Dale still resented Niko, and it was an unspoken bone of contention between us.
While I was traveling for Backyard Habitat, I had to spend a lot of time on the road, and when I’d come home, I’d be exhausted. Dale became responsible for all the paperwork, all the cleaning, and these three big dogs. He is not as much of a dog person as I am, and he couldn’t handle all three on a walk. I can go out with all three big dogs, even with them braiding the leashes and getting tangled with each other.
That actually was a big contributor to what ended up breaking us up. We had a different philosophy and attitude in coping with the dogs. Dale didn’t understand that dogs need to be dogs and establish their own hierarchies and things like that. And he resent my bond with Niko.
He and Hella moved out about four months after they moved in. My house is small, and having three big dogs was just too much.
There was an interesting dynamic there. He and I coped with breaking up in different ways. It was a mutual thing. We still love each other, but it wasn’t working out, so breaking up was for the best. We’re going to be friends. And of course, we share the same group of friends, so we see each other all the time whether we want to or not.
Our breakup also impacted the dogs. Dale and Hella are living in a great basement apartment in a house owned by our friends Jeff and Mary. But Hella doesn’t have a fenced yard anymore, so she has to stay inside all day. Dale takes her out when he gets home from work, but it’s not the same as being outside and rolling in the dirt all the time. So I always say, “Bring Hella over.”
Dale needs more space than I do to get over everything. It has impacted Hella because she doesn’t get to do as much of that fun doggy stuff that she enjoys. Whenever Dale goes out of town, she comes to stay with us. I enjoy having her around.
After Dale moved in, Niko had to stop sleeping in bed with me. Yet even when Dale and I broke up, Niko respected that he was not allowed in bed any more. It showed me that you can teach an old dog new tricks. You’ve established for the first six years of his life that he sleeps on the bed. Then suddenly you make him adapt to “Only sleep on the dog bed.”
Right after Dale and I broke up, I was going through that phase where I was sobbing nonstop. Niko was invited into the bed for a while then because I just needed someone to be there and comfort me. Dogs are really good at that. But he knew that we weren’t going back to the way things used to be.
Niko being here, and agre
eing to come up and comfort me in bed, lifted my spirits up, along with Remy just being his goofy self. It helped me get over the hump of the breakup. For me, it was my first real long-term relationship. Even though breaking up was a mutual thing, it still sucked. I’m still getting over it.
That’s one of the amazing things about dogs. They are there for you. They pick up on your emotions. There is this total unconditional love. My love for animals led me to become an environmentalist, and I hope I’m able to give back to all animals— wild and domesticated—by building habitats for them, and by giving my own dogs back as much love and devotion as they give to me. When I’m at home, on nice days, I can have the doors open and let the dogs go in and out between the house and the backyard as they please. It’s perfect. It’s the habitat I’ve created for all of us.
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Justin Rudd: QUEEN OF HEARTS
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If you trace the history of dogs in society, it’s clear that they have always played a role in developing the social conscience of man. In earlier times, men
gathered around pens to watch their dogs fight bulls or other dogs, and the man who owned a dog that could inflict deadly harm was proud. A hundred years later, man wrote down breed standards and invented dog shows, and the man who owned a prize specimen of his breed was proud. Men continue to gather around events that feature dogs—races, national breed specialties, Flyball games,
Frisbee competitions, herding trials, rescue parades, Dachshund Day in New York City’s Central Park—and the kinds of events expand every year.
Dog lovers who live in southern California are lucky because Justin Rudd has come up with many unique ways for them to celebrate their canines. Justin looked around his neighborhood and saw an unused beach; he changed the rules in his community so that the beach became a gathering place for people and their dogs. Next came the Bulldog Easter Parade, the Howl’oween Parade, the Haute Dog Poetry Contest, the Bulldog Beauty Contest, Operation Santa Paws, Thirty-Minute Beach Cleanups, and on and on.
Justin founded a community-based social organization that finds ways for people and their dogs to get together and enrich their lives. He is a powerful role model, showing us that making this world a better place for dogs makes the world a better place for all of us. When I spoke to him at his office in Long Beach, he said that his inspiration is his Bulldog, Rosie.
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WHEN I WAS GROWING UP in south Alabama, we lived on thirty-six acres out in the country. We would have anywhere from two to ten dogs at a time, whatever would come and eat our scraps. The dogs would sleep in our flowerbeds and chase the horses in the pasture for fun.
I moved to California ten years ago, to a city of half a million people. The population is dense. You can’t have a big yard. There’s things that you can do in south Alabama that you can’t do here in Long Beach.
I wasn’t looking for a dog. If I did get one, I wanted a dog I could go running with, like a Lab. But my ex had always wanted a Bulldog. One day he called me at work and said he was going to look at a litter of Bulldog puppies. He called me again and said he had found a special one—could he bring it home?
Of course I fell in love with Rosie at first sight. She was just four months old. So precious. I knew she was the one for me.
