DogTown (28 page)

After two months of training, Scruffy had made enormous progress. He could now enter buildings seemingly without fear. And the key to his progress? Rugs. He’d even been able to use them to enter an entirely new place for him—a car. Michelle laid a row of rugs across the parking lot to her car, and then, using cat food, managed to coax him all the way inside the vehicle. Once inside, Scruffy turned around a couple of times and then exited without panic, a very cool customer indeed. “He made the decision to get into the vehicle on his own, which is what we wanted,” Michelle said. “The more confident he becomes, the less he’ll need to depend on crutches like rugs.”

But for now, the carpets across the parking lot, like a trail of ice floes across the ocean, were a way for a little dog traumatized by a hurricane and his former life in New Orleans to come back to life. Today, Scruffy is still living at Dogtown and working to overcome his fear of new situations. Since his appearance on
DogTown,
there have been many applications to adopt the fluffy golden dog, and Best Friends is working to find the best place to roll out the red carpets for Scruffy.

VIVIAN: RED COLLAR RESCUE

John Garcia and others at Best Friends rescued Vivian in the fall of 2005, during the Katrina operation. Vivian’s history before the storm remained a complete unknown. Unable to locate her family, Dogtown first placed her in a rescue group in New York. There she acted out her fear by showing hostility and aggression toward everyone, even people trying to help her. She would not stop barking and lunging at the enclosure fence when anyone came near. At one point she cornered a caregiver in a dog run, and when the caregiver reached out, Vivian lunged and snapped at him. After two years, the shelter staff felt that they couldn’t give Vivian the help she needed, so they reached out to Best Friends to see if she could have a place at Dogtown. They hoped that the expert staff there could work with Vivian and make some progress on her aggression.

Unlike Scruffy, whose fear manifested itself in less threatening ways, Vivian was an intimidating presence. She was a powerful, medium-size dog, with a heavily muscled chest and shoulders and a squared-off fighting stance. She had a stiff, straight, short-haired tail, and was mostly tan with brushstrokes of white on her chest, throat, feet, and the sides of her face. But there were a few other mysterious genetic ingredients tossed in for good measure. Her body and shoulders resembled those of a Staffordshire terrier (one of the breeds associated with pit bulls), while her large, erect ears looked like a German shepherd’s. Others saw in her a bit of Akita, a Japanese breed that in ancient times was used to hunt bears and later was used as police dogs. Like most of the other dogs that came to Dogtown, the scent trail of Vivian’s exact pedigree had been lost in the swamps of the great canine gene pool.

When Vivian first arrived at Dogtown, the staff there got a firsthand look at her threatening behavior. When anyone approached her run, she quickly bounded up to the fence. Her ears back, her body tense, her tail erect, Vivian would let out a throaty growl before beginning a torrent of barking punctuated with snarls. Lunging at the fence, she was clearly saying, “Stay away from me!” Vivian’s behavior indicated that she needed careful handling. She wore a red collar, signaling that she could be handled only by Dogtown staff.

As with Scruffy, it was impossible to know what terrifying experiences Vivian had lived through on the flooded, putrid streets of New Orleans. But her behavior seemed to say it all. Vivian’s tough act probably had served her well in the past. It had kept frightening strangers and situations away from her. But now it was serving as a barrier to Vivian, keeping her from helpful people and new situations—the kinds of things that would help put her experiences in Louisiana behind her and move on to a happier, more fulfilling life.

Michelle Besmehn was one of the first trainers to begin working with Vivian when she came to Dogtown. Even someone as experienced as Michelle was a little intimidated by Vivian’s show when she first met her in New Orleans: “When I first met Vivian, she was lunging at me through the kennel door, so at first I was a little bit nervous about spending time with her. I wasn’t sure what to expect of her, and I had to really challenge myself to be in the right frame of mind to work with her.”

Michelle knew she was up to the challenge because she could see that underneath all her bluster, Vivian had a lot of potential to be a great dog. As a young person herself, Michelle had been very shy, so she had a special affinity for animals whose overt hostility was actually masking insecurity and fear. Michelle could relate to Vivian’s defense mechanisms. “I don’t think Vivian is a mean dog,” Michelle said. “She just gets insecure in new situations and with new people, and she’s trying to tell people that.”

A STRATEGY FOR VIVIAN

Michelle realized that there was a window of opportunity for training Vivian because she had just arrived in a new, scary situation where she didn’t know anybody and felt doubly insecure. Michelle intended to take advantage of this, using Vivian’s fear to help build a relationship with her.

To start, Michelle began by talking gently and feeding Vivian treats through the fence. Gradually, she taught her to sit in response to her command. Michelle had to be assertive and firm while staying positive, ignoring negative behavior, like Vivian’s barking and lunging, and only rewarding the behavior she wanted.

As Michelle began breaking through Vivian’s wall of hostility, she discovered that Vivian’s personality could sometimes be regal and stand-offish, and then at other times goofy and puppyish. Vivian had to be completely at ease to reveal these sides of her personality, so most casual observers didn’t get to see them. To most new people, she remained aggressive and hostile—but it was just a front.

Growling and barking, Michelle said, are two forms of communication—two ways for dogs to say they are uncomfortable with a situation. They are also warnings, a way for a dog to say, “Get away. I’m uncomfortable with you being that close, and if you don’t get back, I’ll bite.” Michelle’s goal was to make Vivian feel comfortable with new people and new situations, so that she wouldn’t need to use those forms of communication.

