One Strike And...?

I received a call a couple weeks back asking if I would give behaviorism testimony at an upcoming hearing at the county animal care and control agency. The case involved a recently adopted Greyhound whose money-earning career was cut short by a broken leg. One day, while sitting in a park with his person, a woman walked by with a fluffy, white toy Poodle. The Poodle was off-leash, dashing to and fro in a state of obvious canine rapture at having the opportunity to leap and run and explore the world freely as canids have done for tens of millions of years. This is something few South Florida dogs enjoy. We have leash laws (like most places) for one, and most homes don’t have actual yards. The Poodle should have been on a leash and the Greyhound’s person shouted out to her, asking if she would please tether the Poodle. She did but her leash was the retractable style and this permitted the Poodle to carry on as before, running fast, first this direction and then that, yards away from her person.

The Greyhound, only weeks from his life’s work as the fastest-possible chaser of the little, white, fluffy bunny, was watching the Poodle with eyes that go back hundreds of years, and inclinations and genetics that go back even farther. What he saw was not a conspecific; he saw a bunny. He took off as if shot from a cannon and the force of his intent defied the martingale that was, supposedly, guaranteed to hold him. He gained on the Poodle faster than anyone could think. He took the little dog in a rare victory of attainment that was usually denied him and gave a quick shake. The Poodle fell to the ground lifeless and the Greyhound lay down next to her, eyes unfocused and mouth relaxed and open in a state of obvious canine rapture at having the opportunity to do what he had been carefully crafted and selected to do and what his forebears had done for an unfathomable number of generations. He is a coursing machine whose natural inclination is to see, then catch the bunny.

The hearing permitted no actual expert testimony so the adopters were on their own. The process was very brief and the verdict swift. We have a new zero-tolerance law here and any dog who kills another dog is deemed “dangerous.” This is curious for several reasons. One is that accidents - terribly unfortunate combinations of events - do take place. This is a fact that cannot be denied in life. My doctor’s little canine partner was killed in her home by her sister’s dog who, in play, took the Yorkshire terrier’s head into her mouth and had only to close her jaw slightly to end her life. It was a terrible accident. It is also curious because in every other legal way, a dog is considered property – a thing without rights or protections. We don't generally lock up or sentence dogs or even people to death if they destroy property. And how can we pass a sentence on a dog's behavior without considering that we created it and the dog’s specialized genetic development in the first place; we intentionally and carefully crafted it over hundreds of years. We create the dog in a certain way then condemn him when he acts out the program we wrote. We made the Poodle tiny and white; we developed the morphology so that it would not appear to be a member of the same species to a dog who we developed to chase down and kill small, white, furry animals. All of this points to just how little conscious forethought we actually have for what we are doing in our genetic manipulation of dogs.

Before I continue, I must acknowledge the Poodle’s loss of life and the anguish her person must have felt in witnessing her death. Jack has been in very threatening situations with loose dogs a number of times throughout his life. I can imagine the moment going from one of bliss to one of horror in the blink of an eye. I grieve for the woman’s loss of her canine partner and friend and feel great empathy for her experience. I know that you do too.

The Greyhound’s adopters wait for sentencing and while they do, the dog is muzzled and held in check by layers of restraint equipment. And he is held in check by his people’s fear. They are so traumatized by the whole episode that they would do anything to prevent it ever happening again. They could have given the dog back to a rescue organization and he could have been sent out of the state. They chose to fight to keep their relationship and to defend his character. In the end, no one could listen. We love to judge, make wrong and condemn. Will this dog be permitted to keep his life? Will he have any opportunities to have a fulfilling life?

This weekend, the couple came to see me with the big male Greyhound and a female Greyhound who is his housemate. I had a class going on in which there is a very big chocolate Lab who is all play, all the time. We took the three dogs into the yard – a ¾ acre doggie paradise where even a Greyhound can stretch out in a full run. After much coaxing, his person finally allowed him off his leash and then, eventually, out of his muzzle. He and the Lab played and chased until the big boy plopped in the shade where he could have dozed the rest of the day. He was filled up and satisfied by being given the opportunity to express his physicalness, his dogness and his canine personhood. Life was delicious.

I brought the dogs into my classroom and found this big Greyhound boy to be delightful. I could see why his people decided to fight to assert his true nature and to keep him in their lives. He is curious, calm, gentle and he makes immediate welcoming contact with humans - positioning himself for petting. He was a good playmate for the Lab, chasing when she would allow it and stopping when she signaled that she wanted to diffuse the arousal.

We make a grave mistake when we characterize or label a dog's or human’s person, personality or being. All dogs and people have the potential to display behavior that can be seen by us as aggressive or as dangerous, or as this way or that, but that doesn’t mean that they are that. Could this dog display behavior that would be dangerous to another little, white, fluffy dog who happened to run by? Yes, he could. Is he dangerous? No. What is dangerous is the way we change the dog and then forget or ignore the consequences. This greyhound-sees-a-bunny story is just one example of the potential fallout of our acts. The over 500 genetic diseases and disorders that we have created in the process of canine stylization and specialization is another and most of them are truly and horribly dangerous.

In the Flow and Thankful

When we lived in the cold north, we maintained a suburban organic farmette. For us, Thanksgiving Day had traditional significance. It was tied to harvest and larder and thanks were given for those. It also marked the beginning of a significant change. Dropping temperatures had moved the season’s crops underground or to the compost pile, wood had been split and brought to the house. And by Thanksgiving, our lives would be doing the big flip-flop. Rather than being outdoors most hours of the day, we’d be indoors – inert and unstimulated in the still and never-changing monotony of the house. This was always a very difficult adjustment. It was a contracture of the living experience - in daylight hours, in activity and in spontaneity and wonderment. The dogs had a hard time of it too. Each season, we'd have another opportunity to learn to accept and allow this inevitability.

We were fortunate enough to live among all manner of wildlife. White-tail deer traversed our property often, stopping sometimes to pick pears and apples off our trees. Brand new fawns on wobbly legs and with undeveloped sight would sometimes walk right toward us, mistaking us for conspecifics. Big foxes came out of the woods during the day to sun themselves in the field next door, scratching and yawning, and perennial gardens and woodpiles were abuzz with the movements of rabbits, chipmunks, mice and snakes. Every moment was rich and new and this was thrilling to the core; it helped me to recognize the ceaseless flow and to perceive the very essence of a thing. I’d go out at last light and catch a few bees to put under row covers, petting the fat bumbles’ fuzzy backs as they clung to lavender stalks. Thirstily drinking in all that remained of the day, the dogs would follow me, checking every place and sniffing hard and loud for the critters who were stirring there. They knew the land like I did – in a natural, organic way that comes from within and from countless generations of forebears who considered themselves to be not of it or in it, but as it.

This year, nearby farmers grow what I eat and I’m thankful for them and the way they honor the soil that nurtures my food. And I’m thankful for you! As a reader of this blog you are also a farmer of sorts – you honor the soul and nurture the whole of the dog at your side. Through your willingness to release your concepts, biases and propositions of fact, you cultivate and harvest bountiful animalistic possibility. And you place yourself in harmony with the genuine canine being and the ceaseless flow of rich and riotous expression that is life – natural and organic.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Hidden Dangers in Dog Food

Why do dogs develop osteoscarcomas ten times more often than humans and why does it progress faster in dogs? It may be because dogs are ingesting toxic doses of fluoride. How are they exposed to the chemical? Through fluoridated tap water and through popular dog foods – foods that contain the bones of animals raised on water treated with it and those that ingested foods grown in fluoride-rich soil. It also finds its way into dog foods when fluoridated tap water is used in the manufacturing process. In a recent study, fluoride levels were tested in ten popular dog food brands. Two had no meat or bone meal and the chemical’s levels were below detection limits. The other eight had levels that would be considered unsafe, even toxic, in humans (who have far greater bone mass to absorb ingested fluoride). The highest levels were found in foods marketed for active adult dogs and for large-breed puppies and adult dogs.

Fluoride is one of the elements in the periodic table and it is extremely toxic (rat poison is sodium fluoride). It is found in soil and rocks but most humans and animals are exposed to it through artificially fluoridated tap water. Approximately 70 percent of our communities’ waters are fluoridated and of those, 95 percent use fluorosilicylicic acid. This form of fluoride has been found to cause additional problems, like increased lead uptake (resulting in behavioral and social dysfunction) and depletion of calcium in the body.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fluoride levels greater than 4mg/L are considered dangerous for children and adults. In the study of dog foods, eight of the ten tested had levels that ranged from 7mg/L to 11.2mg/L. Aside from causing bone cancer, high levels of fluoride also causes weakened bones (leading to more fractures), dental fluorosis, developmental damage, neurotoxicity, hormonal disruption and degenerative disease (accelerated aging).

