Bones Would Rain from the Sky Page 6
I reminded her that precisely that approach had led to this dog biting people. “There is no point in winning a battle but losing the war. This dog no longer trusts that anyone hears him when he says no, and so he’s ready for a fight. I don’t want to fight with him. If I’m going to help him, I need him to cooperate with me. He’s got to do it willingly, freely and with trust that I will respect what he tells me. And he is cooperating—he’s just not ready to cooperate in that particular spot just yet.”
As I said this, we approached the same spot where Hobbs had balked a few minutes earlier. For whatever reason, he stopped again and looked at me. I asked him to go forward, but he did not move. For a long moment, he stood there looking at me. I waited, watching for the signs that he had reached a sticking point. But they never came. The dog took a deep breath, and when I asked one more time, he stepped forward past that mysteriously difficult place and we went on, together.
For the next hour, each time we found a point where Hobbs told me he could not go on, I listened. We changed direction, we did less, we tried again. There was a dance between us now, the dog and I, and he had given me the lead. I did not step on his toes in any way. He was soft in my hands, so that a mere flutter of a finger on the lead became a meaningful signal. He was soft in his mind, and it showed in his eyes; the distrust slowly gave way to a cautious belief that I was listening. Soft in his heart, Hobbs gave me all that I asked for. I cannot say where we went or precisely what we did. The world had slid away, and this little black-and-white dog was all I could see or hear.
The client spoke up, startling me since I had nearly forgotten she was there. “I can’t believe he hasn’t bitten you yet.” I did not know whether to laugh or cry. I tried to explain to her that I had given this dog no reason to bite me, that by listening to his quiet signals of protest and refusal, he never felt the need to make his point with his teeth.
There was no instant cure for this dog. Teaching him trust and learning to read his subtle warning signals would take time, I told his owner. “This is not an easy dog,” I reminded her, “but he will teach you a great deal.” In her eyes, I saw a quickening of hope and a fierce determination, and I knew that she would find a way to this dog’s heart and mind.
A year later, I received a Christmas card with a photo of Hobbs that I treasure as a reminder of our wonderful dance. To anyone who does not know the whole story, it seems an insignificant though cute picture of a black-and-white dog perched in a pet store Santa’s lap. But I remember the first steps that started Hobbs and his owner on the journey to that happy moment, just as I remember my own journey that led me to this place, with this dog, and this dance.
LISTENING FOR THE MUSIC
Learning to find the dance that is possible within a relationship is not simply a matter of hope or desire. It is a journey of a lifetime. In order to develop profound and intimate relationships with animals, we begin with a shift in our awareness. When we open ourselves to believe that the dance exists, that there is new music that our souls might dance to, we have taken that first, important step. From that moment on, moving forward in our journey means that we need to learn new ways of thinking and behaving while at the same time we sort through, question and perhaps discard the old beliefs that once shaped our thinking and informed our actions. Philosophically speaking, in opening ourselves to new possibilities, we put on our dancing shoes.
More than a little stands between us and the joy of mutual connection. The scientific approach so favored by the Western mind insists that we view the dog as an intelligent creature whose behavior is merely the result of either instinct or conditioned responses (like Pavlov’s dogs drooling in response to a bell). There is a powerful taboo that insists we not anthropomorphize, or assign human features or characteristics to something nonhuman like a dog. While appreciative of the dangers of anthropomorphizing, I have never understood why the Western mind works so hard to maintain this distance between us and the natural world. I have often wondered, How am I made any less human or my dog any less canine if I am willing to grant that animals feel pain, joy, grief, love, anger, loyalty and more? Respected anthropologist Franz de Waal, writing in Natural History Magazine, points out that this taboo is a terribly lopsided one. While it is acceptable to use words like enemy, hate and rage when describing animal behavior, it is not acceptable to say friend, love or grief. While we are all too willing to share the uglier side of emotional life with the animals, we’d like to reserve the really good stuff for ourselves. Even the rules of correct grammar dictate that it is never an animal who behaves but rather an animal that behaves—a rule that is deliberately broken throughout this book to continually underline the idea that a dog is someone who, not something that. We hold ourselves above them as if something dreadful might happen if we allow ourselves to embrace the notion that perhaps the dog lying at our feet chewing on a tennis ball is also a sentient being with feelings and emotions and thoughts and humor and language and loves and fears and creativity, and we may choke hard on the idea of the dog as a spiritual being. Of course, that something dreadful is just this: If our dogs do feel and think and reason (though not as incomplete versions of us but as fully splendid versions of themselves), then we’d best think long and hard about how we’ve been treating man’s best friend.
To be sure, there is a very real danger when we see our dogs as merely little people in fur coats. When we do this, we cannot see past our projections to the real animal that stands before us. Not only does this inevitably limit the full expression of that animal’s life, it also under mines our relationship with that animal. When we cannot see an animal or anyone as they really are, we are bound to be disappointed. We are also bound to act in cruel ways. Think of the grief created by the mother who sees her son as she chooses to see him—a future doctor—when the reality is that her son wants to be a baker. Our dogs cannot be little people in fur coats, nor should they be asked to be. The glory of any relationship is not in finding ways to shape the other to suit our needs, but rather in celebrating the fullness of who they are.
