Bones Would Rain from the Sky Page 27
17
WHAT TIMMY NEVER DID TO LASSIE
Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is… whether its victim is
human or animal… we cannot expect things to be much better in this world.
RACHEL CARSON
VICKI IS UPSET THAT HER DOG SALTY IS DIGGING HOLES in the yard. Looking at the hole her dog has dug, she has an idea. She grabs a spade and a shovel and makes Salty’s hole larger, more perfectly round. When it’s just perfect, Vicki dances a jig of delight and, still dancing, uses the garden hose to fill the hole and then holds Salty’s head underwater. She’s surprised when Salty struggles to free herself, and tells the dog, “But I thought you loved hole digging!” Every day for three weeks, Vicki improves Salty’s new holes or redigs the old ones and fills them with water and holds her dog’s head underwater.
Vicki exhibits no apparent remorse whatsoever for her actions. In fact, she writes about it in some detail, noting that she “has this crazy, incurable response to the sight of a hole.” The only way to stop her from doing this to Salty is, she says, to “keep me away from holes.” She notes that Salty is no longer digging holes in the yard and is nervous even when she sees a hole out in the woods, a hole she did not dig.
How do we respond to Vicki and her treatment of animals? If Vicki were a child, we might be urging all involved to get her professional help. While not all children who abuse animals go on to commit violent crimes, such behavior is a red flag of warning that this is a child who needs help, and most children who abuse animals are also victims of abuse themselves. But Vicki is not a child. She is an adult, and a dog trainer who offers to help people discover the “poetry in obedience.” She was a very real person, the late Vicki Hearne, dog trainer, author, professor and poet, and the actions described above are taken directly from her own words in her critically acclaimed 1986 book, Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name.
Far from being censured or sent into therapy, Hearne was lauded for her beautifully written philosophical exploration of our relationship with animals. How is it that Hearne’s behavior is acceptable? Is it merely because she is not a child? Most readers would be appalled if a child did to a dog what Hearne did to Salty, yet are strangely silent when an adult—and particularly a trainer, and expert—does the same thing. Evidently, somehow, at some point, children become old enough to practice other ways of dealing with their old pal Fido, ways that are unmistakably not nice. Is this a rite de passage that goes unremarked or uncelebrated but is nonetheless real? Just where is that point where we no longer need to be nice to the doggy? If maturity entitles us to treat animals in such ways, where exactly on our development path do we take the turn that leads to this ugly landscape devoid of a consistent compassion?
Somehow, there is a socially acceptable progression from being horrified by the treatment of Black Beauty to this question: “How hard do you hit the dog? A good general rule is that if you did not get a response, a yelp or other sign, after the first hit, it wasn’t hard enough.” Who on earth would buy such a book for their children? We would be horrified to discover such advice included in a 4-H manual or as part of a national “Be Kind to Animals Week” program. If any teacher proposed to include such a notion in our children’s curriculum, the resulting outrage would probably both curl and gray the school board’s collective hair. And yet, many adults have bought the book from which I took the “how hard do you hit the dog?” quote—How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend by the Monks of New Skete, first published by Little, Brown in 1978 and still on the shelves of nearly every bookstore in the United States. It is a title that answers the question of how hard to hit the dog, but also talks about the spiritual nature of the dog/human relationship. Strange bedfellows, these two topics—or so it seems to me, though I am well aware of the many justifications and rationales for not “sparing the rod.”
In Spare the Child, historian Philip Greven offers a startling study of both the roots and consequences of corporal punishment of children in America. Reading Greven’s work, I was struck with a tremendous wave of sadness for the violence woven through so many of our most intimate human relationships. Little wonder then that we may, without thinking or with full acceptance, also weave this ugly thread through the fabric of our relationships with animals. But this is an old thread, handed down from generation to generation, and in taking hold of the life cloth we are given as children, we may not realize that among the bright and beautiful threads, there lurks a darker one. We can cut this thread, and remove it from the tapestry of our lives, but first, we must tease it out from where it is woven in and through.
THE EMPEROR’S NEW CAREER
Adam’s Task was not lightweight reading, and it’s reasonable to assume that reviewers and readers were intelligent people. And yet the jarring image of a woman holding her dog’s head in a hole filled with water somehow glided by without leaving an outraged cry of disgust in its wake. Blinded by lofty prose and philosophical contemplation, deft quoting of Nietzche, Vonnegut, Auden, Xenophon and Shakespeare, readers evidently lost sight of the real dog in the real moment when a real person perpetrated a real cruelty. Or perhaps the ugly contradiction was noticed, but no one raised a voice in protest. I hope not; I’d prefer to think that readers simply were moving through page after page in dull, unthinking incomprehension. While unthinking acceptance is dismaying, it can’t hold a candle against the ugly darkness of soul involved in observing inhumane behavior and saying nothing.