When ingested in food or water, fluoride accumulates in bones, so dog foods that include the bones of animals exposed to the chemical can contain dangerous levels. The following ingredients in dog foods were found to raise fluoride levels to as much as nearly three times higher than the EPA’s safe dose in drinking water and higher than amounts associated with bone cancer in young boys: chicken meal, turkey meal, chicken/poultry by-product meal, lamb meal, beef meal, and bone meal.* If these ingredients are high on the list of ingredients in your dog’s food or if you use bone meal as a calcium supplement, the fluoride concentrations in your dog’s diet could be toxic. Depending upon the source, if you feed raw ground poultry or meat bones, this diet may also be high enough to pose a significant risk of bone cancer and the abovementioned conditions in your dog. And, if the water your dog drinks is also fluoridated, he or she may be ingesting fluoride many times the level considered safe in humans.

Click this link to find out what percentage of the residents of your state receives fluoridated water. Have your well-water tested or contact the water utility where you live to determine if your water contains fluoride. If you find that it does, consider installing a water distillation or filtration system. Then, check the ingredients list on your dog food bag. Does it contain meals or bone meal and are these ingredients among the first five on the list? If so, you may want to consider switching to a food that does not include meat meals or bone meal. If you want to provide a calcium supplement, grind dry organic egg shells to add to the food. Consider feeding a vegetarian kibble and topping it with a variety of fresh cooked meats and meat broth. Your dog will probably prefer this anyway.

*None of the food tested included meat meal or meat by-product meals. These would very likely have the same concentrations of fluoride as specific animal meals. In addition, they may also contain the carcasses of euthanized dogs and cats and concentrations of the chemicals used to kill them. Fish meals may contain the preservative chemical ethoxyquin, a Monsanto product used as a pesticide and as a hardening agent in the manufacture of rubber. It has been linked to cancer, hormonal disruptions, liver failure and birth defects in humans.

Contact me if you would like to receive a list of the references used to compile this article.

Trading Possibility for Control

Self-direction is the freedom to choose when, where and how to act. The ability to voluntarily pursue authentic interests and preferences leads to creative and expressive autonomy, independence, self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Dogs who are free to engage the world and its happenings are spontaneous, innovative, versatile and confident. These dogs do things for the sake of doing them and because they enjoy doing them. They are active and interested when they are in environments that are rich and interesting – natural environments, most particularly. Sadly, few dogs have these freedoms and opportunities. They live inside homes—often where little moves, changes or happens—and when outside the home are usually contained and tethered. And even when they could, they don’t have these freedoms because their people demonstrate compulsive inclinations to control and micro-manage them. We command, direct and instruct dogs, acting as if they can’t or don’t think on their own and as if they can’t be trusted to come up with a worthwhile response. Without realizing it, we try to squeeze the fullness of a dog’s thinking, feeling, imaginative and active possibilities into the narrow dictates of our own concepts, rationalities and desires. When I saw this in myself I was struck with the absurdity of it and the arrogance and stupidity of denying a dog any possibility of self-direction. I resolved to find ways to be more present around dogs so I could avoid engaging in unconscious compulsions.

There is a dog in my class who is demonstrating incredible creativity, decisiveness and immediate, purposeful action. In this particular case, what the dog is doing isn’t working for his person and it really isn’t in his best interest either. His person runs a busy produce market on a busy highway and Gunther goes with her every day. When she is in the market or can’t be supervising him, he is in the office. Rather than closing him up in there, his person installed a gate across the doorway. Within a week, Gunther was leaping over it to gain his freedom. A taller gate was installed but Gunther realized that it was no match for his body weight so he just pushed it down and walked right out. His person got the idea to have a stall-type door made so the top could remain open and Gunther could hear and smell the goings on beyond it. The day that it was installed, she left Gunther in the office feeling good about her choice but when she returned, he was gone. She thought she hadn’t closed the door well enough until the same thing happened the next day. She set up her camera to record the caper and this is what she saw (click here to view a short video clip then click the "back" arrow to return).

This is the very kind of creative ingenuity that enabled dogs to survive and thrive around hazardous human activities for the hundreds of years before we began to contain and control them. This is the dog’s default program. Why would we want to snuff it out and exchange it for the dutiful compliance of a measly few orders—what we call “commands”—we actually take the time to teach a dog? Who would want to trade an animal with such incredible potential for one who won’t or can’t do anything unless and until he is told or allowed? Without opposable digits Gunther may not win this one because the handle is going to be replaced with a knob. But that won’t extinguish door-opening genius wherever handles are present. Gunther has already taught himself how to operate them and reinforced himself for operating them by gaining his freedom. His person is going to have to find ways to encourage and develop his free-thinking creativity. In fact, now that she has shown this to me, their remaining weeks in clicker class are going to get pretty interesting!

The Truth About Aggression

When we look around in our world, we can see aggression everywhere. It is on our roads and in our cities. It is in foreign lands and in grocery stores and workplaces. We certainly see it in the dog park and often when dogs meet along the sidewalk. No matter where or when we encounter it, we have an immediate emotional response and an almost compulsive inclination to try to stop it. In the process, we often end up displaying it ourselves. But what exactly is aggression? I propose that it isn't what we believe it to be. In fact, I’m going to suggest that the English-language dictionary made a huge mistake in defining it.

At its root, the word “aggress” describes creative action – “to advance, go to or approach for the purpose of conversing or advising with, asking counsel of, entreating or soliciting something of.” It was meant to communicate “taking steps, walking forth, living, and conducting one’s self.”

Our modern definition describes violent action - “to attack and to commit the first act of hostility or offense.”

The word's origin implies communication – an energetic exchange. It describes the natural type of force and power through which all things in the phenomenal world both come into being and survive. This is “aggression” as a constructive impetus. It is the power of energy directed into material action. The modern definition, on the other hand, describes acts that are destructive in nature. It confuses the poised, focused and directed action that is at the foundation of each creative act with violence and hostility. This mistake has changed us. It has changed our world and the way we perceive it. It has led us into conflict and wars – like the one we unconsciously wage against dogs who we believe to be “aggressive.”

Because we confuse natural aggressiveness with violence and fighting, we consider aggressiveness to be bad and wrong and when we believe that something is wrong, then in our experience it will be. We try to suppress aggressive thoughts and actions in ourselves, attempting to hide what we feel and what we think to be aggressive behavior. We have been trained to think that it is best to act nice and calm and we unconsciously impose this standard upon the dogs in our lives. In truth, we actually try to be “good” precisely because we fear or believe that we are so bad. We punish aggressiveness in children and we will not tolerate it in dogs in whose aggressiveness we see the worst forms of perversion, disrespect and dominance. We fail to see a difference between acting aggressively and actually being aggressive. Aggressiveness is a potential that lies within all living systems - it is not who or what they are.

Although we might like to think otherwise, we can not restrain energy - including the energy of natural aggression. It collects and grows and it will eventually seek fulfillment. Indeed, it is when we attempt to deny the natural, constructive elements of aggression that we finally do explode into violence. Violence is a distortion of aggression. It is an overwhelming surrender to emotions that we fear and it is accompanied by the passion for destruction.

Natural aggressiveness gives motive power to all of our thoughts and creative activity and we employ it daily. In fact, it would be impossible to have a living experience without it. In dogs, natural aggression is used with great integrity. It is highly evolved and developed, ritualized and perfectly spontaneous. Its signals are understood. The various degrees, postures and indications of natural aggressiveness are all steps in a series of communications in which the nature of canine encounters are made clear. An entire series of symbolic actions are carried out long before any conflict would take place and these are aimed at preventing violence.

Throughout the day, we have an endless variety of normal irritations and aggressive ideas and impulses that could actually be expressed quite safely and responsibly, providing a natural release and a system of communication. By trying to “stop-up” an inevitable force, we eventually experience only the type of explosive and distorted pseudo-aggression that causes rage, violence, wars, individual neurosis and a great many other problems. In this state, we blame "others," we lash out against them. We fight and attack and we punish the dog. This distortion, then, is what we think of as “aggression.” In fact, we feel compelled to prevent and stop aggressive displays in dogs because we believe that this is what they are exhibiting. In an awful twist, the constant suppression of natural aggression in canines will eventually lead to the very thing we wish to prevent. It will lead to the same type of extreme loss of emotional equilibrium that we experience when the energy finally finds an outlet.