Because Rosie’s a purebred Bulldog, I know people would love to hijack her if I left her in the yard. So she’s an indoor dog. I live in a one-bedroom apartment, and the chair is hers. When I go up to the business district, which is two blocks away, I pull her in a sort of chariot I made behind my bike. It’s a red Flyer wagon that has her name on the license plate. I always take her with me. When we’re out and about, she really puts smiles on faces. If she’s not with me, people stop and ask, “Where’s the dog?”
She’s a big bundle of joy—all forty-five pounds. I don’t want to say she’s lazy, but she does sleep a lot. She has a hearty appetite. I think she smiles. I can see it. Some of us dog people can see dogs smile. She sleeps in my bed. Even though she sprawls out, she never takes up too much room. She snores loud. She’s generous with her love. She’s a kind and gentle dog.
She likes to be around other living creatures. She likes the word “treat” and dislikes the word “bath.” She loves peanut butter. She doesn’t like loud motorcycles And she hates trash trucks. She knows when the trash truck is coming. She can hear it ten blocks away.
She barks when someone knocks at the door or the doorbell rings. I don’t know if it’s her way of welcoming the people. She likes a good booty scratch. She likes her cheeks around her ears to be scratched. I’d like to say she likes to have her picture made, but I think it’s me who likes to make her picture. I have hundreds and hundreds. Thousands, probably. I haven’t counted.
For a few years I lived a block from the beach, and dogs were illegal on the beach. It’s not a heavily used beach. So I thought, Why can’t I take Rosie there?
I found city codes that would allow a dog on the beach during a special event. I filed for twenty special events over a two-year period. That meant that one Sunday a month, dogs could be on the beach, off leash, in a three-acre area.
Rosie and I would go up there, and we’d spend the afternoon with 400 or 500 dogs. Our attitude was, this is our party, and they are all our invited guests. She still thinks those beach events are for her.
She likes the word “beach” because then she knows where we’re going. Even though she’s not a swimmer, she wades in the water. She runs in the ocean up to her head, so that her feet are still touching. Then she’ll run back and forth—running, not just waltzing. And remember, this is a Bulldog. She runs along the wave line, back and forth. I can only have her there for maybe fifteen minutes at a time for fear of hyperventilating. She gets so excited. I think it’s the sound of the waves she loves. Or maybe it’s the foam she’s after.
From running those beach parties, I got the bug to do other fun things that could include Rosie. They have built upon themselves and grown and grown. I keep expanding the variety of activities because of her.
When I was working in an office, I used to take her to work with me. She would sit under my desk. But now I work from home, and we spend a lot of time together. She sleeps on her chair most of the day, while I’m at my computer. My main job is running my nonprofit group, Community Action Team. Haute Dogs is a part of that. We do beach clean-ups and animal-welfare projects and kid projects and events. Most of my work started at the same time that I got Rosie, about eight years ago.
The other thing that I do is coach women for beauty pageants, like Miss America and Miss USA contestants. I’ve been coaching women for beauty contests for fifteen years now. It started back when I lived in Alabama. I volunteered for the local Miss America preliminary. Then I started my own preliminaries for Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. After my local girls won the state level and competed nationally, other women started asking me to help them get ready.
I mainly focus on interview skills, and I do some in-my-home coaching, and some telephone coaching. I like beauty contests; I think that’s why I started the Bulldog Beauty Contest last year. We had 150 entrants—all English Bulldogs. We’re doing it again this year on Mother’s Day. Last year we did it on Father’s Day. We jokingly say about Bulldogs, “It’s a face only a mother could love.” I tell people, “I’m the dad of my dog.”
Rosie is the queen of the beauty contest, and she knows it. It’s kind of a sore point with her that she can’t compete. But she sleeps with the organizer, so we can’t allow it.
But she’s there, sitting on her wagon, which is actually her throne. I tell her, “Rosie, this is your party, and we’ve invited all your buddies.”They parade right in front of her. We have real life beauty queens as the judges. A lot of them are the women I coach.
Rosie gives a lot of licks to women when they come over here. And I tell them, “Don’t pay attention to her, and she’ll leave you alone.” But they
always want to pet her. She loves that, and she always comes back for more. Then she’ll get her bone and decide to chew it while we’re working. She likes to wedge her bone against their leg so she can get a better grip on it. It’s humorous. I always tell them it’s good practice. Nothing else can distract you because you’re used to Rosie.
The judges are looking for similar things like you’d look for in a real-life beauty contest: figure and form, face and confidence, style, first impression, poise. Then we have alternate categories, like Most Talented and Best Dressed. The dogs can either be dressed or not. We certainly encourage them to put something on to grab the judges’ attention.
Last year two of our contestants were Bulldogs who ride skateboards, Tyson, from Huntington Beach, and Darla-Bell, from Pasadena. There’s a video of Tyson riding that skateboard going around on the Internet. Darla-Bell was chosen Most talented. We hold an animal-adoption fair in conjunction with the Bulldog Beauty Contest, with dogs and cats and other animals. We try to find homes for the homeless.
The L. A. TV news crews always show up for the Bulldog Beauty Contest, the Easter Parade and the Howl’oween Parade. Our Easter Parade was featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
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