Talking to Animals

by Jon Katz

  He was determined and brave and powerful. It was a beautiful thing to see his spirit unleashed like that, and this was one of the very few activities that actually tired him, at least for a few minutes.

  Afterward, I threw a blanket over him and toweled him dry, and he came and lay down next to me, tongue hanging down, eyes wide. We stared out at the big boats steaming in and out of New York Harbor.

  We connected with one another, Orson and I. There was something in each of our souls that brushed against the other’s. I was at peace there on that sandy beach; so, I think, was he.

  I wish we could have stayed there, kept that feeling.

  It was not so easy at home.

  I was beginning to see that there was something wrong with Orson, something off. He had plenty of smarts and love in him, but there seemed no place he could really settle and be at peace. He was easily aroused, and his arousal often turned to borderline aggressive behavior—intense herding behaviors, a lot of nipping. (Recipients of the nips would likely call it biting.) He did not respond to training easily, even by professionals. There was a part of him that seemed beyond reach.

  When we talk about dogs, we often speak of the “good dog” and the “bad dog.” Why? It is difficult for me to think of a more distancing notion or an idea that is more counterproductive to real understanding or communication. There is no such thing as a “good” dog or “bad” dog, as the life of Orson clearly illustrates. Those are human constructs, marketing ideas that are meant to force dogs to fit into our ideas of life, ours and theirs.

  When a dog enters the life of a human being, that animal is instantly challenged to stop doing many or all of the things that are natural to him or her: fighting, having sex, chewing up soft and tearable things, digging up a garden, pulling on a leash, barking at other dogs and passing trucks.

  A “good” dog is a dog that gives up the identity of a dog and absorbs the identity of a human child, which is the identity most human dog owners seek. A “bad” dog is a dog that retains some of the strongest traits in the natural life of a dog—barking, racing around, squabbling, seeing many things as a bone, seeking to procreate.

  The challenge of the human being is not to force the dog into unnatural behaviors that often leave her anxious and confused, but to learn to understand the animal and communicate with her well enough to help her understand what is required for her to live safely and contentedly in our world.

  Orson reminded me that dogs are neither good or bad; they are, in the human sense, utterly neutral, without human ideas about right or wrong. When they are “bad,” they are simply following their instincts and their nature. When they are “good” we have usually cowed or intimidated them into behaving in ways that we would like them to behave.

  The “good dog/bad dog” myth causes us to live in conflict with animals who could and should be our partners, not our troublesome wards. It keeps us from talking to them or listening to them. It puts us in perpetual opposition to them, damages their true nature, and often reduces them to confused and unreachable children. To communicate with them, it is imperative to see them differently, in a new, more humane and knowing way.

  You cannot communicate with any entity you do not understand, or who cannot understand you.

  Dogs and other animals do not have consciences; they do not decide to be good or evil. These are concepts human beings project on them. We see them as mirrors, as reflections on us. Humans are the only animal in the world that thinks in terms of good and bad, and in our arrogance, we assume all of the animals we love must do the same.

  The “good dog/bad dog” construct has done more to damage our ability to understand animals than anything else. This misplaced morality is as big an obstacle to communicating as our insistence on using words animals can’t understand.

  Within a few years, Orson had begun to deteriorate. He broke through screens, climbed through the gate, and pursued smaller dogs, frightening people walking with their children. He nipped at two or three people, and the sights and sounds of the suburbs, especially buses and sirens, drove him to a high and troubling state of arousal. I was not finding a way to calm him down. So I decided to find a sheepherding trainer and take him there to see if he could help.

  I drove Orson up to the Tufts University veterinary school in Massachusetts for some tests, and a behaviorist there suggested he might have a neural disorder. I worked harder. I got more help—vets, behaviorists, trainers, neurologists, holistic practitioners. And I spent more and more money, thousands of dollars trying to unlock the secret that would help Orson settle down and live safely in our world.

  I resumed our early morning treks through parks; he took to chasing geese with enthusiasm. I became creative looking for ways to wear him out, help him stay out of trouble.

  It was hard. My neighborhood was densely populated, full of kids running, pushed in strollers, shouting and playing with one another. There were dogs everywhere, and Orson did not like any of them. He got too excited around other dogs; he barked and jumped and growled.

  I saw that when he got too excited, he would nip and lunge, sometimes frightening people. It was a herding move, people told me, but I think I knew better. It was more than that. My growing panel of experts were in agreement: there was something wrong with him, most likely something neural.

  Orson nipped at the leg of our mailmen, at the coat of a commuter heading home from the bus stop. He nipped at the ankles of a nanny walking with twins. She was frightened and said she would call the police if he ever came near the children she was caring for again.

  His behavior was serious, troubling. He was not an aggressive dog, he did not bite or attack, but his arousal and dominance were threatening to people, and it makes no difference to a small child if a big black and white dog is nipping or biting. It was both terrifying and unacceptable to others and to me.

  And so my dilemma just grew and grew. The more I knew him, the more I loved him; the more I lived with him, the more trouble he caused, and the more uncontrollable he seemed. Was there any way out of this that would not be painful, or worse?