We can better appreciate and understand our own true natures by watching dogs demonstrate theirs. Dogs understand the constructive forces of natural aggression. They allow their energetic impulses to discharge and this actually prevents violence and hostility and fosters peace. It makes each successive moment new and empty – ready to be filled with joyous possibility.

Two Ends of the Same Story

As we have moved through the ages together with dogs, our lives have become entwined and parallel. We have manipulated dogs into our realities and they have become mirrors of our psyches. In any region or country, the philosophies, natures and principals of its people are reflected in the lives of the dogs who live among them. I have observed dogs in the cities and villages in Nicaragua. So many people are poor, disenfranchised and uninspired. To eat, more seem to beg for cordobas than to grow their own food. In the villages, dogs are everywhere – lone scavengers who are chased off with sticks. They are everywhere in the cities too but rarely visible during the day. They hide to avoid assault and attack and banishment from the “territory” that feeds them. Most look hungry and unhealthy. In contrast, the dogs living in the villages and cities in Peru appear to be full participants in the society. Peruvian people grow plenty, both for sharing and for sacrifice to the Gods. Like them, free-ranging dogs look well-fed, healthy and happy. They make their rounds through the shops and stall vendors on busy city streets. They visit farms and homes and everywhere they go, people share meals with them.

Dogs show us what we value and believe in and in this country, they reflect our materialistic and anthropocentric views. We “get,” “buy,” “own” and “have” dogs and when they become inconvenient, expensive or problematic, we dispose of them. We can see evidence of this in some of the dogs available for adoption today at my local county shelter. Let’s meet a few of them now.

This is Corky. His origins are unknown and he needs a little fixing in the “man” department, which the shelter will probably take care of. He is six years old and I’m sure he will be very handsome when his eyes are attended to and he doesn’t look like he is in terrible pain. Can’t you just picture him with a smiling mouth and bright, happy eyes looking right at you?

How about this little cutie. Believed to be a Fox terrier mix, she is only one year old and a tiny nine pounds. She has no name and her photo does not show her in her best pose but she looks like she could erupt into whole-body-wagging joy to me.

Here is Nala. She is shown next to the feet that she has known for the past five years and the feet that will walk away from her, leaving her in the terrible situation of being an unwanted dog in Palm Beach County. Nala is a female Lhasa Apso and the woman with the feet did not have her spayed. She is a bit overweight at 15 pounds but will surely slim down with the right diet and care.

This is Weewee. He is a Rat terrier who has not been neutered and that may have something to do with his unfortunate name choice. He is just two and weighs 15 pounds. I’m hoping that he gets the opportunity to do what young terriers love to do until he is too old to do anything but reflect upon his former prowess.

Speaking of old, this is Oryo. He is a 14-pound Shih Tzu with a serious cataract in one eye. He has been neutered and groomed and he has a current tag. It looks like he was well cared for. Whatever caused the man in the blue shirt to give this 12-year old dog to the county shelter is unknown. Who will provide a comfortable, safe place for Oryo to live out his life?

Here is an unnamed four-year-old. He is listed as a "Parson Russell terrier," unsterilized and 27 pounds. It’s a shame that the camera flash prevents us from really seeing his eyes so that we can know without a doubt what he feels. I’m sure that our hearts would be so taken that we would weep for him in this predicament.

This is little 12-pound Lulu. She is an eight-year-old Pomeranian who looks very much like the first dog I ever lived with. She is anxious in this photo and I can just imagine what she is going through in the shelter cage right now. Oh Lulu, I hope you find a loving home.

These little beings are some of the lucky ones in the shelter today. By being declared “adoptable,” they have one more chance at life. Some are arguing that the lucky ones are the dogs who have already been euthanized. Will these little pups be saved, loved and cared for to the end of their days? And how did “pure-breed” dogs like Nala, Weewee, Oryo and Lulu end up homeless? How did they start out with people who would not keep them?

Perhaps we can begin to answer that last question by having a look at some of the small dogs being offered for sale in the classified section of the county paper on the same day.

These two ends of the same story are showing us how deeply detached we are from dogs, from each other, from the world around us and from the whole of our conscious being. We have objectified reality and become alienated from the most intimate aspect of the living experience. We have created artificial views of the natural world and of the dog, who was once a natural animal within it. And it seems that we are completely unaware of what we're doing and blind to the fall-out.

Get Back Out There!

My shoes left my feet in two quick steps. They stopped moving and I didn’t and now the mud that held them firmly in place was pushing up between my toes. I immediately considered the experience to be most unpleasant. I swiveled around to survey the quickest way out and there beside my empty shoes was the dog. He had followed me right in. Up to our hocks in mud, we stood for a moment looking at each other. He appeared to be smiling. In fact, it was easy to see that he was pretty happy. It wasn’t because he was standing in mud, of that fact he seemed oblivious. He was happy because he was outside, free to run, to follow and free to stand wherever he pleased.

My own happy connections to the natural world came flashing to mind. As a child, I swam in rivers, played barefoot in the forest, raised tadpoles and orphaned baby birds, captured bugs (all scientifically classified as “jar flies”) and held respectful funeral services for dearly departed foundlings. I would be called into the house at last light, never wanting to surrender. I thought of the free-roaming dogs I knew back then. They were always ready for adventure, completely present and alive with possibility. I had grown older and somehow, nature had begun to shrink away from me. Or maybe it was the other way around.


Our natural heritage

We are an interconnected part of a natural reality that extends from the soil below our feet, around the globe, and out into the cosmos. We are in tune with its energetic modulations, its cycles, balance and perfection. We would not have evolved into the beings we are today without the hyper-keen awareness and full engagement of the senses that result from living in a natural world. In constantly changing environments we developed perceptual acuity and the ability to react swiftly to stress. Inattentiveness would have left us vulnerable to predation and caused us to miss opportunities to feed and shelter ourselves. Our direct involvement with the world and its elements expanded our view of self and reality outward, rooting us and connecting us to all that was known.

Dogs are also creatures of the great natural systems and their sense of identity is drawn through a deep and abiding connection to them. Their ancient role within those systems is part of their genetic material. No matter how we have morphed them—shrinking, stylizing and stretching them—their utter lack of access to natural environments deprives them fundamentally as it deprives us.

As they develop, dogs will find outlets for their inherent expressions in rich and changing environments. Engaging the flow of time with attentive awareness, they continuously orient themselves to their surroundings and this enables them to structure responses, anticipate consequences and adjust activities accordingly. Rich and variable living environments are constantly in motion, always changing and subtlety unique. In them, dogs express and inhabit the integrity of their being, demonstrating confident stability, inquisitive exploration, playful interaction and exploratory manipulation. They deliberately create opportunities to try out new things and have novel experiences. Their activities demonstrate purpose, enjoyment and an apprehension of life’s meaningfulness. These choices and alternatives for creative engagement fill them with a sense of belonging. Sadly, this is rarely available to a developing canine today.


A Connection Lost

Increasingly, our view of the natural world is artificial and abstract. We have marched out of nature and into the confines of built structures. We have filled our heads with facts and information and the world has become small in our knowing. The rich and riotous, spontaneous and surprising natural world has been replaced by the flat reality of computer and television screens. The living animals we do see are confined in zoo enclosures. We enjoy landscapes as they pass by the windows of our cars. We take walks on manufactured surfaces. Many of us spend as much as 95 percent of our lives indoors. Our homes are swept, kept, monotonous and routine. What we consider to be the “outdoors” is most often an overmanaged green space that is lifeless and sterile. We are the only beings who move within these environments; all other creatures have been banished. And into this predictable, empty reality, we have brought the dog.

A loss of primary experience—seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting and touching for ourselves—diminishes and tunnels the senses. Inventiveness, creativity, imagination, intellectual development and physical and psychological well-being are suppressed and dulled. Our immune systems become impaired. This is a deprivation syndrome, often referred to as “natural-system dysfunction.” It results in a loss of our innate protective and supportive senses and rhythms. When interactions with the world of living forms are severely restricted, a natural animal’s true essence fades and contracts. Loss of experiential diversity leads to understimulation, then loneliness, boredom, depression and feelings of alienation, vulnerability, isolation and hostility. As experience diminishes, life can lose its meaning. Out of sync and out of touch with something profoundly vital, we try to compensate by engaging in mind-numbing activities or physically rewarding sensations. We attempt to satisfy ourselves with artificial substitutions ranging from shopping to thrill-seeking.

