Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs (38 page)

actual subject of the experiment) and a
"learner" (actually an actor), and a simple
memory test of word pairings; an "experimental
scientist" supervised. The teacher believed that the
experiment was an exploration of the effects of
punishment on memory and learning, and also believed that
the learner was a genuine participant in the experiment
as he was. During the test, the teachers believed that
they would be delivering electric shocks of
ever-increasing intensity for any wrong answers by the
learners. In fact, no shocks were delivered, though
the actors participating as the learners offered convincing
performances of discomfort, fear and pain.
Before conducting the experiment, Milgram asked a
wide range of people for their predictions regarding the
results; all predicted that nearly every subject
(except a tiny lunatic fringe of disturbed
individuals) would be unwilling to obey instructions
to inflict pain. The actual results were nothing
short of chilling. When an authority figure (an
experimental scientist) insisted that the experiment
continue despite protests and pleas and even
screams from the learner, apparently normal people from
all walks of life were willing to obey. Of the
Yale students participating in the first study, more
than 60 percent of the subjects were
"fully obedient," which is to say that they obeyed
to the point of delivering the most potent, extremely painful
shock available-450 volts. These experiments were
repeated with subjects drawn from all walks of
life in New Haven, and the results were the same.
Repeated further at Princeton, and in Italy,
South Africa and Austria, the results were more
disturbing, with a
higher level
of fully obedient subjects, as high as 85
percent in a Munich study.
These subjects were not sadists who enjoyed inflicting
pain. Some did protest; some wept or grew
increasingly anxious as they delivered greater-intensity
shocks. Others were concerned but when assured that they would
not be held responsible for what happened to the
learner, continued on. Some, Milgram noted,
displayed only minimal tension from start to finish; the
responsibility for the learner lay with the scientist, not
with them-they were only doing as they were told. And some
refused to obey. (this "defiant" group
fascinated me-what inner qualities or

resources did they possess that enabled them
to refuse? What could they teach us? were there common
elements in their individual philosophies that
served to anchor them firmly in their sense of what was
right and humane so that even the pull of authority could
not break them loose from their moorings?)
In considering the ramifications of Milgram's work,
we need to keep in mind a key fact: The
authority figure in the experiment had no particular
psychological leverage over the test subjects.
Refusal to cooperate with the experimental scientist
would not result in lower grades, failure,
financial loss, physical pain, harm to a loved
one-no tangible consequences, in fact, attended a
defiance of authority. And yet, the subjects were
unwilling to perform poorly, disappoint or, as
Milgram notes, "hurt the feelings" of the
scientist in charge of the experiment (this despite the
fact that they could hear the protests and screams of the
learner whose feelings apparently carried less
weight in their mental equations!) In order to stop the
experiment and answer the uncomfortable proddings of
conscience, the subject had to make a break with
authority. And they were by and large unable to do this, even
in the presence of another human being's suffering, even
when no real consequences attended a
refusal.
In his Harper's article "The Perils of Obedience," Milgram
concluded, "This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our
study: ordinary people ... can become agents in a
terribly destructive process." Not because they are
inherently evil or aggressive or pathologically
disturbed, but largely because they were unable to defy
authority. As Milgram stated, "Relatively
few people have the resources needed to resist authority."
Aside from offering an unpleasant look at the
human psyche, how does this apply to our
relationships with our dogs? Seeking guidance from dog
trainers, behaviorists and obedience instructors,
we may find ourselves in a real-life experiment when
these "experts" tell us what we must do to our dogs
in order to train, correct or punish them. Even
when our senses tell us that we have stepped past the
bounds of what is right and humane, we may find
ourselves more concerned with what the teacher or trainer or

expert thinks of us than we are with what is
happening to our dog. If we are not aware of our very
human tendency to obey what an authority tells
us to do, even when we are uncomfortable or even
horrified by what that may be and the effects it has on
our dogs, we may end up far from where we hope
to be.
With unhappy regularity, I meet dog owners who
deeply regret following the advice of someone who
was "an expert," an authority figure who
instructed them in how best to train or "correct"
their dog. Believing that what they understood about dogs
and training was nothing compared to what the "expert" must know
(define expert
as you will, but it's rarely warranted in any field
by but a tiny handful), these folks ignored the
protests that rose up inside them, bit back the
questions that they wanted to ask and, in misplaced faith,
treated a dog in a way that made their hearts grow
a little harder. And always, the question these folks ask is
this: "Why did I listen to them?" And when they ask,
they are not asking me. Their gaze is turned inward,
and they review the past as if watching a distasteful
movie sequence, and sadly shake their heads before
adding yet another straw to their burden of
guilt: "I should have known better."
It is always an immense relief to such people to know that
they are not a minority group of careless, thoughtless or
callous folk, but that their response to an
authoritative direction is quite typical. This
does not excuse our behavior, but it does help
explain it and offer us an opportunity to embrace
this gift of understanding of how easily we are led
down in ways that shrink our souls and leave us
regretful. If we understand that being human includes
weaknesses and tendencies that pull us toward the dark,
unlighted corners, we then can choose
deliberately to move toward the light, and thus
continue to grow. Our power remains authentic when we
refuse to give it away by surrendering to the illusion
that others know more than what our hearts tell us; we
endanger the relationship, and due to the potential for
cruelty that exists in the animals human
relationship, we may actually endanger the dog.
At the moment we set our intention to walk the paths
that we believe will lead us to the deeper connections and more