Forget the glistening, polished phrases. For a moment, r arrow your view to see only this: the dog. See the dog standing beside her, even helping her dig. The dog is a bit bewildered by but pleased to join in the dancing jig Hearne does as she digs the hole farther. See the dog’s tail wagging, and the questioning but happy look on the dog’s face as she trots along behind Vicki as the garden hose is dragged to the hole. See the dog watching with curiosity and interest as the water splashes into the hole, swirling, churning the freshly dug dirt into a minute muddy pond that rises toward the dog and the woman who stands at its edge. See the dog’s surprise when the woman grabs her and pushes the dog’s head into the hole where the water is still chasing itself around. See the reflexive arching of the dog’s body upward, away from the shock of the cold muddy water that has covered her head, splashing into her ears and up into her surprised nostrils before survival instincts take over and stop the intake of breath. When the dog fights free and looks into the woman’s eyes, tell me what you see in the dog—trust? joy? the poetry that Hearne tells the reader exists in the dog’s soul?
I think we’ve had our blinders on for a long, long time.
It would be almost a welcome thing to be able to write about Vicki Hearne as some sort of depraved monster, a singularly disturbed individual whose philosophy is so far from that of the average person as to make it nearly impossible for us to fathom the world in which she lives. If Hearne were a bizarre, inexplicable blip in our society, one of the unusual fringe people so far out that they barely even appear on the societal radar, we might more easily rest, able to dismiss her as a kook or perhaps even a sad case more to be pitied than censured. But Vicki Hearne was not in any way an aberration, nor are people like her unusual. She was an articulate, even elegant voice that raised some provocative questions and posed some intriguing notions of how it is we connect with dogs and other animals. Her flights of poetic musings are seductive, if we allow ourselves to be lulled by the beautiful words and forget the living breathing dog who is not a concept to be toyed with, an idea to be played with in the rarefied air of thought. Always, we must remember: See the dog.
Hearne was not a monster, simply an easy example, and one of many who, though they may give forth on the joys of a relationship between humans and dogs, nonetheless bring their philosophy to life in hurtful and often inhumane ways.
Though we might prefer to think that such incongruency between pretty thoughts and not-so-pretty deeds would be astoundingly evident, the truth is that this uneasy
(though often unremarked) gap between philosophy and practice is all too common. In just a few moments of browsing the selections available at a bookstore, I encountered trainers who assured me that a leash, a collar and a flyswatter were all I really needed to discover the “magic” of dog training; encouraged me to jam my fingers down a puppy’s throat until he gagged on them and thus learned not to indulge in normal puppyhood exploratory biting; earnestly told me how to effectively slap my dog under the chin or throw him to the ground in an imitation (staggeringly inaccurate, I must add) of an “alpha” wolf; how to inflict any of a sad, long list of “training techniques.” And each of these titles also touched on the wonders of the love and fellowship that were possible with a dog. Man’s best friend would do well to mutter, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
Incredibly, such incoherence of philosophy and practice is rarely questioned. Those who can weave a cloak of beautiful thoughts about ugly actions may not only be allowed to proceed without fear of protest, but embraced as a shining light of wisdom. Add a catchy phrase and a cute gimmick, and chances are good no one will notice the dog’s ears flattening on his head in apprehension during training sessions. Smile and chuckle while snapping the dog’s collar harshly, drop some celebrity names and maybe quote a philosopher or two, and it’s a safe bet no one will notice the dog’s tail wagging anxiously between his thighs. Justify your actions with conviction, and no one will appear to question why the trust and joy we would include in our relationships are sometimes little more than words and intent, not action and deed, and certainly not evident in a dog’s eyes. The emperor not only has new clothes, he may also be working on a new career as a dog trainer.
In our minds, we can pity Black Beauty, be moved to tears by the poetry in a dog’s soul, and yet still ask the question, “How hard do you hit the dog?” Coherence seems a rare thing, and the human mind is sometimes quite careless about insisting on it. In the long run, however, I think our lack of coherence eats at us, undermines the sureness with which we know our own minds, and thus blocks us from knowing our souls. We may choose to glide unthinking on the surface of our relationships, never asking how it is that we actually practice the art of loving friendship. But always, silently, our dogs remind us that our intellectual honesty and spiritual integrity depend upon our willingness to question and thus defend against the inevitable cruelties small and large that accompany a philosophy at odds with its practice.
BE NICE TO THE DOGGY
Once upon a time, most of us reached with chubby toddler hands for a dog and heard a cautionary, “Be nice to the doggy.” At a tender age, we learn to touch animals softly, with respect, and not to pinch, pull, prod, twist, poke, slap, punch or bite them. No healthy, normal adult would encourage a child to hurt an animal. Instead, part of our education as children is a compassionate, gentle approach that emphasizes the development of empathy and respectful caretaking of the creatures around us. In fact, research into the psychology of criminal behavior and interpersonal violence has proven a disturbing connection between animal abuse and violent human behavior: cruelty to or abuse of animals is seen quite rightfully as a warning sign that something is very wrong. Children who abuse or mistreat animals are not considered dog trainers in the making but troubled people in need of therapy and intervention.