Losing the ability to recognize plants, animals and insects, we can no longer imagine the creature who scratches through the brush in the evening or the ones calling out from moist and shady places. And dogs, once knowing every small mammal that tunnels, nests, burrows and climbs, and learning their movement patterns, scavenging behaviors and fleetness, now know only our habits. Once able to identify the sounds made by all manner of life in their proximity, today’s dogs know the sounds made by televisions, doorbells and kitchen appliances. Dogs can actually associate scent particles to the animals who leave them, follow a scent trail great distances and scan the breeze to identify the animals nearby. Living inside our homes, their olfactory receptors are overwhelmed by artificial fragrances and chemical aromas.

We have lost a sense of kinship with nature, detached ourselves from other humans and depersonalized our experience of life. This might explain our growing obsession with dogs who actually represent a vital link to an ancient intimacy with the natural world. Maybe deep inside, we are hoping that they can show us the way back.


Bust Out

Take that dog in your life and release yourselves from the synthetic energy of asphalt and concrete to take up a wilderness trail, climb a hill or dip your toes in a gurgling stream. As you reestablish a connection with your electromagnetic and biological source, balance is restored and the rejuvenating effects can be felt. Natural senses will enliven and sensitivity increase. You’ll gain a sense of belonging to the greater whole and the weight of individual worries and concerns will fall away.

Bust out into the astonishing eruption of nature that can be found in the sunshine beyond your doors. Seek outlets for expression of the characteristics and abilities that makes a dog uniquely a dog and your living experience will be enriched in the process. Start small and work your way outward. Start safe and become more fearless. Begin on a modest schedule and make a plan to increase it gradually. Look under rocks. Walk on a cushiony pine-forest floor. Let the dog poke her muzzle into bushes, chew a stick, dig a hole and gather scents into her fur. Don’t be afraid to stand in some mud as you explore nature together. In the soul of her being, the dog does know the way back.

What Does The Dog Want?

Have you ever asked the dog in your life this question? Seriously! Have you made an earnest inquiry of him to learn what drives him, what thrills him, what he likes and dislikes and what he desires? The truth is that few us have ever thought to ask a dog such questions. We generally believe them incapable of answering and we think that we know everything about them anyway. But this information can’t come from us. It can’t come from a book or from anyone else who lives with a dog. We must go to the source to learn what more a dog wants than a cookie. I can get you started with some questions to ask by sharing what Jack has told me.

The dog in my life wants to smell, investigate, taste, roll in, look at, chase, catch and sometimes kill and in all ways experience the things he finds in nature. He tells me that he feels most alive when he is a critically aware participant in the astonishing eruption of life that spontaneously explodes around him and through him when he is free in the world of living forms. This is not a toxic patch of yard or an over-managed green space he’s talking about. This is scrub and bramble, log and moss; this is where the wild things live and access to it is worth far more than a cookie to Jack.

Jack wants his life to be inspiring, full, fun and rich and if it can’t be lived in nature’s playground, he wants me to fill in the blanks. He wants to do stuff! He wants to find hidden treasures, play action, intelligence and suspense games; he wants to toss, catch and tug. He wants to smell, eat and see new things. He wants to go places where stuff happens. He wants to meet other canines and find out where they’ve been. He wants to engage in social interactions with them – participating in the traditions and communications that have been millions of years in the making. He wants to surf the far ends of polarity, arousing and diffusing in rich play-games with conspecifics. For Jack, these things are worth far more than a cookie.

The dog at my side wants to think independently. He wants to choose actions that serve his canineness, his inclinations and his desires. He wants to express his animal nature and to self-actualize as the being that he is. He can think, decide, choose and make associations, and he gets causality. He wants to react to stimuli as a dog would. He wants the opportunity to answer my petitions for activity, interaction and behavior without being prompted, pushed, handled or managed into an expected response. All of this is worth much more than a cookie to Jack.

Jack wants my conscious awareness when I interact with him. He wants me to have enough attentiveness to really see him. He says that his thoughts and feelings are so transparent that nothing is hidden if I would only look at him in this way. He wants me to be acutely aware of his expressions so I can be an effective guardian of his emotional wellbeing. He wants me to be present when I’ve asked something of him and when we were doing things together so that I can participate with him fully – alive, spontaneous and creatively joyful. He wants to choose whether or not strangers get to put their big mits onto his body and he wants to decide which dogs he'd like to greet while out on walks. He wants all this much more than he wants a cookie.

He wants to be dealt with fairly and kindly. He says that this is easily accomplished if I would always remember that he thinks and he feels and that everything I do, say, feel and don’t do, he perceives; he is not a piece of furniture. If I plan to end our play, he wants a little conclusion ceremony. It’s a real bummer when I suddenly turn my back and walk away. If I plan to turn right while we are walking along tied to each other, he wants me to let him know so that he doesn’t have to get dragged about by the neck. If I must leave him behind, he’d like a little discussion about when I’ll be back because the sounds of certainty and assurance in my gibberish make him feel better about me leaving. If there is something I want him to know that he hasn’t yet learned, he wants me to teach him with patience, giving him lesson plans that are easily accomplished. He wants this type of regard much more than he wants a cookie.

Jack also wants to feel safe and secure when he is inside the cage that I call our home. He wants me to refrain from getting angry in there and from shouting at the other two-legger or at the television. He wants me to modulate my feelings (for both our sakes) and behave evenly so he knows what to expect. He wants our cage to be free of unpredictable, drunk and upset visitors. He wants to know that he’ll have water and food and he wants to eat things that don’t come out of a bag. He wants this more than he wants a cookie.

And, Jack does want cookies. He wants to enjoy them as a being fulfilled. He does not want cookies that are offered as a gesture of apology or as surrogates for all the other things he wants and is not given.

If I Was King

If I was King in a bygone era, a being of supreme worth, I would compel my subjects to do as I wished. They would fetch me drink, clean the castle, and repel intruders. If they refused my edict or showed hesitation to comply, I would deliver correction, swift and sure, for a King suffers no disobedience or disrespect. As the all-powerful, dominant authority, the King would not ask inferiors or make suggestions; The King would command.

Commanded subjects are powerless. Stripped of their rights, their actions are not their own. Their thoughts and feelings are dismissed. They are ordered to move here and there, do this and that, at the whim of the autocrat who rules them. Interestingly, the “command,” an edict of absolute power – of demanding, ordering, requiring and controlling – has come to describe human-to-canine communications. How did that happen?

“Command” is one of a family of words that traces its roots to the ownership and subjugation of living human property. It is not a word that implies partnership or willing cooperation. It doesn’t inspire compassionate consideration of a being's mental and emotional reality, their right to choose or to self express. It is used when they have no rights or can’t be trusted to willingly comply. This single word - command - can lead us to impulsive acts of domination and control.

English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling considered words “the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Linguists and scientists agree. Words are more than mere building blocks of sentences; they determine the nature and content of our thoughts. They unconsciously induce and compel us to certain actions; they change our emotional states. Inextricably tied to the concepts they embody, words are translated by the brain and heart into electromagnetic energy patterns. These patterns have been shown to immediately affect everything within the measurable vicinity. They produce either chaotic, incoherent patterns of energy or harmonious ones. As you may have guessed, the word “command” creates chaos.

The communications we give to dogs are usually in the form of a visual or sound signal - a cue or a prompt. These words have the feeling of a suggestion or a request. Instead of commanding dutiful submission, we ask for willing compliance and this simple change establishes partnership. It affirms our truest natures, our deep affection for dogs, and the dog’s right to a creative experience of life. The word ask creates harmony.

The King is dethroned!

The Yoga Sutras of the Dog

The purposeful marriage of opposites gives the yoga pose strength and stability. Front foot and knee push forward as back leg and foot push away. Rising arm reaches with purpose as falling arm holds back the world. Opposites join into a single creative force. I can find this balance and strength with the dog in my life. I can reconcile and join in a way that denies dividing and weakening. This is a dance of unity, of oneness. Recognize the dog as the Self and all alien nations disappear.

The body becomes more flexible within the tiny increments of a breath – a breath that is consciously joined and wilfully channelled. As it moves in and out, all else falls away. In the breath is the joy of fullness and the power of release. In the space between breaths, the utter peace of stillness. When I bring the force of my full attention to a moment of interaction with a dog, wholeness-of-being emerges. Expression fills and empties in tune with a primordial rhythm. This is a sharp and focused union with the infinite, boundless, creative All – encreatured. Join the dog in the moment – the party is there.

In the yogic practice, no two poses are ever the same. Each is a unique creation that the yogi brings forth from a vast sea of possibility. The pose can be enlivened and strengthened by faith or it can be weakened by doubt. The choice is always there for the conscious picking; a willingness to explore the possibilities creates it. Aware and awake, I can regard the dog as a being in full potential. I can allow canine possibility to emerge as I loosen the concepts that limit and deny. Or, I can believe him to be empty and thus create emptiness, condemning him to constant force, manipulation, coercion and bribery. All possibilities exist. Wake up and join the dog in spontaneous creative expression.

