Born to Bark (31 page)

We did get two more qualifying scores, not particularly high scores, but nonetheless qualifying. Now Flint had his first obedience title and, since I had taken a dog through to a title, Barbara Baker invited me to teach a beginners’ dog obedience class. At our club, the minimum requirement for becoming an instructor for any class is that you have taken a dog through obedience competition to earn a title equivalent or higher than the level that you are teaching. After you serve an apprenticeship as an assistant instructor and demonstrate that you have teaching skills, you are
given your own class. This allows these carefully chosen individuals to spend many hours performing unpaid but generally pleasant service to the community.

Having earned his third qualifying scores, Flint was officially
now a Companion Dog and therefore entitled to announce that fact by adding the letters CD after his name in all official documents. I was elated and proudly took him home and announced, “Well, Joannie, Flint has now been certified as a CD.”

She looked up from her knitting and asked, “And CD stands for ‘Crazy Dog’?”

One day I came home, closed the front door behind me, and immediately heard “Bring that back!” as a flash of gray fur with a carrot-shaped tail and something white dangling from his mouth shot past me and into my office with my wife in hot pursuit. I reached out and circled my arms around Joan.

“It’s okay. Whatever he’s got this time I’ll retrieve it for you,” I said and gave her a light kiss on the cheek and walked after Flint.

I stepped into my office and called Flint, who took a few steps forward. On the floor beside him was a small notepad, with a phone number written on the top page in Joan’s handwriting, along with a few tooth marks and a splash of dog drool. I gave Flint a pat for coming and picked up the pad. Joan had been on the phone and had written down this number but had accidentally knocked the pad off the end table in such a way that it had skittered across the floor, a clear target for a terrier’s chase instincts.

I gave Joannie the pad and another hug. She looked at Flint, who had tagged along behind, and shook her head. There were no harsh words and no later bringing up of the incident.

Over the five years that Flint had lived with us, I had come to understand that my dog was a pretty good barometer for what was going on in Joannie’s emotional life. If all was going well, she could tolerate an occasional “event,” but if she was stressed, her displeasure with Flint’s noisy barking, his high activity level, or his unpredictability could escalate into a major flare-up.

Regardless of her state of mind, Joan never abused Flint. She might yell at him, stamp her foot, or wave her finger in a threatening manner, but when I was away at meetings and conferences for several days at time, she would care for him and feed him, and when I returned, he was never the worse for wear.

Flint seemed to take Joannie’s outbursts of displeasure as simply part of her natural behavior that had little lasting consequence for him. Within a quarter hour of any incident, he would be bouncing around the house in his typical manner or comfortably curled up in any of several places where he liked to nap.

Flint always seemed affectionate toward Joan and greeted her at the door with the same enthusiasm that he welcomed me or any friendly visitor. His continuing good cheer and warm nature often broke through to her. When she opened the door on returning home, she would sometimes look at this convivial little terrier and give a bit of a smile. Now and then she would accompany it with a comment like “Hello, silly dog” in the same affectionate tone that we might greet one of our grandchildren today by saying something like, “Hi there, silly child.”

Sometimes Flint’s behavior would actually amuse Joan. One weekend when I was away at a scientific meeting and called home just to check in and chat for a few minutes, I could tell from Joannie’s tone of voice that she was smiling as she said, “You know, Flint really loves you and misses you.”

This was a surprising statement from her, so I asked, “What makes you say that?”

“Well, this afternoon I thought that I was having some kind of weird mental experience—maybe telepathy or something. I was in the kitchen baking cookies and kept hearing your voice. I couldn’t quite make out what you were saying except that I thought that I heard you say my name and Flint’s. This happened several times before I dropped what I was doing and went into the living room.”

At that time we had an old phone answering machine that used a large cassette tape. At the front of the machine were two large
buttons, one of which played any messages and a second one that rewound the tape. All of the other controls were smaller and placed farther back. I had called home the previous evening and Joan was not home, so I left a message telling her that I was okay and that I loved her. As I usually did when I was away, I left the hopeful instruction, “Give Flint a pat from me.”

Joan had not noticed the message until around noon the next day, and after listening, had not bothered to erase it. Flint had heard my voice and his name and must have climbed up on the sofa and leaned over the end table where we kept the phone and ans
wering machine, and, either through happenstance or from watching Joan, he figured out that by pushing one of the big buttons he could hear me speaking and mentioning his name. Once he had learned this, he began to play the message at regular intervals, obviously deriving some pleasure from the sound of my voice and his name.

As she related this story to me, rather than being annoyed at Flint’s antics, she gave a little chuckle and said, “It’s a good thing that he hasn’t figured out how to dial the phone, otherwise he’d be racking up lots of long-distance charges trying to reach you while you are away.”

Flint accepted all acknowledgments of his existence as friendly overtures. In his mind, Joan was an integral part of our household pack, and although his primary bond was with me, she was also entitled to his affection, attention, and acts of gallantry—if she chose to accept them.

Perhaps the most dramatic instance of Flint’s display of caring for Joan happened one afternoon when she was alone with him. Less than an hour after the event I returned home, and Joan looked at me with a serious expression and told me that there had been an “incident.”

Generally confident and independent, Joan grew up in a quiet, law-abiding city in Alberta, and then spent much of her life in small communities and rural settings, in contrast to my big-city, urban upbringing. Having lived in New York, I am always very concerned about household security and safety, always making sure that doors are locked, even when I am inside. I also tend to greet strangers at the door with a dollop of suspicion until I know who they are and what they want. Joan is quite the opposite and often leaves the house to run errands without setting the security alarm. Sh
e also greets people who come to the door openly, without any evidence of caution or hesitation.

This time she had heard the doorbell ring, and when she arrived at the door saw a large man standing there who asked if he could use our phone. Because he looked rather scruffy, Joan was more hesitant than usual and didn’t want him in our home. Instead, she offered to make the call for him if he supplied her with the phone number. The man scowled at her, and without saying another word, pushed the door open fully and stepped into the house.

She told me, “He made me very uneasy—barging in like that, and I didn’t know what to do next. Then, suddenly, Flint was there between us. I have never seen him act like that. He wasn’t barking, he was growling. His hair was standing up, his teeth were showing, and he was snapping at the guy as if he
wanted to tear a chunk out of him. I never heard him growl like that before—it was really scary.”

Flint was not a large dog and weighed perhaps 22 pounds at his heaviest. But confronted by an animal growling, snapping, and displaying its teeth as weapons, the intruder defensively raised his hands and took a couple of steps back, just enough to place him on the other side of the threshold. Joan took the opportunity to rush forward to close and lock the door. A few moments later the man moved away from the door and disappeared down the street.

“I don’t know what triggered that kind of response from Flint. He is usually so friendly to anyone who comes to the door. But I was glad that he was there. That guy made me nervous and I certainly didn’t want him in our living room.”

Joan’s admission that she was “nervous” was as close to admitting that she was terrified as I would ever hear. Because the man scared her, she had probably given off pheromones, biological scents that dogs use to determine the emotional state of mind of other individuals, and Flint had responded to her anxiety by rallying to her defense.

“I was glad that he did, but he’s just a small dog and the man could have …” Her eyes flitted momentarily in Flint’s direction.

I put my arm around her and said, “A great general once remarked, ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters.’ There’s a lot of fight in Flint.”

Although she was not particularly expressive about it, Flint had clearly risen in Joan’s estimation that day.