Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs (23 page)

a dog that they cannot control in many settings.
Despite their inability to walk the dog down the
street without incident or control him when guests
appear, there is one guarantee-the dog
has been taught to never, ever, for any reason, set
foot on the beige rug. Students would earnestly
assure me that their dog unfailingly abided by this
rule, but I didn't believe that anyone with so little
ability to direct a dog's behavior could actually
have achieved this. One day, visiting a student for an
in-home consultation, I watched in amazement as we
strolled into the living room (where the beige rug
was] and the dog stopped dead in his tracks as if
an invisible force field barred him from the room.
Bemused, since the woman's chief complaint was that
she didn't seem to be able to control her dog, I
asked how she had managed to teach her dog to stay off
the
rug.
"Oh that?" She airily waved her hand. "It was
easy. First I blocked him from even getting in there,
and then I'd leave the gate open only when I was
around to watch him. After a while, I could sit in here
and we'd practice having him stay out there. Every time
he even thought about it, I just warned him to get out.
I've saved up a long time for this rug, and while
I love my dog, he's got the rest of the house
to be with us. I don't want his muddy feet or

dog hair in this room." It really
mattered to her that the rug stay clean, and so she was
willing to work diligently, ever alert to even a
vague hint that the dog was headed that way. I asked
if she waited till he was actually on the rug before
she acted. "Oh, no. I could see if he was just
thinking about it, and that's when I'd remind him or
tell him no."
leadership Is action

She was amazed when I pointed out that she had proven
herself to be a very good dog trainer by
(a)
dealing with intent and not the actual action whenever

b:setting rules that she absolutely reinforced no
matter how much the dog wanted to be in the living
room and no matter what else she was doing;
(c)
creating a situation where the dog could not make a
mistake (putting up a gate) when she could not

deliberately training him while she could and would
keep a close eye on him. I pointed
out that if she applied those same successful
techniques to everything else she tried to teach him,
she'd probably do very well indeed. "You mean,
treat everything he does like it's really important
that he learn it, like staying off the rug?" I nodded and
she grew thoughtful. "Well, that makes a lot of
sense!" She and her dog went on to have a very nice
relationship.
Unfortunately for our dogs, they often receive mixed
or inadvertent messages about their own status, and
ours relative to them. How then do you know if your
dog is simply well loved and indulged but not
dangerously misinformed about his status? A quick
gauge of how the dog may be interpreting your
behavior can be had in the answer to one simple question:
When there's a conflict (either between you and the dog or
something external to the relationship), will your dog
accept your direction and control of his behavior? It
doesn't matter how beautifully the dog
responds to commands or behaves in peaceful moments.
What counts is the dog's willingness to accept
direction from you when
he
sees the situation as important-in other words, when

canine protocol says that a high-status
family member should be the one to make the decisions.
If you make a list of the situations in which you find your
dog's behavior frustrating, embarrassing or
uncontrollable, you will also have created the list of
situations the dog finds very important to him. This
does not always mean that such situations are ones the dog
finds pleasurable, but rather that in those settings, the dog
is highly aroused, whether that's feeling
protective, angry, irritated, excited,
anxious, afraid, defensive, predatory,
ecstatic or in pain. At these "important"
times, the dog most desperately needs clear
leadership and guidance, just as the people you love need you
most not in the easy and peaceful times but when the
currents of complex, perhaps overwhelming emotions
make it difficult
to keep their heads clear. But the level of trust in
a relationship that allows us to step in and provide
guidance and support and direction must preexist the
moment of crisis. If you've not established this
relationship in various and sundry ways in everyday
life and in less critical circumstances, chances
are better than good the dog will disregard your
attempts to control or direct his behavior.
put down that pickled okra!
Much training advice deals with controlling the dog's
resources as a way of establishing leadership. At
its core, this is sound advice. Among dogs, the
privilege of high status is evidenced in access
to and control of resources. What exactly is a
resource? Ask me, and I might say pickled
okra. The mere thought of the stuff makes most folks
gag, but there are those among us who love it. I'm
one of the few, the strange, the okra lovers. When a
Southern friend sent me a case of pickled okra,
I opened it with glee and then snarled at my husband,
"This is mine." Throwing up his hands and backing away
from the box, John was quick to assure me that if I
fell off the face of the Earth that night, he'd not
touch my pickled okra. It's not a matter of how
deeply he respects me, or how much he wishes
to avoid any confrontation-after all, nothing short of
absolute blissful harmony is the key to our
marriage. (yep, just like the flying green pigs that
are the hallmark of our farm.) His assurance was
based on this little fact: He hates pickled
okra. While I view it as a valuable resource