The yogi allows. Whatever is made in the practice is a gem of perfection. Expectation is released in this awareness. That which arises is accepted and loved. The body is not strong or weak, the mind not masterful or unwilling. The pose is not good or bad, precise or sloppy. All that is just is. In this release, the yogi becomes a master. The dog allowed is the dog who blossoms forth in ways that can not be imagined. The dog accepted is the dog who inhabits his creaturehood – living potential fulfilled, the being self-realized. The full and splendid canine-creative emergence is astonishing magic. Release the dog to dogness.

One does not arrive at a yogic destination. The yoga is never finished. The only thing to attain or realize is the journey itself as it continues to unfold on the mat and off. The same is true of the dog. There is no place in which he is known or finished. The dog is ever unfolding and the human realization of the dog ever unfolds in tune. Empty the mind of its contents and allow the dog to reveal who and what he is. Open and receptive to his teachings, explore the journey, releasing destination to the wind. The dog is the master of dogdom; seek no other.

The radiant heart of the yogi leads forth in effulgence. The countenance rises up to meet the creative force. Compassion, empathy, kindness and courage shine out in all directions. From the heart, it is possible to commune with the dog, intuiting nature, soul, what is needed and desired. Concepts, expectations, standards and desires evaporate in its light. Occupy the heart and be guided to the joy of the dog. Contemplate his perfection. Make every moment in his company a happy dance of love.

Walks That Love

I often receive emails from people who read my blog. They share with me the ways that they've found themselves waking up in the company of a dog. Melissa Bachynski is one of them and her recent message to me is one that I'd like to share with all of you.

Two things have recently changed in my life: first, a dear friend of mine sent me a gift of an Ipod. I'm finally in the 21st century with the rest of the world. I love listening to all types of music and now that I'm bussing to work, I can enjoy that love while in transit. The other day I was prepared with my Michael Bublé as I approached the bus stop, ready to enjoy the 20 minute wait for my connection. As I put an earphone in one ear, the woman beside me started up a conversation. So much for Bublé. Because I'm of Irish decent, I cannot pass up a conversation...ever. This woman recently emigrated from Iran and we discussed the cultural differences between her home and her experience in Canada thus far. We eventually started talking about food (primarily because it was close to lunch, but I imagine the fast-food restaurant next to our bus stop helped). She expressed disgust for fast food, but not because of the nutritional value. Instead she said, “It has no love, no attention. There is no connection between the person that made it and you. You don't even know that person. There is no love.” It struck me as an odd concept, food that loves. Her point was that the person that made the food didn't care about the person eating the food. And, given the sheer numbers of burger-toting teens at the stop, they made the food quickly without paying attention to it. She said this was why the food was so bad for us. Interesting.

What does this incident have to do with dogs and Ipods? The second thing that has changed in my life is my sweet dog; he has lost almost all his hearing and his vision is at about 50%. We are learning to cope. When I realized his hearing was going, I started to teach him hand signals. The most important one of all has been the “yeah, you're fabulous” signal. Since he can't always distinguish my facial features, the "yeah” signal (which is the ASL sign for applause) is dramatic and obvious. When I got home after my discussion with the bus-stop woman, I suited my dog up for a walk. I thought I would take the Ipod on our walk to finally indulge in my Bublé desires. I've seen many people out walking or running with their dogs while plugged in to an Ipod, and, given my boy cannot hear me babbling away to him anymore, I thought listening to music wouldn't make a difference. We stepped out the door and headed towards the park. Within about two minutes I realized my dog was heeling beside me, staring up at me with a look of consternation on his face. Something was definitely wrong with him. I turned off Bublé and squatted down, which earned me a giant sloppy lick only a Boston can deliver. He started trotting ahead of me, and then turned back as if to say, “Aren’t you coming?” It was at that moment I realized I wasn't treating our walk as an important bonding moment, but as just another thing I had to do that day. There was no love in our walk, no attention.
Once again, my dog has taught me in actions what a person told me in words...and the actions made a larger impression than the words.

I now leave the Ipod in the stereo dock for impromptu dancing sessions with my dog while cooking, as well as keeping a careful watch of those humans around me while waiting for the bus. But Bublé can always sit on pause because I don't intend to miss an important moment in which I can connect with another being in a positive way.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted,
And human love will be seen at its height.
Live in fragments no longer.
Only connect...

--E.M. Forster, Howards End

The Holiday Miracle

I once erected a Christmas tree which I adorned with a whole society of little grey mice ornaments - all dressed in colorful period clothing. The dog with whom I shared my home pulled it down the first night. She decapitated the mice, undressed them, ripped body parts, and tore the tree asunder. I called in sick from work that morning and triaged the patients. I sewed and glued them back together, working them back into their tiny hats, coats, scarves and muffs. There were some casualties but I retrimmed that tree and it looked just as fine as the evening before. I woke up the next morning to the same tragic scene.

I remember being plenty mad at that dog. I'm sure I shouted and made ugly faces at her which she couldn't possibly connect to the carnage she had carried out hours before. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to close the bedroom door. I gave that tree and those cute little mice to the dog not once, but twice and because I didn't think, we both had tons of stress and upset over the situation. I was quite aware of my stress, of how bad it felt and of the need I had to relieve it. But I wasn't aware of the dog's stress and me trying to relieve mine only made hers worse.

Today's dogs are exposed to a variety of stressors that are unconsidered and therefore, invisible. They can cause dogs to live on the edges of their tolerance and coping. They include endless hours in monotonous environments, the lack of stimulation, engagement and excitement, constant punishments or negative attention, illness, injury, exposure to toxic environments and extreme stylizations that present anatomical challenges. And for many dogs, the most significant source of stress in their lives is our own.

We too are living with stressors that interfere with equilibrium. Our daily routines are often tedious, without meaning and can be quite overwhelming. Stress is accompanied by the release of hormones that excite certain systems within the body and suppress others. When it is significant enough in frequency and/or severity that the ability to cope or adapt is lost, physical, mental and emotional systems exhaust, the immune system is weakened and “adaptation diseases” arise. While promising to bring out the best in us, the added stress of the holidays can actually bring out the worst.

As our schedules change and our activities and responsibilities increase, things also change for the dog. Many will experience increased inactivation, social isolation and long hours in confinement. Strangers will arrive. Food will be left within snatching distance. New things will appear in the environment and not realizing and not being taught that they can't interact with them, many dogs will interact and this will plunge us both into stress and upset. Without thinking, our "ho, ho, ho" becomes the dog's "no, no, no."

This year, as we embark upon our traditions and contemplate our sacred connection to the wondrous essence of life, let's resolve to give the dog the greatest gift of all – our full and present awareness. Even for just five minutes here and there. If we've never seen magic, we'll see it firsthand as this simple change causes the dog to explode with possibility and crackling excitement. If we've never experienced a holiday miracle, we will when we realize that the peace, love and joy that the season promises are actually ours any time that we are present and aware enough to consciously choose them. And for the love of Dog, if the tree is so alluring that the canine in your home can't leave it alone, give it to someone who needs it and put a smaller tree on a table out of reach. (Bless you Lori for being the model of such accommodation.)

Dressing Ghosts and Goblins

I had a honcho biggie Chihuahua in my life once. He was a rugged, fearless dog and almost daily for over ten years, he followed Josh and I on hiking, climbing and mountain-biking trails. We were always in the woods, even during the winter when we'd sometimes follow deer tracks through freshly fallen snow, day and night. Josh and I would be bundled up against the cold but Kaya never was.

I put a sweater on him once. It was a fancy red sweater with leggings attached. I thought it was so cute and I had visions in my mind of how adorable Kaya would look in it. The sweater was a little tight and difficult to get on but I was too intent on my own desire to see him in it to take note of how much he disliked being handled in the way necessary to get the thing on, or to even consider his thoughts and feelings on the matter. I wanted what I wanted! After I got the sweater on him he just stood there, frozen. With lots of encouragement, he finally took a step with a front leg. It lifted up high and quickly like it was being pulled by a string. Then a hind leg raised in the same way, then the next front, then the next hind. He looked like a little red bug with fused knees doing a forced march. Josh and I nearly fell over laughing that kind of abdomen-spasming laughter that happens only rarely in life. After I regained my senses, I looked at Kaya and immediately recognized how unhappy and uncomfortable he was. He didn't know what a sweater was or why it was all over him, squeezing his beefy little body from all angles! I immediately took it off and never put it on him again. To the end of his days he would wear only his own fur as he slogged through snow and ice and endured the cold just to follow us into the wild as he did during the summer.