In accepting the view of the dog as an attractively packaged, user-friendly blend of instinct and conditioned responses, we put on blinders that work to exclude anything that does not fit neatly within that explanatory framework or that cannot be “proven” via scientific method. Even the great scientist Albert Einstein pointed out, “Everything that can be counted doesn’t necessarily count; everything that counts can’t necessarily be counted.”
If we cling to a stubbornly Western notion of animals, we may deny the mystery and beauty of what we experience in our daily lives with animals and build barriers that keep us from what is possible in deeper levels of relationship. It is sobering to remember that until relatively recently, the mute or deaf among us were considered inferior in countless ways simply because they could not share the largely verbal language that we use. What makes Helen Keller’s story so timelessly compelling is that one person, Anne Sullivan, was able to reach past the known and embrace the possibility that within the damaged physical shell of a blind, deaf and mute child, there was nonetheless a mind and a heart as fully human as her own. In that simple but profound perceptual shift, Anne Sullivan was indeed a miracle worker who opened the floodgates of possibility. To explore the possibilities, we must be willing to shift our view to include dogs as thinking, feeling beings who—while vastly different from us—are very much like us in many ways. In the shift to a view of the dog as a thinking, feeling being, we open floodgates of our own.
The technicalities and mechanics of behavior and training are useful and valuable to our understanding of dogs, and I urge all readers to educate themselves continually. As Goethe noted, “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” Limited knowledge means limited choices and limited expression. Every artist, every craftsman, every practitioner of an art (such as animal training) strives to master the tools of their trade for one reason: to allow the full, clear expression of their heart to shine t
hrough. To long to express one thing but actually create another, lesser or incomplete thing is a terrible thing to the soul.
Still, it is good to balance knowledge with the reminder that the Western mind’s rigidly scientific approach to animals is a recent development in the long history of man and dog. Long before learning theories and jargon such as positive reinforcement or stimulus control crept into the world of dog training, long before Skinner ran a single rat through a maze, men and dogs had found ways to dance together. Science cannot explain the beauty and mysteries that deeply move us. It cannot explain the power of a dog’s head laid on our knee, or why a man might lay down his life for a friend, or even why we love as we do. Nonetheless, even scientists fall in love, and it is said that some even talk to their dogs.
An intellectual understanding of canine psychology, behavior, learning theories and more is helpful and sometimes necessary. By degrees, our knowledge combines with what our hearts tell us, and we move forward in our search for a way to dance with our dogs. To learn to dance with a dog or any other being, the desire must come from within, from your heart. In our search for deeper, more meaningful relationships, we must be careful to recognize that while knowledge is helpful, it can also be limiting, serving to block our view of what is possible, weighing us down so that we cannot move lightly without stumbling. A dancer who concentrates on technicalities may forget to hear the music.
ON THE WAY TO THE DANCE
As already noted, finding your way to the dance is not simply a matter of making the right turn somewhere in childhood or when you first acquire a dog. In one way or another, and most often without meaning to, we will stumble against the realization that there are levels of relationship. This is something we already know from our human experience. From the intense bond of parent-child to the very casual one of, say, that with your local dry cleaner, we understand that there is a wide range of possibilities encompassed by the word relationship. As we mature and learn more about ourselves and develop greater awareness, we come to understand that even within a single relationship, there are levels, beautifully explained by Stephen Sloane in his brilliant essay “Spirit of Harmony,” which appeared in Equus magazine in July 1995.
The first level is what Sloane calls the “mechanical” or technical level of relationship. At this level, the relationship between man and dog is a matter of mechanics: You apply the stimulus, the dog responds. The relative simplicity of this level is best exemplified by Gary Larson’s cartoon showing two amoebas, one complaining to the other, “It’s always the same old thing—stimulus, response, stimulus, response.” Though simplistic when placed in the context of a relationship, this mechanical approach can be used to train an animal to perform quite complex tasks. Problems are solved mechanically, often through the use of force. If the dog won’t do x, y or z, you make him. The dog won’t sit? Push down on his rear and pull up on his collar until he does sit. The puppy bucks and pulls when the collar and leash are put on? Tie him to a doorknob and let him fight it out there.
Recipes are not only possible but quite popular at this level. To be sure, if the recipe is a good one, a large percentage of dogs will respond nicely, especially when such a recipe is applied by an expert hand. With a high degree of skill and a thorough understanding of learning principles, a trainer may never move past this purely technical level yet still be very successful (assuming that success is measured solely by the animal responding in the desired way). It is also possible to be technically proficient and yet fail at a deep, soulful level. Notable in its absence at this level is a sense of partnership—the animal is little more than a living, breathing machine, though he may be taken care of diligently. Technical proficiency is a dispassionate thing, though it may be admired for what it is—competent workmanship. My view of relationships is that they are living works of art. And so when I consider the purely mechanical as the basis for a relationship, what rings true are the same four words considered the most damning commentary on any work of art: “It has no heart.”
