Don't Dump The Dog

Copyright © 2009 by Randy Grim and Melinda Roth

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018.

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Photographs by Donna Lochmann

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grim, Randy.

Don’t dump the dog : outrageous stories and simple solutions to your worst dog behavior problems / Randy Grim with Melinda Roth ; foreword by Loretta Swit.

p. cm.

9781602396401

1. Dogs--Behavior--Anecdotes. 2. Dogs--Behavior--Miscellanea. I. Roth, Melinda. II. Title.

SF433.G75 2009

636.7’0887--dc22

2009014216

Printed in the United States of America

In memory of Charley, Bear, and Stinky.
Dad misses you!

T
o write what amounts to a textbook, a how-to book, and turn learning “how to” into a great read while being knee-slapping hilarious—this is a gift. This is extraordinary.

Reading
Don’t Dump the Dog
, I found myself laughing out loud while learning some very valuable lessons in canine behavior. What could be better? The best way to teach is with humor. The best way to learn is through laughter. Randy is enlightened, often profound, always touching, and surely inspired.

My eyes were slamming shut with laughter and at the same time, there I was, absorbing valuable advice for training my terrier—the word, “terrier,” by the way, is, I am convinced, derivative of the word “terrorist.” I trust I’ve made my point.

While knee-slapping and jack-knifing myself into a state just short of a nosebleed, I was learning how to keep her barking down to a meaningful minimum (she is allowed to bark at burglars) and how to housebreak without actually breaking the house or the furniture therein.

Randy’s written a book with intelligence, fired by his passion and compassion, drawing on expertise from years of hands-on experience, and flavored it with wit as sharp as his pen. He continues to prove that the power of one is a powerful force indeed. His passion continues to ignite that of his friends, his volunteers, and colleagues.

He continues to reinforce our strength to persevere in the rescue and protection of these helpless, abandoned, oftenabused animals who depend on us for their survival.

It’s serious, yes. It’s grave. Yet he manages to keep us aloft with his self-deprecating humor and his relentless spirit.

He reflects on his home collection of strays so damaged they cannot be placed elsewhere; Charley, for example, he notes, needs to wear a basket muzzle which makes him resemble Hannibal Lecter, at which point I fell off my chair laughing, serious pains in my ribcage. I was in imminent danger of having tears roll down not only my cheek, but my leg as well when I read that he yearned to bring Charley for a meaningful visit to Michael Vick’s, volunteering to bring the Chianti and fava beans. At this point, I fell forward onto my computer where I nearly concussed myself.

To all of us working in the humane environment, and to the many new fans and friends he will seduce with this book, Randy is an inspiration. An amazing man who is part canine, part whisperer/therapist, part saint, and part clown; a fivestar general leading his troops in a massive rescue mission in a battle against cruelty. His compassion is boundless, his humor infectious, his spirit indefatigable.

There are few vocations as painful and heart-wrenching as rescue work. Yet, bereft of sermons and preaching, his message reaches into your heart by way of your funny bone—and stays there.

Loretta Swit
Los Angeles, 2009

I
would like to thank my buddy, Melinda, for thinking I am funny, and my mom, Mary Ellen, for putting up with me and my clan. Thanks to my wonderful Stray Rescue family, and to Jenn Foster and Darrell Antalick for their friendship. Thanks also to Jill-Michele Melean and to my editor Ann Treistman and my agent Julie Castiglia, for believing in this book. I would also like to thank Dr. A for listening to my rants and for my Paxil so I could write this book.

I
arrive at my therapist’s office with an e-mail clutched in my fist. This time, I think, I’ll
show
him what I deal with every day, and then maybe he’ll finally understand.

I toss the crumpled e-mail onto his desk.

“What is this?”

“Just read it,” I say, assuming my usual position on the couch. “Out loud.”

For the record, Dr. Gupta is my fourth therapist since I founded Stray Rescue fifteen years ago, and during all of those years—through the book tours, the television shows, the movie deals, the awards—he’s come closer than any of them to understanding my “issues.” I can tell that he still considers me crazy, though, so it’s important that I appear calm and rational.

As Dr. Gupta unfolds and flattens out the e-mail, I stare up at the ceiling. I know it well: It’s white, it’s flat—the perfect canvas upon which to paint a perfect me. It’s where I drive over bridges without closing my eyes or walk into elevators without bottles of vodka under my arm. It’s where I whisk through book tours, answer reporters’ questions, and make guest appearances on television shows without breaking into a cold sweat. It’s where I board planes without downing Xanax and where I go on live radio shows without spending hours doing deep-breathing exercises beforehand, which never work anyway.

