Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs Read online

  our question or comment, or allow them to finish before asking for their attention. We understand that they are not "with" us. If we don't realize that they are busy-or worse yet, assume that they are deliberately ignoring us-we can feel both hurt and angry when we receive no response. They in turn can get angry with us, and rightfully so, for our rude insistence that they abandon whatever they were working on and turn their attention to us. Yet we routinely ignore our dogs when they tell us that they are busy. I am not saying that you should stand there helplessly waiting until your dog decides he is finished watching squirrels or whatever. I am saying that you need to respect the reality that your direction or command or request may not even have been perceived. Our response to being ignored should not be the same as our response to not being heard. In order to communicate to the dog what you would have him understand, you have to find a way past his focus on something else and turn it back to you. And at a very fundamental level, the dog's disengagement from you speaks to a quality of connection that may need some work. But using force to ask for a dog's attention (unless it is a matter of life and death) is just as insane as slapping someone upside the head because he did not respond to you while his focus was elsewhere. Dogs must wonder at our sudden and unpredictable violence toward them-I do not know how else they could possibly perceive our actions. That the dog is too engrossed to hear you is meaningful information. A fair response is to take note of that situation and try modifying it a bit. In Angel's case, having the turkeys less than ten feet away was simply too much-he could not pay attention to me and to them at the same time. Like Edison's comment after yet another failed attempt to create a filament combination �now we know ninety-nine ways not to make a lightbulb" I had some useful information that I could apply at the next opportunity. This was not a matter of defiance by the dog, just fascination with the largest birds he'd ever come nose-to-nose with in his life. Think about a four- or five-year-old child meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time- would you have their full attention, or might you find yourself peripheral to their wide-eyed, openmouthed wonder at coming face to face with an

  eight-foot-tall mouse? We sometimes forget just how amazing the world can be to creatures who live fully in the moment instead of "maturely" dismissing an experience with a superficial assessment as we often do. (it is sad that maturity sometimes leads us not into a greater depth of experience and more intense enjoyment of our world but rather to an apathetic belief that we've already been there and done that.) Angel's owner Kate was not immersed in the full experience of what turkeys looked like or sounded like or smelled like or how they moved or how their feathers gleamed in the sunlight or how their wattles changed colors with shifts in their emotional states. But Angel himself was drinking it all in, every sense at work. While such intense focus may interfere with our plans or goals, we might do well to join our dogs from time to time in watching the world with some genuine wonder in our eyes and hearts. Knowing that Angel was deeply aware of turkeys and little more, I became a bit more insistent with little tugs on the leash, gentle taps on the head with a fingertip or a ruffling of his fur on his rump-anything to get his attention so that we could retreat, together, to a distance where Angel was both able to watch the turkeys and respond to me. The quality and intent of my touches and voice were exactly the same as if I'd been trying to get a human friend to shift attention back to me and away from something fascinating; persistence was part of it, but not pain or even irritation. All I wanted was to get through to him, just as a person might tap your arm repeatedly until the signal actually registered on you. I was looking for the same thing I'd be looking forwitha human friend-a shift of the eyes toward me, even momentarily, or a head or body turn toward me even though the eyes might remain focused on the attraction. Both would indicate the beginnings of a shift away from the attraction and back to me. I knew that the split second Angel gave me his attention, I had to make it crystal clear in word and deed that I was thrilled with that response. I also had to try to be more interesting than six turkeys, no mean feat since I'm lacking tail feathers and wings and my wattles aren't nearly as red or obvious. It took a few tries, but I did get Angel's attention back on me, and we quickly retreated to a turkey-free zone to give Angel

