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.

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

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.

A Thin Line

Whether or not we are aware of it, we have agreements with the people with which we are in relationship. We can share our passions, our rants and our desires with some people and not with others. We have permission to tell them what we think, give them advice or provide unsolicited information. They will forgive us our forthrightness and our opinions. It is when we break out of the boundaries of these agreements that people may not forgive us.

A neighbor brought a new dog into her life this week. She rescued him from a local shelter’s pending euthanasia group. She has two other rescue and foundling dogs in her life. Both are well-cared for and dearly loved. I saw her out on her golf cart this week. She uses it to exercise the dogs, adhering to Cesar Milan’s mantra that a tired dog is a good dog. When she spotted me, she tied her two old friends to the cart and brought the new addition up to meet me. I was thrilled! As the pair got closer, I noticed that a choke chain encircled the dog’s neck. A foot or two away, it suddenly tightened as the pup pulled toward Jack. I asked her to just let the two dogs greet. I told her that jerking the leash as one dog approaches another might actually cause the dog to associate the sudden pain with the act of getting close to another canine. (I don’t know about you, but I see the outcome of this habit on sidewalks wherever I go – dogs losing all emotional equilibrium at the sight of another dog approaching.) I saw her jaw tighten as she looked away from me. I was immediately aware that I had crossed a line. My advice was not asked for and I could tell that it was not wanted.

Jack wasn’t interested in puppy energy and he gave clear signals that the pup picked up on. I, however, was smitten. He is tan with a black face, about thirty pounds and as I leaned in for petting, he sat right away. I fussed over him while his person told me the story of how she came to meet him. He gave me some tentative licks and his tail swept across the ground. I rose up and the pup came right up with me – from sitting to standing on all four paws, to rising onto two, front legs reaching for my body as his eyes followed mine right up.

The picture I saw next is one that I won’t forget for a long time. With great and sudden force, the woman jerked the leash. The choke chain tightened; the dog’s little body was thrown back. His eyes were wide. His mouth opened as if to scream, the corners of his lips drew back. The woman’s face looked angry. Her brows were knit, her eyes were squinting and hard. I couldn’t help myself; I blurted out “That hurt him!” Speaking through clenched teeth she replied…”It was supposed to hurt! It was a correction!”

Nearly breathless, like the wind had just been knocked out of me, I started talking. I told her that it isn’t necessary to hurt a dog to teach him. I quickly showed her the approach-and-turn-away method of allowing a dog to learn that good things come to him when he is sitting and not when his paws are on your body. I explained that if she would give attention only when feet or hips were on the ground, feet and hips would remain on the ground. I had to draw a breath. She made a brief reply and quickly moved away from me.

I won’t be putting my fingers into that pup’s fur again. For starters, I’m not certain that I’ll be given the chance and I don’t ever want to set him up for another “correction.” Moreover, like with most punishments, the dog had no way of relating the sudden pain to the act of raising his paws up on me. It is more likely that he will relate it to my presence instead. So he will likely avoid me at all costs.

This woman is not mean and she is not stupid. She is a wonderful person who feels great affection for her canine companions. What operates her operates all of us in our own unique ways, and most of us are powerless against their effects. Next time, I’ll talk about the processes that govern us, blinding us to living reality.

Relationships often end when their unspoken agreements are violated or when two people realize that they disagree. We tend to condemn the person rather than the act. We will feel enmity toward them and find it hard, even impossible, to forgive. There is a thin line between peace and upset. There is a thin line between frustration and all-out rage, between disaffection and outright hatred. The guardian of the line is us. In order to have peace ourselves, we must forgive “the other.” In order to keep from slipping into anger or hatred, we must separate our brothers and sisters from the things they believe and do.

I’m going to need a lot of forgiveness because I’m pretty sure that I'm going to keep violating agreements. I can’t see myself failing to speak up to advocate for the loving protection of a dog’s thinking and feeling experience. I may not be forgiven and I may not get another chance but my words can’t be unheard. And one day, in a moment when love opens the heart, they may be listened to.

A Dance of Denial

Let’s face it, we are nuts about dogs. Not the actual animals, mind you, but the ones we have a picture of in our heads. The ones that behave just exactly the way we want them to. The actual animals do things that we think are aggravating, wrong, bad, impolite, and just plain yucky. And when they do, we will stop them immediately; we will resist and punish – automatically and unconsciously. Some of us appear to be trying to yank the dog right out of the dog.

Jack and I encountered a little Cockapoo on the other end of a man’s leash yesterday. As soon as he saw us approaching, he began to pull on the dog. In a nanosecond, he went from being about ten feet away from the man to being right at his feet. I asked if the dog was vicious and he said that he was just the opposite – the nicest dog. I asked why he was jerking on the dog’s neck that way. He said he didn’t know. The two dogs had an encounter, circling around and around to get to the parts that would give them some real information about each other. The little Cockapoo’s nose found Jack’s “down-under” region. The man yanked again. He shouted “Stop that.” I said “They are just trying to get to know each other in a way that’s natural for dogs.” He said he knew. So I asked why he felt he had to stop it. He said he didn’t know; it was just something he did.