  What did I learn from that dog?

  I learned that I really knew very little about animals.

  But I also knew that I could try to speak to Orson without words, even if I hadn’t yet honed my techniques. As out of control as he was, as much trouble as he caused me, we had become very close. I could sense when he was about to explode, which could happen at any time, but he did begin to try to respond to my looks and feelings.

  And that perhaps was what was so poignant about Orson. He did want to please, he did try, he did want to listen, but I grew increasingly certain—as did the experts I was consulting—that he was simply too aroused, that he was damaged in some way.

  I began to visualize our walking calmly together, and that did begin to happen. I visualized periods of stillness and calm—a new idea for him—and that began to happen also. But it did not happen for long; any progress we made didn’t stick.

  I saw clearly that he did not respond to words or language, but then, he often didn’t respond to anything else, either. And I couldn’t experiment in a suburban environment the way I could later at my farm. The town was crowded, congested with dogs, cars, buses, and trains. Orson was living in the middle of an ecosystem that constantly aroused and unnerved him. Nothing I did worked for long, or seemed to change him for good.

  One thing about visualization: as powerful as it can be, it isn’t like faxing or emailing a photo. The person doing it has to be in the right headspace, and so does the dog. It isn’t a magic pill, but a valuable tool. By itself, it wasn’t enough for this dog. If I wanted to keep him—and I did—I would have to learn to enter his world. I soon realized that I would have to integrate him with sheep if I was to unlock the key to his craziness. I saw that working dogs need to work, not just run in circles.

  If there was a single message he was sending me, it was perhaps this: I need to find my center, to do the work I was meant to
do, bred to do. I need your help in finding it. I kept hearing. Help me, please, help me.

  So I answered this call and took him to a sheep farm in Pennsylvania where a well-known trainer named Carolyn Wilki specialized in flipping troubled dogs.

  Carolyn watched Orson, put him near sheep on a lead, gave him some commands. Her first recommendation was to change his name. Orson had come to me with the name Devon. Caroline pointed out that the dog got too excited when he heard “Devon,” that he might be calmer learning to answer to a different name. If there were unpleasant memories from Texas, she suggested, a new name might also help with that.

  So “Devon” became Orson, after Orson Welles. Orson he remains in my heart, and when I think and write about him, he is always Orson. I tossed treats at the dog and kept saying “Orson.” It took about two days for him to consistently respond to the new name. But he did not calm down. Neither did I.

  I learned a lot at the sheep farm, about training dogs, about living with Orson. Carolyn taught me calming training techniques, basic repetitive exercises that quieted the dog and helped him to listen and focus. Trainers often refer to these exercises as “obedience training,” but I call them “calming exercises.” They do ask the dog to obey some simple commands, but the point for me is not obedience. The point is to get the dog to a place of calm focus. It is a dialogue rather than a military-style training exercise. I don’t want my dogs to “obey” me; I want them to understand what I am asking them to do. There is a big difference.

  I went out to the farm two or three times a week. Orson and I did our calming exercises fifteen to twenty times each day, for five minutes at a time. We worked on lying down and staying, on eye contact, on him walking alongside of me. We ran around sheep pens, although Orson got too excited to herd the sheep—that would take a long while.

  At the sheep farm, I was stunned to discover what I had been looking for all of my life. That deep craving that had no name now manifested itself as a life in the natural world, a life with animals, a life with dogs, a life free of the growing corporate strictures and suffocations spreading across the American workplace. Free of political correctness and the Boomer obsession with creating the perfect child. It was a life I was on fire to explore.

  I went to Carolyn’s farm, Raspberry Ridge, every chance I could get. I often slept over. Orson and I would get up before dawn and go to the sheep pen and open the gates. Orson would tear off behind the sheep and they would come roaring out and down the path to the big pasture nearby. He was great at getting the sheep moving, but he almost always got too excited to be left alone with them.

  A grounded border collie will settle while the sheep graze, keep an eye on them without disturbing them pointlessly. Orson could not be still for that long; he simply became too excited. He ran too much, barked too much, nipped too much.

  With some trepidation, I decided to enter Orson in a herding trial for beginners. Dog and trainer would come into the sheep pen; the dog was told to lie down, then walk up, then lie down. At that first trial, the sheep took one look at Orson and two of them jumped over the fence and ran off into the woods. Dave, Carolyn’s resident working dog, took off after them and brought them back.

  I was determined that Orson should make progress. We practiced it over and over again, week after week. Walk up. Lie down. Stay. Sit. Simple enough, but not simple for him. Around the sheep, he became wild-eyed, drooled, and shivered.

  Away from the farm, I doubled down on our calming training, chipping away at Orson’s resistance, his distraction. I changed my voice, worked on body language, emotion. I imagined him lying down near the sheep a hundred times a day. I sensed he was eager to please me, eager for success.

  We kept at it, day and night, in cold and hot weather; it was a full-time job. I remember sweating out there, freezing, getting stung by bees, knocked down by nervous sheep, gnawed on by flies.