“ ‘Dear Randy ...’ ” Dr. Gupta begins.

Only today, there’s an intruder on my ceiling.

“ ‘I adopted a dog from you two years ago, and ...’ ”

It’s a little yellow spider who wanders back and forth above my head.

“ ‘... his barking is starting to wear on me.’ ”

And if he loses his grip, he’ll land right on my face. I close my eyes and concentrate on Dr. Gupta’s voice—only I can’t stand the thought of suddenly feeling a spider fall on my face without seeing it coming first, so I open them again and stare at the tip of my nose instead.

“ ‘He barks if someone knocks on the door. He barks at the mailman. He barks if he sees another dog walking past the house. He also barks when he wants to go outside and come back in. Like I don’t know he needs to go out? And it’s not so much that his barking is incessant. It’s the sound of his woof. It has a high pitch, and I’m afraid he’s going to cause me to have a seizure because the tone really hurts my ears. I will need to bring him back today. Please let me know what time I can drop him off.’ ”

When Dr. Gupta finishes reading, he clears his throat. “And what is it about this letter that upsets you?”

I want to scream, “Are you serious? She wants to return a dog
because he barks
!” Instead, I say, “I get dozens of these letters every month.”

“And?”

“And, they’re pretty much all the same. They are either too loud or too aggressive or too timid. They don’t listen, and they make a mess of everything.”

“And?”

“And ... and then they get old and can’t control their peeing.”

“Yes, but isn’t that behavior to be expected from these types of dogs?” Dr. Gupta asks.

The spider stops, spins in a tiny circle, and stops again. He’s now directly above my eyes. Then he freezes in place and looks down at me. Slowly, as if testing the air before a free fall, he lifts one leg off the ceiling.

I’m not waiting for him to fall—or jump. With the fluidity of a marine in the enemy’s crosshairs, I cross my arms tightly over my chest, roll off the couch and across the floor, and propel myself up onto a chair directly in front of Dr. Gupta’s desk. I smooth my hair and pretend nothing just happened.

“I’m not talking about the dogs,” I say as I wipe carpet fuzz off my face. “I’m talking about the
people
.”

In all fairness, 90 percent of the people who adopt dogs from Stray Rescue know what they’re getting into. Our crew specializes in saving feral dogs—those born on the streets who are as wild as coyotes but not as smart—and dogs who’ve been abused and then left to fend for themselves. Sometimes we spend years tracking an individual dog through the urban wilderness—watching his movements, his personality, the status of his position in whatever pack he’s part of—and when the time is right, when he’s so physically and emotionally weak that he’ll surrender more easily, we trap him and bring him home.

Once a dog is in our shelter, our veterinarians address his physical needs, which tend toward broken bones, gunshot wounds, and strange things in their stomachs like wire and tincan lids eaten because of starvation.

The second stage of the rescue focuses on socialization. The feral dogs who’ve never been touched by humans have one set of problems, while the abused dogs, the ones who’ve been used for sport fighting or for guarding crack houses, have another.

The feral dogs, for instance, must learn how to live in a house with people who love and protect them. These dogs tend to latch on to only one person, however, and because the bond is so strong with just that one person, they usually have problems with shyness and separation anxiety. It’s almost impossible to get them on a leash or into a car at first, and they freak out when anyone turns on a vacuum cleaner, a garbage disposal, or a hair dryer. When their one person leaves their presence for any reason, these dogs howl like sirens to bring them back, and when that doesn’t work, they’ll tear through any barricade, including wooden doors and fences, to follow them.

The abused dogs, on the other hand, must learn that human beings won’t hurt them, and their issues usually center on aggression, fear biting, and escaping from a life spent trying to avoid pain. These are the dogs who eat cats, the neighbor’s poodle, and your most important dinner guests, and who’ve learned how to jump any fence, break any leash, or bite any hand that constrains them.

Our dogs, in other words, have
serious
issues. When we finally adopt them out to people who fully understand what problems might arise, we stick close with advice, trainers, and overall support. I have yet to receive a “return” from those who really love and understand their complex new companions.