The leap from the mechanical level to the next level, what Sloane calls the “motivational” or psychological level, is a fairly easy one, requiring only that you become curious about why an animal will or will not do something. Motivation is defined as “the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action.” In trying to understand what motivates the dog, you begin to learn more about him. At the mechanical level, the question is how to make the dog do what you want him to do. At the motivational level of relationship, you are trying to figure out how you can make the dog want to do what you want him to do. The trick is to discover in what way (or ways) your dog is motivated to act as you’d like him to. There are many ways to motivate a dog: food rewards, toys, play, freedom, praise, attention.
That sounds good and pleasant, doesn’t it? When we think of motivational, we often make this word synonymous in our minds with a pleasant, happy approach. But there are other, darker ways to motivate. Waving cash in someone’s face may be a good way to motivate them (if cash is a meaningful reward for them); waving a gun in their face is also motivational. A dog may be motivated pleasurably or through pain, fear and deprivation. Pain is delivered in any number of ways: collar “corrections,” remote-control shock collars and, of course, the human hand. Fear is another great motivator, and it is possible to make a dog more afraid of one thing than another. For example, a dog may break his sit stay because he’s afraid of being left by his owner. If the owner dashes back, shouting imprecations, and shakes the dog to “correct” him, the dog can quickly learn to be more afraid of the consequences of getting up than of being left behind. Deprivation of food, social interaction and even water are also used in dog training. Though depriving a dog of water is rare, social deprivation is not. A hungry, thirsty or lonely dog is “highly motivated” to please the person who controls these critical resources. Take great care to find out what the motivation actually is when someone claims to be a motivational trainer, and be sure to carefully consider just how your dog is being motivated in any situation.
It is possible to progress no further than the motivational phase and have a good relationship with a dog, especially if there are no real conflicts and the level of achievement is agreeable to the trainer. If through motivation you can get where you want to go, why go any further? Understanding how to motivate a dog (through pleasant or unpleasant means) can result in successful training, though not always in a great relationship. If the motivation used is largely positive (i.e., reward-based training), it is also possible to be quite humane.
Many training problems can be resolved when the training shifts to a purely motivational level. But not all problems will yield to a romping game of ball or a fistful of tasty treats. While Wendy was able to improve much of Chance’s performance in training when she incorporated food rewards, his bolting behavior could not be altered by this approach. And as Chance proved, new problems may arise from the training technique itself if pain, fear, and/or deprivation are used as motivation. While the motivational level offered Wendy some answers, there were other questions that could not be satisfied because the answers did not lie in technique but in the dynamics of two hearts in relationship. Like Wendy, many dog lovers go just this far and, failing to find the answers they long for, assume that there is nowhere else to go. As Wendy nearly did, many resign themselves to making the best of what they have been able to achieve.
The motivational or psychological level is where I got stuck as a trainer for so many years. It was easy enough to do, especially when the majority of dogs I worked with were successful and happy in their training. Two things kept me searching for something more. The first was that I knew something more was possible. There was no denying the beauty and joy of what I experienced with my animals. Though I did not yet know of Sloane’s essay on levels of relationship, what I was experiencing in those lovely moments was the third level, and I wanted more of that experience. The other driving force of my search for more (that indefinable thing!)
were the dogs that I could not reach and the dogs who only partially succeeded. While it would have been easy to blame the dogs or their owners for the failures or incomplete successes, it would not have been honest or fair. Nor would I have been motivated to continue my search. The sense that I could help these dogs if only I knew another way nagged at my heart, and it still does. If I could go back in time and bring with me what I have learned, I would go to these dogs and apologize for what I did not know, and ask for a chance to try again.
What I found that cold morning in Maryland as I watched a woman and a horse was what I wanted: the dance. The true dance of relationship is possible only at the third level, what Sloane terms the “spiritual” level. Here, the focus shifts from how to make the dog do something or how to make the dog want to do something, and the question becomes, “How do we accomplish this together?” Such a simple question, but to even ask it, we have to make a profound shift within ourselves.
Remember the trainer’s advice to me? “Learn to train without ego.” Moving to this third level, the spiritual level, requires that we are willing to set aside our egos and let the relationship between us and the animal take center stage. The focus is no longer solely on the dog, but on the partnership between us, and on us as partners in this dance. At times, I think of this level as the Snow White phase, because once you reach it, you spend a lot of time saying, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall… .” This level requires a willingness to look honestly at ourselves and at our motivations—and to look again and again. It is not always a pretty picture we see before us. Staring at the uglier wrinkles in your soul, you’ll realize that some hard work with fresh crayons is called for, because the map of the world that you’ve lived by is going to need to be redrawn. (I’ll concede that perhaps your map needs only minor revisions; mine has needed entire new editions on a regular basis.) It is not easy work, but this is where the dance truly begins. I do not know if it’s possible to live completely at this level, but I hope so. I keep trying, mirror and crayons at the ready.