profound relationships we need and long for,
we have begun to shift our world. Embracing the dog as
more than mere object to be shaped to suit our needs,
more than mere subject who must heed our every command, more
than just a helpless creature in our caretaking, we
open ourselves to a new awareness. We can no longer
discard as unimportant or meaningless the
subtleties of tail and ear and eye, but as we do with
any beloved, we thirst for a greater understanding, and so we
enter each moment with our dogs in a new state of
awareness. If we are diligent in doing the work of
relationship, bringing our curiosity and empathy and
joy to the journey with another, our awareness
blossoms into knowledge. And with knowledge comes responsibility.
Finding the authentic power in ourselves and in a
relationship means accepting responsibility for our
own actions and its effects on others.
Some of Milgram's further experiments offered
additional food for thought. In one variation of the
experiment, it was left strictly up to the teacher as
to how much of a shock they would deliver for wrong
answers. Under these conditions, the overwhelming
majority chose a level well under the minimal
level where the learner showed any discomfort at all.
This gave credence to a fairly often heard comment in the
original studies, "If it had been up
to me. . . ." Real-life message? Remember
this: It
is
up to you. See the dog.

If we are aware that the responsibility is ours
for being fair, humane and quite unlike the majority of
subjects in Milgram's study, then we can no
longer lay the blame for what we choose to do at
another's feet by saying, "I was just doing what I was
told to do." We have to learn to listen to what our
hearts have to say. Our own degree of comfort and joy,

sureness and confidence comes from within, when we are acting
in deep accordance with our true selves.
The relief of knowing that we have acted in
all-too-human ways is compounded by the sensation of
authentic power and freedom when we accept that the
future need not mirror the past. If we are
willing to make conscious choices, we can create
new possibilities and reach new levels in our
relationships. But then, following close on the
heels of such relief and freedom is a snapping,
snarling mess of guilt. Even as we project
ourselves forward into what we imagine for the future, the

tangle of our past pulls us back and
begins the retroactive replay. It is a
peculiar human tendency to flail ourselves with how it
might have been if we knew then what we know now.
And the moment we begin to look at our past using a
light we acquired only recently, things get
distorted. We can only accept the responsibility
for what we know; it is unfair to look back and
assign our then-unknowing selves responsibility
for what we did not understand. To do so is as foolish as
looking back on our childhood and thinking that if
only we'd been able to read at age three, we
might not have drawn on our mother's quilt using a
marker clearly labeled as "permanent." Even if
we destroyed a family heirloom, we cannot hold
ourselves accountable for such unknowing actions.
It is both understandable and common to feel regret for the
mistakes made when we saw things differently, when
we did not understand or know what we do now-even if
our understanding or knowledge is but moments old. And generally
speaking, we are most horrified by the distances we were
capable of moving from the true north of our soul's
compass. If the worst thing I had ever done in my
lifetime was slap one dog on one cold morning for
no good reason and many selfish ones, it might be
fair to say that my soul's course hadn't
deviated too terribly. It was a brief
derailment, an error examined until as much
possible wisdom and grace had been wrung from it
and a mistake that has served to heighten my awareness
since that dark moment. But my experience is long and
my memory is good, and I know that countless times, I
have stood in a place diametrically opposed to the
path my soul would have me take. And for this, I have had
to find a way to forgive myself. The only way I was
able to do this was to make a list of all the animals I
could remember who had been on the receiving end of my
mistakes, and to
ask their forgiveness and thank them for what they helped
me learn. While unable to change the past, I
could-and did-make a vow to change the future, so that
all dogs and animals who touched my life would
(hopefully) benefit from what I had learned
sometimes at the expense of the dogs who had come long
before them.
We cannot be held responsible for what we did not
know. But we are deeply accountable for what we do
know-knowledge entails responsibility. And this is where
I've found the greatest difficulty in forgiving myself.
It's easy to review my life and understand that given

what I knew at the time, given the
examples set all around me, my choices were the
best I could make. For these moments, forgiveness for
my younger, more foolish self is easy. But as with
all soulful work, I have found that the line between knowing and
not knowing looks sharp and crisp only from a distance.
Up close, there is a blurring that occurs as we
near that line, a knowing that is not yet a knowing but more a
prickling in the soul that says something is wrong. The
first inklings of awareness come with a sense of discomfort,
unease, a protest that dies unspoken on your
lips. Seek these pricklings, hunt for them, coax
them out of hiding and ask, "What is wrong?" Do not
fear these, but honor them. Ruth Renkel wrote,
"Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a
light shining somewhere nearby." These uneasy
pricklings, these shadows that darken our inner
landscape, are the soul's guardians and warn us when
we have gone astray. When we turn away from a
willingness to be aware of these warnings, then we are
guilty with cause-we knew, but we chose to act as
if we did not.
In the end, our personal philosophy is also our
best protection against cruelty. When we know what
we believe and who we are, we stand strong and sure
about what we will and will not allow. For those in
our caretaking, such soulful coherence offers them a
powerful shield against cruelties large and small.

To
iove is to give hostages to fate.
Jo coudert

I HAVE CLOSED THE KITCHEN DOOR to keep
the other dogs out, so that I can serve Vali a
special meal of pressure-cooked chicken without the
need to guard against an impertinent youngster hoping for a
morsel from her bowl. I have said nothing to her, and yet
she stands motionless as the other dogs sweep from the
room at my request. We have understood each other
for a long, long time. Closing the door, I turn
to her, and she looks at me with unwavering, full
eyes, her tail wagging a little as I step toward the
dog refrigerator and take out the food I have
made just for her, my dear old friend.
This is her favorite, and it is the best I can offer
her-chickens raised here on our farm, cared forwith
love, grown with respect. In this now anonymous
blend of bones and flesh I hope that everything good and