Sometimes, once in a great while, there’s a dog so screwed up that we can’t in good conscience adopt them out. Those are the ones who come and live with me. I inhabit a house
full
of emotionally disturbed dogs. But I’m suited for them, because my own “issues” include what Dr. Gupta calls anxiety disorder, which means (in my mind, anyway) that I’d rather hang out in a house full of emotionally disturbed dogs than in a mall full of emotionally disturbed people, who, in general, spread ill will and germs.

Dr. Gupta used to say that I should be more understanding of people who wanted to return dogs they adopted from Stray Rescue, because not everyone was as “gifted” (his euphemism for “crazy”) as I was. When I explained how much time, money, and emotional energy went into rescuing each and every dog, and how galling it was to have someone return the dog because she “gets in the garbage” or “licks the baby’s face,” he’d just lean back in his chair and say something like, “You are afraid to touch escalator handrails, and yet you’ll let a dog lick your face.”

“Yeah ... so?”

“You are afraid of spiders but aren’t afraid of aggressive dogs.”

“And?”

“Well, some might consider that a bit of a contradiction....”

“I’m not talking about
contradictions
, Dr. Gupta. I’m talking about people who return dogs because they
bark
. Did they expect them to sing ‘The Hallelujah Chorus’ every time someone knocked at the door?”

It wasn’t until the day I brought him the following e-mail that things began to change:

After Dr. Gupta read the letter aloud, I lost my cool and bellowed, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?”

Dr. Gupta’s eyes lit up. “Look for the most obvious clues,” he said. “The writer uses the phrase ‘very dominant female’ followed by ‘she tried to enforce her dominance over me,’ and ‘I will no longer put up with these incidents.’ ”

“Misogyny?” I suggested.

Dr. Gupta nodded. “Or cerebral narcissism, probably stemming from issues with his mother....”

“Do you think he dresses like a woman?”

After that, Dr. Gupta spent a great deal of time analyzing the e-mails, letters, and stories I brought him in an attempt to help me understand that I wasn’t the only person with issues. In fact, he and I sat hunched over the letters and dissected them like coroners searching for clues.

“This one,” I’d say rolling my eyes, “wants to return a dog because it’s ‘not cute anymore.’ ”

“Hmmm,” Dr. Gupta said. “Craves novelty. Needs stimulation. Becomes bored with routine. Probably a histrionic personality disorder.”

Or I’d say, “This one says her dog sheds too much,” and he’d smile, shrug, and say that it was a classic symptom of obsessive-compulsive behavior, as if I should have known.

We even pored over research that connected animal abuse with domestic violence, including a 1997 survey of fifty of the largest shelters for battered women in the United States, which found that 85 percent of the women said pet abuse also occurred in the family.

While our informal little forays into the connection between a person’s mental health and his or her treatment of animals stimulated Dr. Gupta and justified my frustration, it did nothing to solve the actual problem. I couldn’t very well tell people who wanted to dump their dogs because they barked that they should see a psychiatrist instead.

Or could I?

“Probably not appropriate,” Dr. Gupta said.

But I had to do something. We were dealing with
lives
here. These dogs were family members who had emotional needs, felt most secure when part of a family pack, and experienced an array of emotions including pain, loss, joy, and depression. Dogs are basically no different from four-year-old children. Their ability to learn is about the same; they eat with gusto, they love to be cuddled, and to play, play, play. The only difference between humans and dogs is their native language.

And so I wrote this book.

For practical purposes, it teaches folks how to correct their dog’s “bad” behavior based on the years of experience I’ve had with dogs who act “badly.” Each chapter includes a real letter or e-mail that I’ve received from would-be dumpers, and whittles the problem down to an easy solution.

Based on the kinds of dogs we adopt out, you might think that most of the letters would focus on dramatic events, like, “He ate the Girl Scout” (not the Girl Scout cookies—the actual Girl Scout). The truth is, though, that most of the dog problems people write to me about are the same problems all families with canines face: basic behavioral issues that are easy to solve, including peeing in the house, barking excessively, and running away.

For less practical (and for entertainment) purposes, this book acts as a catharsis for me and hopefully for the thousands of other shelter workers who must euthanize more than 27,000 animals
every day
in this country—that’s 1,000 animals destroyed every hour, mainly because they overturned garbage cans or woke up babies with their barking. While most of my psychological prognoses about the letter writers are tongue-in-cheek, I think there’s a little bit of truth in each one.