to be guarded, he has no interest in it at
all.
Obvious resources are food, toys, bones,
chews (pig ears, cow hooves, rawhides,
etc.), treats, even water-or the
expectation
of any of these. A dog may guard an empty
food bowl not because he's hallucinating that it's
filled with food, but because the bowl represents an
expectation of food. Visitors to our house who
don't know that a certain cabinet contains dog
treats are startled to find many large dogs jostling
each other for position when that cabinet is opened.
To the dogs, the cabinet represents an expectation
of treats. Although it also contains the potatoes and
onions and other nondog items that the guest was
actually seeking, the dogs know that each time that
cabinet is opened, there is the potential
for treats. Thus, being nearest the cabinet and the
person opening it serves as a resource for our
dogs, just as an empty food bowl may be viewed
by other dogs as a valuable resource.
Less-obvious resources may be attention,
access in or out of the home or certain rooms,
sleeping areas (whether dog beds or the human bed),
freedom, solitude, perches (either in laps or
on furniture) or viewpoints (such as a window
or door), specific furniture, proximity
to a person or activity, a particular position
near a door, fence or gate.
Blanket statements about what constitutes a
resource ignore the importance of understanding each
dog as an individual. What one dog finds
valuable may be of no interest whatsoever to another
dog or to a person. Like beauty, a resource is
only a resource in the eyes of the beholder. I
once sold a puppy named Ellie to a woman who
had a beautifully appointed home full of fine
antiques and collectibles. As is my habit,
I tucked in something familiar and comfortable from home
alongside the food, toys and papers that accompany
any puppy. In this case, I grabbed an old
mattress cover that the puppies had been sleeping
on. Though torn and stained, it was clean, and perfect
puppy bedding, soft and warm but only a few uses
away from a one-way trip to the dump. It would, I

figured, ease Ellie's transition from
our home to her new life. Unfortunately,
Ellie's owner and I underestimated how attached the
puppy would become to her "blankie."
At first, her owner didn't mind, keeping the
mattress cover in the puppy's crate, thinking that
eventually she'd discard it and replace it with something more
attractive. One night, she dragged the tattered
cover out and replaced it with an expensive, thick
pad. Ellie considered this with interest, and then,
picking up her beloved puppyhood blankie,
dragged it onto the beautiful new pad. Every time her
owner tried to discard the weary mattress cover,
Ellie fretted and paced and hunted down the
garbage bag or can where it had been tossed, and,
relenting, her owner would return Ellie's
treasured blankie to her. It became an
embarrassment when she was entertaining guests. At a
certain point in the party, her lovely dog would
trot upstairs and reappear, proudly dragging behind
her for presentation to the bemused guests her most
beloved treasure: the sad skeleton of a very
elderly mattress pad. In the end, the woman
found a way to make both herself and her dog happy
with a splendid bed custom-made for Ellie. Though
beautiful on the outside, it suited Ellie just
fine-tucked inside it was her beloved blankie.
I now send puppies home with items that offer a more
timeless appeal than a grubby mattress pad, but
when I think of what may constitute a valuable
resource for any dog, I remember Ellie and
her blankie. To understand our dogs, we need to step
into their world and understand what they consider valuable and
important resources. If the balance of power
has gone askew between human and dog, an understanding of
what constitutes valuable resources for the dog enables
us to wisely use their value to help us earn the
dog's respect and restore a healthier balance to the
relationship.
The problem with dogs and resources is not how much
access the dog has to things he finds enjoyable or
pleasant. Sleeping in bed, hopping up on the
furniture, having a wealth of toys and bones and
chewies, being petted, and so on-none of these
resources cause a dog to lose his mind or
become a canine Napoleon. Like so much of dog
training, we're looking at the wrong end of the leash.
(maybe what the world needs is a bumper sticker that

reminds us "Toys don't spoil
puppies. People spoil puppies.") The
important question is this: Do you
have access, free and uncontested, to anything that the
dog considers a resource? When a dog begins
to set rules about resources, this is an
unmistakable sign that your leadership may be lacking
in some way. And it is a sign that should be taken very,
very seriously, because having set rules, a dog will
enforce them in very canine ways, just as he would with
another dog: with growls, snarls, snaps and even
bites.