Kaya's few minutes of fear and discomfort did a lot for Jack. Italian greyhounds can begin to shiver when temperatures drop below 80 and they are very cute in outfits. Jack has a lot of shirts and house jammies that he wants to wear when he's cold. These are "his costumes." He also has quite a few outfits that I want him to wear but him...not so much. These are "my costumes" and for them, I have a special plan. I introduce the various parts of my costume to him dozens of times, associating them with food, fun and play and getting them closer and closer to being on in the process. I click and give him pieces of chicken liver and treat him frequently while he is wearing it but the removal of the garment is the real reinforcer. He gives me short-term acceptance of my costume and I give him its removal. By the time he is actually wearing it, he is emotionally jazzed about the process of getting into it. The costume has become associated with happy, playful interactions and with his favorite treats.

These costume-conditioning sessions are easy and they can be some of the most fun things we do with dogs. When we take the time to let the little goblin emerge willingly, the dog is having just as much fun as we are and we both have the opportunity to be completely delighted with the outcome.

Some dogs don't mind what you put on their bodies. Others will show their reluctance and insecurity in their faces. With facial expressions very much like our own, they'll look concerned and fearful. If you are planning to turn the canine in your life into a ghost, goblin, pirate or fairy princess this Halloween, there's still time to follow my special plan. Show the costume, piece by piece, clicking, treating and retreating. Touch the costume to the dog and do the same. Hold the costume on the dog longer and longer; put one leg in, snap one snap, and open and close Velcro here and there. Celebrate each step, play like a child and enjoy this time with the dog so that the dog can enjoy her time wearing "your costume."

Potty Humor

I belong to a number of Internet groups and forums and about a month ago a person on one of them posted a link to some of her clicker-educated dog's theatrical accomplishments. Just a couple days ago, a friend of mine who is "fifty-something" and who is not on that Internet clicker list, or any list for that matter, and who does not know the person or the dog, told me about this very funny video she saw recently. Two dogs are sitting together when someone asks "who farted?" and one dog points to the other. That was Chris Puls' canine partner Coyote! You can find his medley of tricks on her YouTube channel, click here.

That video sure got around in a month and I'm certain it's because of that little "who farted?" piece at the beginning. Why is it that we are so in love with potty humor? You'd think that we would grow out of it but I guess we never do. I have to admit that right after watching Chris' video I got an idea to teach a similar bit to Jack – our unique little version of potty humor that's just slightly beneath our sense of dignity and style. It involved a hind leg lift – his, not mine.

I contemplated how I could set up an education session in which Jack would voluntarily lift a hind leg and I could click then reinforce it. I got him moving around using hand-targeting but we were not connecting on the idea. I stopped to rethink my education plan and realized that when we wipe paws at the front door, Jack raises his hind legs as I approach them with the towel. So I started to teach the lift by first moving a towel toward his hind leg (he is left-pawed so I began on that side), clicking and reinforcing even the slightest raise until the leg could be cued up without the towel. I'm chaining another behavior to the leg-lift now and will film the whole thing when it's finished. You may want to subscribe to Jack's video channel so you can see it when it's available.

But I didn't write this article to make a point about shaping Jack into a hind leg lift. And I didn't write it to examine our attraction to scatological humor. I wrote it because I've noticed that so many of us seem to approach our education sessions with dogs as though we're preparing for an important exam or global competition. We are often too success-driven and serious to have fun and it's pretty certain that if we aren't enjoying ourselves, the dog isn't very likely to either. A dog can learn so much more if he's having fun and we can have so much more fun – something we seem to forget to do as we mature. Maybe that's potty humor's special appeal. It gives us a way to giggle like children and have fun without having to actually do anything or spend any money.

So to my friends and followers I issue this Potty Humor Challenge...Come up with an idea for a hilarious little trick with a theme that will make people laugh out loud. It doesn't have to be off-color but if it is everyone will love it! Start thinking about how you can shape, click and treat your canine student to perform it and then get started. When you have a finished product, post a link as a reply to this article. Here are the rules: You must giggle like a child, thoroughly enjoy yourself and make sure the dog is having as much fun as you are – even more. After all, he can keep right on learning for the rest of his life and he will if you make learning fun.

Thinking Out Loud

An amazing thing happened a few months back. I was walking with Jack around the lake, following a route that we have taken most mornings for the past five years. There is a point where we can choose to turn left to access a road that borders the lake or go straight to walk along the main road. We had never gone straight; we had always turned left and I really don't know why. One morning as Jack and I were approaching our turn-off, he stopped to sniff out an interesting aroma and I gazed down the main road. I thought about the row of mailboxes stretching into the distance and about all of the dogs who lived along that road. I had a vision in my mind of us going straight one day and Jack stopping to inspect the new urine-inspired mailboxes with great excitement. We walked a few more yards and as we came to our turn, Jack went straight! He did not hesitate. He did not look left. He went straight on down that main road and collected pee-mail with great excitement, just as I had imagined.

A couple of weeks went by and during those weeks, we turned left as we always had. Jack never looked down the main road again and did not hesitate at the turn. I had been thinking about what happened that day and decided to try another experiment. As we approached our turn, I began to envision us walking down the main road. I saw Jack taking in new smells, nose to the sidewalk as we went straight ahead. When we came to the turn, Jack went left. It looked like my intentional experiment didn't work. But then, he took a couple more tiny steps, stopped, turned around and headed down the main road. This was only the second time we had taken that route.

The next day, I envisioned us going straight and Jack went straight, not hesitating at our turn. In the middle of the block, I looked across the street and imagined the smells on the mailboxes over there. We had never walked on that side of the road and I held a picture in my mind of us crossing it and continuing on the other side. Three driveways later, Jack turned to the right, crossed the road and we walked to the end on that side.

I have used this visualization technique frequently since then. We have taken different routes, turning in places we never considered or even noticed before. I can think of playing with a toy and Jack will show up with it in his mouth. I can picture our reunion when I'm on my way home and my husband will report that he goes to the door several minutes before the garage door raises.

Can we have nonverbal communications with dogs, the kind that comes from what we envision, think of feel? There is actually a growing body of evidence to prove that we can and do. Rupert Sheldrake's book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals, provides research findings and anecdotal evidence of the unitive mind. The Institute of HeartMath has been studying the impact of thoughts and emotions, the electromagnetic energy they generate, and the instantaneous way in which this transfers between beings and things. They have been able to demonstrate that what we think influences our surroundings and those around us. And when beings are in close contact with one another, as we are with the dogs in our lives, what we feel, what our heart signals, actually registers in our partner's brain waves.

Don't take my word for it; try your own experiment. Clear your mind of its unconscious streaming feed by willfully inserting your intent to create a vision. Create one that the dog will surely enjoy, like joining you in the kitchen for a nice piece of sausage. Concentrate on that vision, seeing it in full detail. If you aren't a visual person, think the words that you would normally say out loud, calling the dog by name, asking if he would like a treat. Don't give up if it doesn't work the first few times. Dogs have to tune out the constant parade of thoughts and visions that our minds produce. Just like tuning a radio with subtle twists of the knob, one day, you'll establish a clear channel and be on thinking terms with your constant companion. Go try it now and let me know how you do.

For related information, read other articles in the communication section.

I Can Fight You

“Put 'em up, put 'em up! Which one of you first? I can fight you both together if you want. I can fight you with one paw tied behind my back. I can fight you standing on one foot. I can fight you with my eyes closed.”1 In what can only be described as a screaming, slobbering, teeth-baring bark, Jack would issue this challenge. Standing on his hind legs, straining against the leash, his front paws raked the air frantically. For clear and obvious crimes, the “others” would have to be dealt with. He would show them no mercy. They had come too close and one of them had made the mistake of being big, and dog.

From my perspective at the time, Jack’s aggressive outbursts seemed to come from nowhere. One minute, we would be tootling along enjoying our walk, another dog and person would appear on the horizon, we’d all get closer and then suddenly, Jack would erupt into a full-blown primal reaction. He’d appear to be angry, menacing and mean.

Even though I was on the Jack side of the leash when the violence erupted, and that was distracting beyond all reckoning, I did manage to take in the reaction at both ends of the leash just ahead. Any reasonable person, and perhaps even canine, knows that an eleven-pound dog probably can’t overtake an eighty-pound dog, but fear isn’t rational. And they seemed fearful. And Jack wasn’t rational, but it took me a while to figure out that a loss of courage was the reason he was acting the way he was.

