Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs (11 page)

I decided that I'd take him toward the barn. Our
cattle, chickens, pig, cats and horses
provide excellent distractions for most dogs. In
the absence of competition for the dog's attention, I can
only teach so much. To teach a dog to stay connected with
me even in the face of distractions requires
distractions. Most of the animals who have been with me
for a while seem to understand their role as teachers, and they
modify their behavior in fascinating ways
that I interpret as the assistance of colleagues.
(although the majority of my animals have proven
themselves excellent fellow teachers, I must confess that
goats may be the animals voted as most likely
to tease a student as teach them. One of my goats
could be extraordinarily helpful in certain training
situations, but at
times, she also seemed unable to resist the
opportunity to tweak a dog's mind. I once had
a college professor a lot like that. . . . were
As we walked, I was planning just where and how I'd
introduce Angel to the various animals. The
chickens offer a lot of movement but no
interaction-they simply pay no attention to dogs
unless directly chased, something Angel would have no
opportunity to do. Since they can be counted on
to move in their brisk scratch-and-peck way I can
choose the appropriate distance and let the dog begin
to learn how to think even in the presence of something as
intriguing as a hen or rooster. After the chickens,
I would have to decide whether it was a good time to meet the
cows or go face-to-face with a pig. Have to play it
by ear, I told myself. (charlotte, the pig, is
an intense interaction, her sheer bulk and fearlessness
a nice counterpoint for dogs who've begun
to believe that they are the biggest, baddest thing on the
block. One look at a pig towering more than five
feet above them has put more than one dog into a new
frame of mind. It's not possible to tell a dog that
no pig on earth is actually that tall, no way
to explain that Charlotte's standing on her hind legs
and balancing on her stall door. But sometimes, I
think even if I could
pass that information along, I might choose not to and
let the educational value of seeing the world's largest
pig work its magic.)
As we rounded the corner of the drive toward the barn,
I realized that in my consideration of how best to use the
various farm animals on Angel's behalf,
I'd forgotten the turkeys. This, I realized with a
silent groan, could be a problem. These turkeys
are confident beasts. Endlessly interested in whatever
is happening on the farm, it is sometimes difficult
to accomplish anything without the "help" of the turkeys.
Their active involvement is not always entirely
welcome, and occasionally worrisome, like the day John
was walking into the barn and a turkey carrying a
screwdriver walked past him on the way out of the
barn. (we're still wondering how the bird
got the tool, if he knew how to use it and what
he was planning to do.) Exposed since their arrival
as day-old chicks to our dogs, they have no fear of
dogs. If anything, our turkeys find dogs
fascinating, and approach a new dog with interest and
an evil glint in their eyes. A rudely inquiring
dog nose receives a sharp peck from their strong beaks,
and on more than one occasion, a gang of six or more
turkeys have surrounded a dog like
street toughs surrounding an old woman-with bad
intent and a possible mugging in mind.
And now, here they came to help me as I worked with
Angel. I knew the turkeys would carefully
size up the dog before approaching, keeping their distance
unless they felt they could intimidate or safely
ignore him. It was endlessly fascinating to me how
quickly and accurately these birds assessed every dog
they met. I knew the turkeys would keep themselves
safe, but I was not sure what Angel would do.
Keeping an eye on the turkeys and the dog, I
reminded myself to stay soft and breathe and wait to see
what the dog would do. Although relaxed, I was ready
to deal with what might happen if I had misjudged
the situation-I'd have no choice but
to simply restrain the dog and steer him to a
turkey-free zone where we could start again.
It was quite a scene. Angel stood frozen in his
tracks, a wide-eyed statue of a dog, as six
turkeys strutted toward him, looking like poster children
for some vaguely evil Thanksgiving festival.
At that moment, the ten minutes spent insisting that
Angel be with me as we walked paid off. I called
his name; he turned toward me; and though still fascinated
by the turkeys, he came with me as we moved away.
While I was busy telling him what a great dog
he was, the turkeys moved a little closer, so that
when we turned back to them, I discovered to my dismay
that the gap had been closed a bit.
Though understandably interested in the birds, Angel was
not bouncing around or barking. A casual observer who
did not understand canine body language might even
have assessed him as standing calmly and just watching. But
in the stillness of his body (rigidity
might be a better word) and the intense pricking of his
ears and his fixed stare, I could readjust how
excited the dog really was. He was internally
primed to a high degree, a missile that has been
switched on and armed but not yet fired. Now
was when I needed to ask him to remain connected with me;
waiting until he had exploded was far too late.
I called his name, watching for the sign that every dog
gives that he has heard you. There almost always is
one-whether it's a slight turn of the head, an ear
flicking back in your direction, a lightning-fast
eye movement or a slight tail wag- and it is
sometimes easily missed. But it's almost always there.
When Angel showed no sign of being able to hear me,
I knew that we were in
the danger zone where our connection was broken, so that
nothing I said or did would be of help or direction
to him.
In such situations, I feel it is critically
important to be fair to the dog. I could easily
have pulled Angel off his feet with one well-timed
jerk of the leash-he was so deeply focused on the
turkeys that nothing in his body would have prepared him for
that. Just such techniques are employed every day
by trainers intent on teaching the dog to pay attention
to them
no matter what.
Some even add insult to injury by sweetly inquiring
in a cheerful tone, "Oh, what happened? were you not
paying attention?" after jerking the dog off his
feet. But what would that really teach Angel except
that I might without warning inflict pain on him? It
might teach him that paying attention to me no matter
what was a good idea since evidently I was
psychotic and not to be trusted, a lesson that
decidedly would not deepen our relationship. It
certainly would not increase the dog's understanding that we were
in this together, and that together, we would find a way to deal with
whatever situations arose. Everything in the dog's
behavior told me that he was truly unaware that I
had asked for his attention; his focus was completely
on the turkeys. To use force to shift his attention
to me would have been grossly unfair. And it would have
reflected a choice on my part to take the easy
route and not follow the path that led to the quality of
connection I wanted between myself and dog.
i'm sorry-all circuits are busy, please
try again
In a laboratory experiment, a cat was wired with
electrodes that helped researchers see when an
audible signal was received by the brain. When a tone was
played, the cat's brain responded with a blip.
Tone, blip; tone, blip. Then researchers put
a mouse just outside the cat's cage where the cat could
see it but not reach it. They were curious
to see how the brain processed the competing stimuli of
mouse and tone. Their theory was that the brain would
register the tone but that the cat would consciously
disregard this stimulus in favor of the mouse. To their
surprise, when the cat was completely focused on
the mouse, the brain did not register the tone at
all-it was as if the tone had ceased to exist within the
cat's perception of his world. Why they found this
surprising is a mystery to me-I have had innumerable
experiences where I was so focused on a task or so
deep in a book that I failed to hear a phone ring,
a teakettle whistling or even the approach of
another human being. But no one asked me.
It is difficult-if not downright impossible-to
communicate with someone who is not "with" you.
Communication is one of the keystones of a relationship,
but the prerequisite for communication is a state of
connection. When we address another human being, and
we can see that they appear engaged in something-be that the
football game on TV or balancing the
checkbook or getting the decorations on a cake just
right-we have both the courtesy and common sense to repeat

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 old
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