mine, all mine
My friend Kathryn called one night to pick my
brain about a brewing problem between her two dogs.
Though they lived quite peacefully together most of the time,
Meiske, an elderly but still feisty mixed breed,
had begun snarling at Flink, a younger, very active
Kelpie, an Australian herding breed. When
Kathryn was cooking, Meiske stationed herself between the
kitchen door and Kathryn's work area. Kathryn's
house is quite small, so from that position, Meiske was
no farther than five feet
from Kathryn or the door, allowing her to keep an
eye on any tidbits that might be tossed her way
and to effectively block Flink from entering the room.
Initially, Meiske had simply crowded near
Kathryn, growling at Flink only if he tried
to move closer. As time went on, Meiske began
making new rules, eventually insisting that Flink not
even set foot in the kitchen. Flink was torn between
his respect for Meiske and his desire to be near
Kathryn and the food, but Meiske's persistence and
consistency paid off; he waited in the next room.
Kathryn could not understand what was happening between these two
dogs who had lived peacefully together since
Flink's arrival as a pup several years before. Was
there some shift in the pack order? she wondered. Was
this a dominance issue? Was Flink somehow challenging
Meiske in ways Kathryn could not detect? Of
considerable concern was the age and size difference. Though
she found it hard to believe that the problem could
escalate to a serious fight and injuries,
Kathryn knew that if Meiske attacked Flink,
the younger, stronger dog was easily capable of hurting
the old girl or maybe even killing her.
Hoping for some insight from me into these dog-to-dog

interactions, she was quite surprised when my
answer was that instead of examining her dogs'
behavior, she needed to look to her own.
Specifically, she needed to start acting like a leader.
As a leader, she needed to remind Meiske that while
being in the kitchen was a valuable resource, it
wasn't a resource that was Meiske's to defend.
(a human parallel might be two children squabbling
over their dad's wallet. It doesn't matter which
kid sets the rules or what they are: "You can't
hold it, you can only touch it." The real story comes
clear when Dad walks in and claims his wallet.
Neither child has the right to control that particular asset.)
This was something that Kathryn, as the high-status
family member, controlled; access to resources was
strictly at her discretion, not the dogs'. The
solution was quite simple. Anytime Meiske acted in
ways that indicated she was the one who controlled a
particular resource, Kathryn was to gently but
unmistakably show the dog that she was not the one
entitled to make those rules.
When Meiske growled at Flink in the kitchen, she
was quietly escorted from the kitchen. Naturally,
Meiske viewed this as a temporary blip in
Kathryn's mind and tried to reenter the kitchen many
times. Each time, Kathryn made it clear that she was not
welcome. A bit disgruntled and bewildered by these
new rules, Meiske eventually got the message
and lay quietly watching from the doorway. In this
subtle, nonconfrontational way, Kathryn could
clearly communicate in a way that Meiske could
understand: "My kitchen. Not yours. Dogs enter here
because I say they can." Though not thrilled with this new
development, Meiske watched from outside as
Flink made himself comfortable in the kitchen. After a
few minutes of this, Kathryn called Meiske
into the kitchen, asking her to sit, which the dog happily
did. She gave each dog a treat, patted them
briefly and turned to her cooking. For a few
minutes, peace reigned, but then, as Flink moved
to settle himself nearer to Kathryn, a growl was
heard. Calmly, Kathryn escorted Meiske from
the room, and the whole cycle began again.
In just one evening of consistency from Kathryn,
Meiske understood that as much as she valued being in the
kitchen with Kathryn, she was not the one who set the