The dog’s reality is a mirror of our withdrawal from the dynamic, vibrant, ever-changing natural world that once kept us alert and rooted us in the present moment. Today, we are indoors, safe and comfortable. We are rational and intellectual. And into this conceptual, predictable world, we have brought the dog. We have morphed the bodies of natural animals into shapes that would never survive the hunting and scavenging lifestyle from which they were very recently removed. We have come to conceive of them as little humans. We have diminished their social outlets to a few encounters with others of their kind while tethered and controlled in sterile green spaces. And even then, we try to deny them contact, closeness, a sniff or lick that connects them to their ancient heritage and tells them all.

Becoming fully present when I have communion with the dog in my life is an exciting possibility. I strive for it, after all, he gives that to me. Don’t we owe it to the one we’re nuts about to be aware of what we are doing to them and why?

Coming Unglued at the Sight of another Dog

I recently encountered a boy walking a small black dog. I watched the dog as Jack and I approached. The black dog stiffened and paused, his ears became erect and forward, his tail went up and stiffened. I looked at Jack. He slowed his pace and licked his lips a couple times. By the time I looked back to the little black dog, she was losing her composure. She reared up on her hind legs and began to issue what could only be described as a screaming bark. To see a dog that emotionally aroused is not unusual. Sadly, to see what the boy did next is also not unusual.

The boy began to jerk the leash, pulling the dog back suddenly and forcefully. The dog would lunge forward and be jerked back, forward, back. The boy shouted the dog’s name in a hard, angry tone. He shouted for her to “stop.” Jack and I crossed the street as quickly as we could – not to avoid the dog but to give her a chance to calm down and avoid the double jeopardy her friend was inflicting upon her.

Many dogs are never exposed to other canines except those they occasionally encounter on leash. When we fail to provide young dogs with canine interactions from which social lessons can be learned, we deny them an ability to acquire their own language and learn their species’ social customs. We pretty much ensure that they will lack confidence when another dog approaches. When tethered, the inevitability of closeness and contact looms, for most dogs know from experience that we will continue to pull them right along, insisting upon an encounter. The body language within the forced forward approach can make both dogs appear threatening to each other and this miscommunication can lead to stressful, unpleasant encounters. Imagine the anxiety of suddenly finding yourself confronted by a stranger whose customs you have not completely learned and whose intent toward you can not be determined or appears to be threatening.

Consider the social opportunities you have given the dog in your life. If you make an honest assessment, you can pretty accurately diagnose what motivates her reaction to other dogs. If her social calendar is always empty, she is most likely demonstrating insecurity and fear is at the root of her emotional upset. While it may look like she is launching an overt attack, we have simply not considered or misunderstood the motivation behind the behavior we see. And, we have missed all the ways in which she communicated her thoughts and feelings prior to point where she became overwhelmed by them. If you believe that social insecurity is at the root of the dog’s upset, she will only be made worse by adding pain and fear and by making her confront the object of her reaction. Jerking and shouting are not the best remedy for a dog who is emotionally upset and afraid. Move her away from the triggering stimulus, to a distance where she can maintain her composure. Talk to her calmly and happily. Kneel down beside her and see if she can look at the other dog while sitting. If you are at a distance where she can, she may still feel uncertain, but she won’t be out of control with fear and displays of aggressiveness.

Whose Walk is it Anyway?

For so many dogs, a tethered walk represents their only access to the great wide world and we turn it into an exercise in micromanagement, restriction and control. The walk seems to always be for us. It is done on our terms. Why can’t we allow the walk to belong to the dog? What is the real cost of allowing him to stop and investigate scents, leaving his urine on most things vertical? Isn’t this what dogs seem intrinsically interested in doing? If the dog walks out in front, if he swims from side to side or doubles back to check on something he just passed, why can’t we accommodate him? Many of us believe that this is a sign of insubordination that we can not allow. We provide no actual education on where we want the dog to be in relationship to our body, or how fast or slow we want him to walk. We believe that the dog should know all of this or that he should actually want to walk calmly at our side. We expect dogs to prefer our company and ignore all that stimulates and interests them.

Before you embark on a walk with the dog in your life, intend to determine the purpose and nature of the walk. If the walk is for the dog’s fun and exercise, then see if you can stay present enough to allow the dog to have fun while getting exercise. Declare the walk to be his walk. If the walk is for your fun and exercise and the dog is just coming along, consider the compromises you might be willing to make to ensure that his experience is not one of a constant denial of his interests. If, at places along your route, the dog must be attentive to you and not the environment, happily condition that type of attentive walking. Then free him to his own explorations when you can.