  There was at least one transcendent moment that occurred just moments before a herding trial. We were sitting outside the pen; a dozen sheep were inside. I closed my eyes and experienced an implosion of feeling, of light. I saw an image of Orson walking up to the sheep, lying down, and waiting for my command to move before getting up and leaving the ring. It was as clear as a video. It was coming from Orson, from outside my head and my consciousness. I knew he was talking to me, telling me he understood what I wanted, showing me that he could do it.

  And so he did, exactly as the images suggested, exactly as I imagined. It was a fusion of two minds, a connection, a coming together, the result of feeling, hard work, persistence, and love. We had opened a channel to one another in that pasture on that hot June day, with dozens of people looking on.

  Orson walked into the ring, trembling. The judge was wary. Orson walked up to the sheep, and when I said “lie down,” he did, and the sheep moved to the other side of the ring. I told him to “come by,” the herding command to run in a clockwise circle, and to “walk up slowly,” as we had practiced countless times, and that is precisely what he did.

  The sheep, sensing calm, did not bolt as they usually did. They walked around to the gate and then I told Orson to “lie down” and “stay” and he did. The sheep moved calmly around to the other side of the pen. There was applause from Carolyn and the other friends we had made.

  We had done it. We won a blue ribbon. I was overjoyed. A new chapter in my life had been ratified, and perhaps there was hope for Orson. He had not had the makings of an award-winning dog, but that’s what he was now. Getting him to that point required tremendous patience, communication, training. I learned that I was good at this, that I had a feel for it. Carolyn was impressed. She told me she hadn’t been sure it could be done.

  Surely, things would change.

  I believe that Orson came to bring me a powerful message. It was this: you are also lost, you also need to find yourself, we will take a journey together and find out who we are and what we were meant to be. Orson changed my life, dramatically and irrevocably.

  At Carolyn’s kitchen table, I found other members of my tribe, lost and drifting souls looking for a purpose. I loved seeing their emotional responses to their dogs, studying the ways in which people and dogs attached to one another. I loved hearing their stories and watching Carolyn figure out how to train their dogs.

  At the farm, I fell in love with the rituals of a life with animals—the herding, watering, the sounds and smells, the rhythms of life, the joy of working with a dog.

  In the mornings, as the sun rose over the pasture and the flock settled in to graze, I would call Orson and he would sit down beside me, watching the sheep. It was a transformative experience for me, beautiful, stirring, and very powerful. I felt connected to the rich history and traditions of a life with animals. It was as natural as anything I have ever done in my life to be sitting out there in the pasture, the mist rising from the meadow, the sun glistening off the dew, me with my dog watching the sheep graze.

  At moments, I could see Orson felt that, too. Despite all the chaotic craziness of his life and his brain, he seemed to grasp the meaning of those moments. He would settle, look at me curiously.

  It never lasted long, and the chaos never really left him, but the experience of being with him had transformed me and my sense of animals.

  Suddenly, in the midst of this intensive training, I had a new idea. I would sell my cabin upstate and look for a small farm—there were lots of them on the market at that time. I was fifty-eight years old, an age when many people begin to think about downsizing their lives. But I am not into downsizing; so instead, I upsized, big-time. I found a ninety-acre farm on the side of a hill in West Hebron, New York. I bought it, deciding to go there and write a book about my work with Orson and other dogs.

  I felt that it was Orson who had led me to my new life, not the other way around. He was showing me that I was not happy in my life, not happy in my marriage. My wife and I were steadily moving in separate directions. She wanted no part of a crazy border collie, of a sheep far
m, of life in the country. And I don’t blame her; it was not her choice, not her life. It was selfish on my part, but I believe it was a matter of survival for me.

  I was restless in my work, not writing from my heart, not following my bliss. I began to find it out there in Pennsylvania, on that sheep farm, just as Orson began to find himself. We did it together. Before the sun came up we came to collect the sheep, took them out to a nearby pasture, and guarded them while they grazed. We sat with them in the morning mist until the heads came up and their bellies were full.

  What I was experiencing reinforced an idea that had surfaced with Julius and Stanley, two amiable and easygoing spirits.

  Four years after Orson arrived, we were both living at Bedlam Farm, my new farm in Upstate New York. We were still struggling. A new behaviorist at the University of Pennsylvania told me he was certain Orson had suffered neural damage somewhere along the line. He was not trainable, the behaviorist said, and he was not curable. I was advised to keep Orson under close watch and confinement. I was told that my dog should be considered dangerous, that Orson could surely harm someone.

  I tried the usual things with Orson, and some unusual ones—trainers, behaviorists, veterinary school specialists, holistic vets, Chinese calming herbs, acupuncture, massage, anti-obsessive medications. I tried calming training, sheepherding, tranquilizers, obedience work. I did this for three years, spending more than fifteen thousand dollars in the process. I was running out of money and realized I was losing perspective.

  Orson had always had a problem with what one vet called “hyperarousal,” but it worsened in the summer of 2005. He bit a painter working on the farmhouse in the leg. Then he jumped the fence and bit a UPS driver as he climbed into his truck. I increased the height of the fence and put Orson in the rear, in an enclosed space. He dug under the fence and nipped a carpenter replacing a window frame.