But these warnings only seem to apply to children, not to the adults who employ punitive, cruel techniques in the name of training. Without risk of being considered a psychologically disturbed individual, you can “train” a dog using any number of techniques: slap him; slam him; push, pull or pinch him; choke him and drag him and so on. And that’s for the good dogs who aren’t stupid enough to think about fighting back.
Should a dog actually protest such treatment, he’ll encounter a whole new set of horrors, such as the trainer willing to “string a dog up” so that the dog dangles and chokes in midair at the end of the leash until he’s reached the appropriate state that trainer Bill Koehler (whose techniques Hearne unabashedly champions throughout Adam’s Task) describes thus: “physically incapable of expressing his resentment… .” Koehler does note that “the sight of a dog lying, thick tongued, on his side, is not pleasant, but do not let it alarm you.” Of course not. That the dog is vomiting and staggering (as Koehler indicates he might) after such training is to be expected, right? To be fair, Koehler cautions that such training is not appropriate for all dogs, just the dog who is a “real hood”—the type of dog who has the audacity to “express his resentment by biting.”
It would seem fairly obvious that a philosophy that would admit such techniques is not one that is concerned with the relationship, or is at best Machiavellian in its defense that the ends justify the means. What is not so obvious is how humane, caring people nonetheless end up employing such techniques. Uncomfortable though it may be, our growth as human beings requires that we examine the ways in which we justify our sometimes inhumane actions and our very human tendencies to accept an authority beyond our own hearts. Unless we are willing to learn to see cruelty in all its many disguises, we cannot create a philosophy that protects against it.
NO APOLOGIES NEEDED
How do we define cruelty? Cruelty may be a good deal like obscenity—tricky to define, and to some extent, existing largely in the eyes (and heart) of the beholder. One trainer may view certain training techniques as nothing more than what Koehler calls “the necessity of stern measures” while another trainer may view those same techniques as abusive and inhumane. How then to define what is cruel? Frank Ascione, a respected authority on the connection between animal abuse and domestic violence, offers this definition of cruelty: “socially unacceptable behavior that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or death of an animal.”
At first glance, this seems reasonable. Our eye falls on the words pain, suffering, distress, death, and we readily agree anything that might cause such would indeed constitute cruelty. But in this phrase—socially unacceptable behavior—and with these two words—intentionally and unnecessary—Ascione leaves unspoken volumes for us to wrestle with in our individual consciences and in our larger collective conscience as a society. Implied is the notion that there may exist socially acceptable behavior that out of necessity, intentionally causes pain, suffering, distress or even death. And he is right.
It is socially acceptable behavior in our neck of the woods for our local butcher to calmly place a bullet deep in a cow’s brain so that the animal does not even blink or take another breath before dying unaware, a last mouthful of grain still held in its jaws, though my guests eagerly reaching for another serving of pot roast do not like to think of this. In most Western countries, it is socially acceptable for a veterinarian to kill an animal in the name of mercy (whether merciful relief from terminal illness or simply being unwanted), or to perform procedures that may cause pain or suffering but with the goal of helping and healing. And though the tide is slowly turning toward gentler techniques, it remains socially acceptable behavior to use even considerable force to train dogs, to employ techniques that without question can and do cause both pain and suffering.
When we take off our blinders and peer closely at this line between acceptable behavior that causes an animal pain or suffering and unacceptable behavior that has the same effect, we see that it is not a clear, hard line. We can see situations in which compulsion might be well justified, and yet still others where the use of force is inhumane. Though we might like to try to fix this line firmly so that we know just what to do or not to do if we wish to stand on the side of fairness and humane treatment of others, the line does not yield to such definition. If we tread in the delicate territory close to the line, as we almost cannot help doing if we try to be responsible dog owners, we must be willing to question every step we take and put a foot down only when we are sure we know on which side of the line we will end up.
At one level, a commonsense rule of thumb may be helpful. A humane approach rarely has to be explained o
r defended to even the most uniformed passerby. No apologies are needed for treating anyone kindly, compassionately and fairly. Cruelty and approaches that give the appearance of cruelty often need to be defended. But the ground covered between cruel and kind is vast, and it does not yield to tidy delineation of which land belongs to which camp. There are humane actions that may appear to the uninitiated as cruel. On the other hand, it is possible to be so “kind” as to be cruel, ultimately creating the same effect as outright and deliberate abuse. A more comprehensive definition is needed.
In his book Creating Love, John Bradshaw offers a definition of violence against another. Though he is discussing people, his words hold a great deal of truth for animals as well: “I consider anything that violates a person’s sense of self to be violence. Such actions may not be directly physical… though it quite often is. In my definition, violence occurs when a more powerful and knowledgeable person destroys the freedom of a less powerful person for whom he or she is significant.”
Bradshaw goes on to describe other, less-obvious forms of violence toward children, many of which are also found in our relationships with both animals and other adults:
cause them to witness any form of physical violence, not protect them from bullies, desert them emotionally… refuse to set limits, use them to supply your own need to be admired and respected, use them to take away your own disappointment and sadness by demanding that they perform, achieve, be beautiful, be athletic, be smart, etc… . use them as a scapegoat for your anger and shame, refuse to resolve your own unresolved issues from the past.