Unconscious Enabling

All I could think of was that he had been psychologically damaged by prior incidents in which big dogs had chased him. One of them was quite frightening. I came to rely on my stories about those experiences – using them to explain his behavior – and in a weird way, that reliance prevented me from actually helping him to modify it. During this period of unconscious enabling, I hate to admit it, but I developed a case of big-dog prejudice. I even came to look unfavorably upon the people they were attached to. We were your worst nightmare duo to encounter on the daily traipse through the neighborhood.

Without realizing it, I became a partner in the insanity. The mere sight of an approaching big dog and human would cause me to stiffen, take up slack in the leash, grit my teeth and resist the inevitable. To Jack, my actions were a confirmation of his suspicion that all dogs of a certain size were dangerous. Too caught up in the drama to think, I would continue to walk right toward them. Jack would explode and I’d try my best to keep him from being defensively eaten.

It finally occurred to me that Jack was extremely uncomfortable and that I really needed to do something to help him. Not long after, I got the nudge I needed. One day at a crowded dog event, Jack got too close to a largish dog and lost it. The event’s photographer, a friend of mine, heard the ruckus and turned to see who was causing it. In a voice that sounded like that of the Almighty’s booming down from the heavens, she proclaimed “I don’t believe it….that’s the “trainer’s” dog!!!” Quiet fell across the land and all heads turned in our direction. Funny what it sometimes takes to wake us up.

Getting Courage

The next morning, I began a rehabilitation program in earnest. I realized that there was a zone of sanity, a distance at which Jack could see the other dog and still keep his wits about him. I began to test this distance and failed on the first few attempts. There was no sidewalk or shoulder big enough for any encounter. We would have to cross the street. There, Jack could only mange to keep from shouting and pulling. His body, stiff and vibrating was cocked like a loaded gun. Squatting in front of him, I tried to block his view but he simply couldn’t take his eyes off the monster. I realized that we were still too close.

I aimed for a distance where he could actually sit and where his head and neck weren’t going to stretch to enormous “Alice-in-Wonderland” proportions so he could see around me. Those big dogs looked really small from where we started – like toy breeds. This gave us a great advantage. We could both dispassionately look at them. Since I have a brain a little bigger than Jack’s three-ouncer, I would initiate some calming conversation. I’d comment on how normal and even friendly the pair looked. Jack took it all in, we both came to believe it, and we slowly moved closer.

For months, we probably made people feel bad by avoiding them like they had a pox and that was mostly my fault. If the roles had been reversed and I was the non-verbal reactor, Jack would probably have shouted a friendly greeting…“Sorry, but the human’s got a confidence issue. Don’t take it personally. Hey, by the way, there’s a flattened toad in the road just ahead; it smells fabulous.” Eventually, I did begin to explain what we were doing and was happily surprised when a familiar pair would see us coming and volunteer to cross the street themselves, waving and asking how things were going.

I learned a lot of Jack-speak during those months as a psycho-doggie therapist. I noticed that hesitation with a paw-raise and lip-licking were dog talk for “I’m not too sure about this.” The full-frontal freeze, eyes, ears and tail up, stiff and forward was a way of saying “Come any closer and I’ll fight you both together.” All of these signals preceded a blow-up but I had never been aware enough to catch them before Jack became overwhelmed by his feelings. I am now! I’m still not certain what caused this to happen. It may have been those prior chasing incidents and it could just as well have been Jack’s lack of contact with dogs larger than a matchbox car.

By creeping closer and closer, sitting and talking, and perhaps enjoying a piece of lamb lung, Jack and I not only saved our dignity, we added a few days, months or maybe even years to our lives by eliminating some incredible stress. Today, Jack will approach any dog. He has acquaintances who are Weimey, Goldie and Rottie and I have a few new friends too. Life is good!


1. Spoken by the Cowardly Lion, a character in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 1939 American musical-fantasy film, The Wizard of Oz, based upon a 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

The Misbehaving Dog

I was at a dog park the other day and heard one woman tell another “He’s got to learn not to do that.” She was referring to the dog she brought with her, the one she said “misbehaves” and “tries to get away with things.” Like so many of the words and phrases we use to talk about dogs and our relationships with them, these statements left me with an overwhelming feeling of incongruity.

Why didn’t the woman say “I’ve got to teach him not to do that” or “I’d like to teach him (the opposite of that)? Obviously, there is an underlying belief that the dog is somehow responsible for what he does and does not learn. Yet, he bides his life almost completely in our homes, care and company. He has little freedom of will or action. The dog is unable to discern what he must know about our world. He can not devise an education plan or teach himself something we’d like him to know but have not taught him. When we make a dog responsible for something over which he has no power or authority, he will fail. We will fail to recognize that the responsibility is ours. And the dog will never learn what “he’s got to learn.”

Does a dog really misbehave? To "misbehave" is to conduct oneself without regard for good manners or accepted moral standards. To behave is to conduct or comport oneself in a proper manner. Dogs behave in the ways that are natural and proper to dogs. The problem with this is that most of us don’t really know what proper doggish behavior is; many of us have never have even contemplated it. Instead, we have opinions, beliefs and concepts that we gather from lifetimes of influences and we set out to impose them upon the dog. Sometimes, when we’re done, there’s very little doggish left.

The accepted standards of conduct, the “good manners” by which we expect a dog to behave are guidelines that we create and think a dog can uphold. The dog does not know them and can not know them unless taught. Even then, if they run counter to what it is to even be a dog, he may not be able to demonstrate them. The responsibility for setting realistic standards is ours. This can be done in a couple of ways. We can turn off the mind’s chatter program – the one that feeds us only history and makes us believe that we know it all – and observe the dog from a fresh and vigilant perspective. Dogs aren’t too much different from people in the ways they feel and express their feelings so we can learn a lot about them just by being aware, open and receptive. Or, we can soak up information on ethology, behaviorism and canine education practices. Either way, it is our responsibility to teach a dog how to meet the standards we conceive. Therefore, any dog who "misbehaves" is a dog who has not been properly educated and this is certainly not a failure that can be attributed to the dog.

And what about trying to get away with something? Do dogs really do this? This sounds like dogs are attempting to foil, overthrow or usurp us by conniving or conspiring against our standards or wishes. It implies falseness – tricking, misleading or deceiving. Fortunately, dogs aren’t that complicated. If a dog knows the rules, he plays them to his advantage. This isn’t something he deliberates about; it’s part of his canine constitution. We either teach him the rules, as we’ve already learned, or we don’t and he just does what serves him in the void. There’s nothing conniving or false about this. In fact, we do the same.

When we truly don’t know much about dogs we will fix them with human models of conduct and comportment. This will lead us to create unreasonable standards and expectations – like making a dog responsible for learning something we have failed to teach. When we truly do know dogs, we actually don’t believe very much about them. We just continuously discover the wonderful ways in which they doggishly happen.

The Problem with Confinement

Belief as Reality

We construct the canine’s reality with our thoughts and beliefs. And as we impose it upon him, we will be unaware that our concepts are not natural, innate or providential. We are not born with them; they are not given. They are learned and fabricated as we go through our lives.

The problem is that much of what we come to believe and to think of as knowledge is flawed, incomplete, and may be just plain wrong; even our memories can deceive us. Our belief system doesn’t differentiate or judge, it simply accepts as truth what we feed it. We have long forgotten the sources of our beliefs and “knowledge” and in many cases, we never bothered to test the accuracy of the underlying theories that formed them. We are completely unaware of most of our deeply held beliefs. They are not only the product of a lifetime of conditioning, they are the sum total of our long-forgotten decisions, declarations and proclamations. They are the evolution of what we as groups, societies and cultures have collectively agreed to.

Many have heard the story of a mother who trimmed her pot-roasts into square shapes before putting them into the oven. When her daughter asked why she did this, she couldn’t say. She did know that her mother had always done the same. When she was asked why she trimmed pot roasts this way, she said that she had to do that to fit them into the only roasting pan she had at the time – a square pan.

An Unexamined Practice

We seldom ever question the ideas, beliefs, or “knowledge” that forms the basis of our most routine canine-care and keeping practices. We just do them. We do them because others do them so they seem normal and right. If we were to seriously question what’s really behind them, we might realize that we don’t have any idea why we do some of the things we do. We might find that we do them for the sake of convenience. We may uncover a long list of other ideas and beliefs that seem to justify doing them. This is a good first step, because if we don’t question why we do what we do to dogs, we won’t ever ask ourselves…How does what we do affect the dog?