As the relationship between Michelle and Vivian began to deepen, Michelle was able to slowly and carefully expose the dog to new things. The treats allowed Michelle to earn enough trust to safely enter Vivian’s run (although there still were occasions when Vivian would stiffen and seem unsure when Michelle entered her run, perhaps as a prelude to biting; Michelle would have to force herself to stay calm and wait for Vivian to relax). Eventually Michelle could slip a leash over Vivian’s head and take her for walks. Vivian began to see Michelle as the person who gave her good things, including treats and walks. Michelle discovered that Vivian loved toys, and she’d sometimes pick up a toy and throw it toward Vivian, to help the big dog relax—as if to call out Vivian’s inner puppy. Only then could Michelle get close to Vivian and get her to mind.

“I think Vivian bonded with me because I made the effort,” Michelle said, “and because I called her bluff.”

VIVIAN’S “FENCE FACE”

Michelle had been working with Vivian for three weeks, and making steady progress, when she decided to introduce her to trainer John Garcia. Vivian had shown a marked preference for female caregivers over male ones, and Michelle knew that getting her comfortable with both men and women would be important in her rehabilitation. Seeing how Vivian reacted to John, and if she was capable of relaxing around him, would be the first step.

It was a snowy day at Dogtown when John and Michelle approached Vivian’s run. Vivian began lunging ferociously at the fence, a behavior known to the trainers as barrier aggression, meaning that the very presence of the fence tended to make the dog more hostile and threatening. Vivian would actually back up and then charge the fence line, barking loudly.

“She’s got a really good ‘fence face,’” John said calmly. “She gets the reaction she wants, which is for people to leave her alone and not go into her run.”

Most people would be completely intimidated by this display, if not terrified. But John and Michelle simply decided to listen to what Vivian was saying. By reading her body language and listening to her barks, both John and Michelle felt that Vivian was saying, as clearly as she could, that if John had entered the run at that point, she probably would have bitten him.

And John was listening, because although Vivian had no bite history, John had been bitten badly—twice—early in his training career. Once he was inside a run with two dogs who were squabbling when somebody asked him a question and he was distracted for a moment; in a flash one of the dogs bit him so severely on his left calf that it took 60 stitches to close the wound. He was on crutches for a month.

The other time, John was bitten by a dog he’d been working with for seven months and trusted completely. He’d brought the dog into his own home, taken him for long walks, and rolled around on the ground with him. He was in the process of putting the dog into a crate when suddenly “he just grabbed my right hand and sucked me into the cage.” The dog held on for three minutes. John spent two weeks in a hospital, but afterward his hand was still sore. It turned out he had a bone infection, requiring still more surgery. The hand still bothers him every day, he said. These two instances remind John daily how important it is to be vigilant with dogs, even ones he knows very well.

Because Vivian can be difficult to manage, she wears a red collar, signifying that she may only be handled by Dogtown staff.

“I would be a liar if I said I’m never afraid of dogs,” he said. “I mean, fear keeps us alive. For the most part I just try to use common sense so I don’t get myself hurt.”

John remembered how powerful Vivian had been when he’d had to hold her down for a blood draw during her medical intake. She’d been muzzled, but she fought mightily. “She’s probably one of the strongest dogs I’ve ever held in my life,” he said. John knew it would be unwise to test her by entering her run when she was telegraphing all the signs of a potential bite.

BECOMING PART OF VIVIAN’S LANDSCAPE

For this meeting, despite all of Vivian’s threats and bombast, John decided to react to Vivian by not reacting. He just stood there, a few feet back from the fence, as Michelle tried to soothe the dog.

“I was just part of the landscape,” John said. “I wasn’t a person, I wasn’t a dog, I wasn’t anything. I was neutral. I was zero. It’s much easier to introduce yourself to a dog that way.

“When I first started working with dogs I didn’t have that ability to control my emotions like that,” John said. “When a dog threatened me I basically got scared. But that will magnify the dog’s behavior because it makes them scared.” Because John kept his emotions in check, over several meetings Vivian became more comfortable with John.

John continued to build a relationship with the skittish dog. Like Michelle before him, John used treats passed through the fence to nakedly bribe Vivian. That way, she came to associate him with something positive. Whenever she did something positive—like approaching the fence calmly, coming when called, or sitting on command—Vivian’s ear would push forward, wrinkling her forehead, as she attentively looked to John for a tasty treat. Rewards distracted Vivian from trying to scare him and focused her on trying to please him instead. It didn’t hurt that John would also sweet-talk the big girl shamelessly. “There ya go, you’re so smart, not to mention beautiful—you’re my type of woman, yeah….”

Eventually, John got to know Vivian well enough that he and Michelle decided he should try to take her for a walk. Because of Vivian’s history of aggression, Michelle was one of only two people who had ever taken her for a walk at Dogtown. Now John wanted to become the third.

It was another snowy day at Dogtown when John and Michelle entered Vivian’s run. Though John was a skilled dog handler, he kept a wary eye on Vivian because he had seen how “without any warning, she’ll sometimes snap and try to bite.” Michelle leashed up Vivian and led her out of the run down a snowy trail, with John walking very casually alongside, a couple of steps outside biting range. Almost imperceptibly, Vivian’s stance began to loosen. She seemed to grow more relaxed, and more interested in reading her “morning newspaper”—all the markings from other dogs along the trail.

In a soft voice, John asked Michelle to hand over the leash, and she did. The handoff had been barely noticeable, but it was critical—John called it “the make or break moment.” Vivian glanced back and saw this, made note of the fact that she was now being controlled by a different human, and moved on.