  a break and to discuss with Kate what was happening. As I suspected, she was a bit confused about why I even allowed Angel to look at the turkeys, why I hadn't "corrected" him for ignoring me and how on earth I thought this was helpful in any way. Before coming to see me, Kate had (unsuccessfully) tried an approach recommended by another trainer, one that insisted that Angel look only at her and ignore everything around him. In theory, this is the establishment of incompatible behaviors, an approach that at least on paper seems reasonable: A dog engaged in behavior X cannot also be engaged in behavior Y. In practice, establishing incompatible behaviors can be a very effective resolution to some behavior problems. For example, a dog who is trained to run to a special place in the kitchen when the doorbell rings and wait for a delicious treat cannot also be bouncing off the front door and threatening to eat a delivery person. A person who is exercising at the gym can't also be home eating a pint of ice cream. But the use of incompatible or competing behaviors works best when the behavior that is substituted for the undesirable behavior makes it literally (through proximity or posture) impossible for the dog to engage in the unwanted behavior. For dogs like Angel, trainers sometimes try to apply this same theory like so: A dog cannot remain totally focused on his handler and do anything else at the same time. In reality, this is not exactly true, and such an approach does not work for all dogs. A dog is quite capable of learning to keep his face and eyes oriented on the handler while still listening to or even smelling what's going on around him. Couldn't you? Try this for a moment-look up from this book and make eye contact with someone else or a little imaginary friend. Give the complete impression that you are doing nothing but focusing on that person. But while you're doing that, really bring your attention to whether or not you can wiggle each individual toe. Keeping your eyes on someone's face is not synonymous with being focused on them, is it? The average human being is quite capable of appearing to be engaged in listening to someone else while miles away in their minds, thinking about the existence of the Holy Grail or the speed of an African swallow or where to find the perfect shrubbery. Dogs can figure this one out too, and they do. I've watched many dogs dutifully keeping their eyes fixed on the handler's face as expected, but their ears were swiveling around, picking up all kinds of information, and their noses were busy sorting out even more- all of this stimuli making its way into the dog's mind even though his eyes never left the handler's face. It's a rather insulting assumption on a trainer's part that a dog is incapable of directing his attention as he pleases. From a purely philosophical point of view, I have trouble with this concept of asking a dog to act as if the world has evaporated around him. It seems insulting to me to insist to an animal-or anyone for that matter-that he should ignore what his senses tell him and just pretend everything is fine. This is particularly true when a dog's attention is fearful, though Angel's was not. As trainer Turid Rugaas says, "If you've seen a green slimy monster in the corner, you're going to have a hard time pretending there's no green slimy monster in the corner." In our loving human relationships, we do not discount others' experiences of the world but instead seek to understand them and perhaps even join them in their point of view. We may not always share their point of view or their fears or their concerns, but if we love them, we deeply respect their reality. When Mom agreed to leave the light on in the hall, it probably wasn't because she was afraid of the dark. There is nothing inherently wrong with a dog watching the world and what's going on. The world can be a very interesting place, and we'd be more than a little foolish (or rigidly controlling) to ask any intelligent animal to pretend otherwise. There is nothing wrong with a dog watching turkeys or anything else with interest. The world is an intriguing adventure for any intelligent, aware being. There's an ol
d joke about a man who cannot help noticing beautiful women; the punch line is "I'm married, not blind." A dog ought to remain a dog. If truly connected to his people and in control of the impulses that turkeys and other amazements might inspire, a dog need not be blind to the world around him. And if not deeply connected, if not in control of his impulses, the blame can be laid at the feet of the people involved, not at the dog's paws. If the dog's behavior steps past alert curiosity and interest in his world and becomes annoying, frightening, threatening, fearful or even dangerous, there is a problem that needs to be dealt with at a very fundamental level of the relationship. But the answer is not to deny the dog his dogness or to make him completely dependent upon his handler. A handler who insists that the dog ignore the world is one who is afraid of losing control of the dog, just as the woman who elbows her husband in the ribs for noticing a beautiful woman is afraid and uncertain about the relationship and herself. And always in the face of such fearful need to control, I am reminded of Erik Erikson's provocative question, "Why do we think the face has turned away that only looked elsewhere?" Unable to detect the difference between interest and serious intent, some handlers set up a rigid system of prevention that does not stretch their understanding but simply limits the dog. A dog who is systematically trained to ignore his world is a fur-clad robot, not a living being. Additionally, this approach gives the animal no coping skills, no new or improved way of dealing with the situation. It does make the dog totally reliant on his handler in what I think is an unhealthy way that smacks of the handler's desire to control the animal's behavior instead of educating them so that they can deal with the world. A more loving, relationship-based approach would be to educate the animal, help him find healthy, productive responses to the world around him, to eliminate or at least minimize his fears-not to offer him temporary fixes or an ostrich-sticking-his-head-in-the-sand approach. yes, but . .. Taking advantage of physiological facts, it seemed to me a much fairer and, in the long run, more productive approach to help Angel find another way to deal with things he found of considerable interest. Knowing that the longer he stared at the birds, the more likely he was to escalate on the arousal scale until he perhaps lost control of himself, we began to encourage and reinforce any shift in Angel's attention away from the birds. Initially, we prompted this behavior simply by having Kate walk away. In order to rival the fascination of turkeys, she had to dance, stomp and holler as she departed, but Angel did glance over his shoulder to see where she was going-a good sign. It took a fair amount to get him to voluntarily shift his attention away from the birds, but we made sure it was worth his while with lots of praise and treats. Each time he glanced back, the fixation cycle was broken for the moment. At every step, Angel was learning that he could watch the turkeys and keep an ear out for Kate as well. We didn't want a robot who somehow felt it was bad to watch turkeys. What we were working toward was a dog who would be able to watch the world with curiosity and interest, but also remain connected to his owner, able and ready to respond to her should she ask for his full attention. We worked on this for quite a while, and though I was pleased with Angel's progress, Kate remained unconvinced and unimpressed. Though willing to concede that he was behaving remarkably well, she felt this was due in no small part to the fact that turkeys were not normally a part of Angel's world. What excited Angel beyond control in his everyday world were other dogs racing around and acting wild. In that situation, she noted, he would not be behaving as well, and I'd really get to see what she meant and just how crazy Angel could become. I could not get through to her the idea that whatever the trigger, a high level of arousal was a high level of arousal, and the approach and philosophy would be the same. And so, in an attempt to create a scenario that Kate felt would bring out the worst in Angel, I had John let all of our dogs out into their fenced yard. As expected and desired, there was a chorus of warning barks from my dogs when they spotted me with Angel on the lawn, and Angel responded with a surge of excitement. But our work with the turkeys had paid off; he was able and willing to remain connected to me, sitting quietly when I asked and watching the dogs with interest but nothing more. I was delighted with his progress, so when I turned to look at Kate, her frown surprised me. I asked if she didn't think this represented progress, and in her response, I could hear her still struggling to accept the concept of the quality of connection as the all-important foundation. Interestingly, she was more intent on finding excuses for why he was not behaving badly rather than embracing the positive changes before her: "Yes, but they're not all revved up. Even though they're barking, they're not racing around really excited and playing. That's what really sets him off- Looking at Angel, who looked right back at me, I realized for the millionth time