Let’s explore a practice that we appear to believe in, one that has become so commonplace in this country that few of us would ever question its suitability. And let’s look at it from the standpoint of how it does affect the dog. In this and subsequent articles, we will examine the effects of confinement which is usually attended by social isolation and forced repose or understimulation. We’ll try to get at the root of what we believe about the practice and then learn a little about its impact on canine minds and bodies, particularly those that are developing.

Confinement

Confinement is the physical containment of a dog’s body within a crate, kennel, or small room or area. The dog’s movements and liberties are restricted, often severely so. Behavioral opportunities are narrowed to a functional minimum. Depending upon the location of the confinement unit and the circumstances, social access and sensory input are also significantly reduced.

Every year, millions of infant canines enter homes that are empty for many hours each week day. They will spend this time confined and alone. Some will spend their nights confined as well. This is a fairly new practice; one that became popular when dogs transitioned from the outdoors to spend their lives inside our homes.

When asked, people report that they confine dogs and puppies for safety reasons because there are many things inside a home that can be dangerous, particularly to a teething, exploring infant. They say that they crate them to prevent damage to their furnishings and belongings and to keep them from urinating and defecating in the home. Some believe that a small crate is similar to a dog’s den and that dogs and puppies actually feel more safe and comfortable inside of one. And many agree that because everyone else seems to do it that it must be the right thing to do. So we generally believe that confinement is best for the animal and best for us and our belongings. This tends to settle the matter in our minds, to such a degree that we don’t consider that confinement has a big down-side.

Effects that can last a Lifetime

Neural organization, emotional stability, physical development and learning ability are compromised in puppies who are denied environmental access, social contact, and opportunities to play, explore and develop. Confined puppies lack opportunities to establish a full range of behavioral repertoires and their behavioral flexibility, motivation and control diminish. They are unable to develop general perceptual frameworks into which novel stimuli might be assimilated. They can not relax or positively express themselves. They are easily provoked and alarmed. When released from confinement, puppies demonstrate hyper-stimulation, increased motor activity, shifting emotional responses and easy frustration and distractibility. They disassociate with stimuli in the environment, fail to make social contact and demonstrate extremely impaired coping ability. Confined puppies are generally less socially active, and less assertive. They develop cognitive impairments, become slow learners and demonstrate poor problem-solving abilities.

As they get older, these canines demonstrate a diminished ability to cope with stressful situations and become neophobic, overacting emotionally when they encounter novel situations. They often develop lifelong fearfulness, becoming rigidly inhibited and/or offensively aggressive. They seek safety and become psychologically dependent upon and addicted to a particular person. The affects of confinement endure for some time after the restricting circumstances have ended and they can last a lifetime.

Confinement causes fear and panic and exposure to persistent or frequent stress states has been shown to result in sensory processing disorders. It impairs stress-coping ability, and leads to maladjusted behavior responses to aversive or conflict-inducing situations. The stress hormone cortisol can alter hippocampal functions, affecting short-term memory. It inhibits vascular function, blood flow and oxygen and disrupts the function of the hormone/neurotransmitter dopamine. It can affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis – a major part of the neuroendocrine system that controls reactions to stress and regulates the immune system and many other body functions. Many canines who experience these emotional, physical and developmental maladjustments are not successful in a home and their problems are almost never related to the root cause.

We Did Not Know

For the best chance of maturing into successful, well-adjusted and confident individuals and family members, puppies must be provided with near-constant access to a responsible care-giver. As they move through important developmental stages, they can be exposed to a variety of environments, objects, people and experiences. They can be acclimated to the sensory stimuli that occur in and around the environment in which they live and will be taken. They can be provided with canine interactions that will teach them how to be a social animal and how to communicate. The care-giver can manage the puppy’s day, mixing periods of play, exploration and education with periods of rest.

If you are already in a situation where the dog in your life is confined or crated during the work week, see if you are willing to imagine some alternatives to that arrangement. Perhaps you can utilize a canine day-care facility. Maybe an acquaintance who is home during the day lives with a dog who would enjoy some stimulation from a visiting companion. Maybe a friend, family member or dog-walking service can be arranged to provide the dog with a mid-day outing. Perhaps you can begin to work at home or take the dog to your workplace.

If you are away from your home during the work week and are contemplating bringing a puppy into your life, perhaps you will reconsider your choice until you have found some alternatives to physical confinement.


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Allowing the Dog to Produce Something Good

The dog saw the bird fly into the greenhouse. He followed. The bird flew against the top and the sides of the glass and then back and forth. She was unable to find her way back out; she appeared to panic. Her wings beat wildly and feathers floated down as the dog watched. He was vibrating with excitement. Eventually exhausted, the bird fell to the ground and the dog grabbed her just as the man entered the greenhouse. The man was disturbed at the sight; he didn't want the dog to kill the bird. He asked the dog to “drop it.” He did not. With every muscle fiber tight and twitching, the dog stood clutching the bird in his mouth. The man asked him to “give it.” He did not. He asked him to “leave it” and he did not. Finally, the man spotted a colander sitting on the potting bench. He grabbed it and thrust it forward. He asked the dog to “put.” The dog took a couple steps toward the man and with his tail wagging furiously, he placed the bird into the colander.

The dog in the story is my canine partner Jack. He gave up the bird for the opportunity to do his most favorite activity – "put." Jack created the “put” behavior in a single education session and because of the way that it was reinforced he came to put any object he could handle “inside,” “up,” “down” and wherever directed.

This is how it all happened. Jack was shown a box and was encouraged to play a game in which any new behavior he created with it earned him a mark (click) and a reinforcer. Jack looked inside the box, he touched it with his nose and then with his paw, he jumped over it, went around it and created several more novel interactions with the box. Eventually, he spotted his favorite toy a distance away and went to get it. In the spirit of the game, I marked and reinforced that. He immediately picked up the toy again and moved toward me; he was marked and reinforced. At this point, I realized the opportunity that lay before us. I threw the toy off a short distance and put the box between Jack and I. He picked up the toy and made a few steps toward me and the box. I got so excited that I nearly threw the whole bag of treats. On the next toss, Jack had figured out that the game involved the box. He took careful steps closer and closer to the box and I marked and reinforced him with an excited celebration. On the next toss, he walked right up to the box with the toy in his mouth. As I hoped, when he was marked, the toy fell into the box. A bonanza of chicken liver pieces rained into Jack's experience. My normally squeally voice went into hyper mimi-mouse mode. We played and tugged and jumped around like clowns. On the next trial, Jack walked right up to the box with the toy and I simply waited. All time stood still. Jack stood there. I could almost see him thinking, and then he dropped the toy into the box. The “put” game was on and before the day was over, he had put everything he could find and everything I gave him into that box.

For a dog whose education revolves around learning opportunity, learning becomes a skill that is practiced and perfected. When he is given the opportunity to create behavior in an atmosphere where there are no wrong answers, he will. And when he does create a behavior that earns him the equivalent of a big-money jackpot, he’ll not only remember it, he’ll repeat it with happy excitement.

French philosopher Rene’ Descartes (1596-1650) reasoned that dogs did not think, that all the things which dogs are taught to perform are only expressions of their fear, hope and joy and as such, could be performed without any thought. The reliance upon prompting and cueing to solicit behavior produces a dog who is an agreeable model for Descartes unthinking machine. By attempting to put learning into the dog, we limit her potential for intellectual accomplishment. We deny her the opportunity to think and to produce something good on her own. Do we do this because at some level, we believe that she really can’t think and that she can’t create worthwhile behaviors or responses to our interactions and our shared experience? When we really examine what's at the root of some of our patterns of thought, action and reaction, we often find concepts that are so opposed to our true nature and intent that we are shocked to find that we harbor them.

When we prompt a dog and she doesn’t immediately respond, we feel compelled to take action. We literally give her no opportunity to create a response before we have prompted again, intervened physically or changed course. The need to do something is so strong and so impulsive that the only aspect of canine education most people find challenging is that of suspending themselves and just observing the dog. Why can’t she be given the time she needs to think things through and come up with a response? She may be just ready to offer an inclination toward action that we squash with our own reaction.

I ask my dog-partnered students to make an agreement with themselves that they will follow each cue or prompt with the purposeful suspension of their thoughts and actions, placing their full and complete attention on the dog. I ask them to notice everything they can about the dog’s mental and emotional state, as expressed through the body. Notice if she displays hesitancy or excitement. Watch for even the slightest movement and be ready to immediately let her know if that movement is going in the direction you want it to go. If it isn’t, happily move on to another exercise. Most of all, I ask them to intend to learn from these raw and genuine experiences. Learn how to improve the dog’s chances of success. Learn how to turn the education game into an opportunity to have unrestrained fun and excitement. Learn how to allow the dog to think and create on her own.