Born to Bark (34 page)

In the early part of the twentieth century Roswell Eldridge went from New York to England looking for toy spaniels that resembled those he had seen in some of the old paintings. He specifically liked the look of the dogs in the 1845 painting by Sir Edwin Landseer,
The Cavalier’s Pets
, but all he could find were the newer versions that he referred to as “short-faced Charlies.” Rather than give up on his quest, he offered a large prize for the best examples of the old-style dog, which resulted in the “reestablishment” of the breed. It would now be called the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, inc
orporating the name of the breed’s most ardent patron and giving some recognition to Landseer’s painting.

Fortunately, a well-respected breeder of cavaliers was less than an hour’s drive from my home. After I’d made arrangements, I drove Joannie out to Katie’s home to pick up our new dog. I lifted him out of the pen and placed the little white-and-chestnut-colored pup in Joan’s arms and watched her melt into a smile and a sigh.

Katie said, “I call him Wizard. His kennel name is Turnworth
Winter Wizard. The Winter part is because he has so much white on him.”

“Wizard will do perfectly well as a name,” I said, glancing across to Joannie who acknowledged the fact that she was paying attention to our conversation by bending over the puppy and whispering, “Hi, little Wizard,” in a soft singsong voice.

I handed her his collar, and she gently slipped it over his head and murmured, “Don’t you look handsome now.”

It was a good start. Of course, Joan’s first encounter with Flint had been all love and warmth as well, but this was a different dog with a different temperament. For the 45-minute drive home Joan sat in the car with Wizard on her lap. She said little but smiled a lot. As we rolled up to the front of our house, she suddenly lost her happy look and, with a voice full of anxiety, asked, “What about Flint?”

“What do you mean?”

“He kills small furry things!”

“It will be okay,” I reassured her. “Remember the kittens that he saved. All young mammals have a scent, a pheromone, that clings to them and brings out the protective instincts in other animals.”

Although I was convinced that nothing bad would happen, Joan’s concerns did make me more vigilant as we entered the house and I placed Wizard on the floor. Joan grabbed at my left hand and squeezed it tightly.

Flint stood about 3 feet away from us and stared at this fuzzy apparition. His tail was high and vibrating, and he approached with a stiff-legged walk. As he drew closer, I could feel Joan’s hand clench harder.

Wizard stood watching the approach of the gray dog. A few seconds later he assessed the situation and responded as puppies always do when confronted with a threat—he collapsed to the floor and rolled over on his side. Flint arrived next to him and moved his nose over his inert little body. I could imagine his thoughts.

“What is this? It looks like something that I should chase, but it smells like a dog.”

“This is Wizard,” I announced. “He is your new brother. Treat him well.”

Flint seemed to ignore me, but he lowered himself to the floor next to the pup. A minute later Wizard slowly rolled onto his belly. Our new puppy then tentatively sniffed at Flint’s nose, and his tongue came out as if he were licking at the air. Flint stood up, gave a shake as if he had just come out of the water, and turned and started to move toward the kitchen. Without any hesitation, Wizard trotted after him with his tail swinging back and forth. I smiled and dropped his light little leash and let him drag it behind him. Joannie finally let go of my hand and gave an audible sigh of relief.

A few moments later we found the two dogs licking simultaneously from the water bowl on the floor. “I think that they’ll be fine now,” I said. I looked down at my left hand—the one that Joan had been holding—and noticed that she had been squeezing it with so much pressure that her nails had actually cut into my palm leaving a visible trickle of blood.

A few hours later Joan went off to do some shopping and I was sitting on the sofa reading some research material. I had placed Wizard beside me, and Flint had also jumped up onto the furniture to lie with his head near my leg. Time passed and both dogs fell asleep. Wizard had dozed off while sucking on the tip of one of Flint’s pointed ears. I couldn’t help smiling. My “great gray hunter” was clearly not going to be a threat to my new puppy.

As if he heard me thinking, Flint opened one eye and a silly voice said,
“This is embarrassing, Hui Shih, the Gray Lion, is now reduced to being a babysitter for a wimpy puppy.”

“A royal spaniel,” I corrected him.

Flint moved his head slightly to look at me and his ear slipped out of Wizard’s mouth. The pup did not wake but groped a bit until he found the ear again and continued to mouth it. My terrier sighed, closed his eyes, and returned to sleep without further comment.

The easiest way to turn a puppy into a civilized dog is to bring it into a home where there is already a dog who knows the routines. This cuts the effort required to housebreak and train by more than half. As a puppy, Wizard watched Flint’s every movement and imitated his behavior. When I put Flint out the back door to relieve himself, Wizard galumphed along behind him, watched him, and then emptied himself just a few feet away. When I called the dogs to give them a treat and commanded them to sit, Wizard watched and imitated Flint’s responses. I never really had to teach t
he puppy the meaning of the words “come,” “sit,” “down,” “let’s go,” and “stay.” Wiz understood the basic commands, responded perfectly when Flint was next to him, and more slowly and hesitantly when he was not. A few rewards for giving the correct response to each of these commands when his gray teacher was not around were all it took to for him to add a bit more precision to his performance.

There was, however, an unexpected problem. Whenever I called Flint, Wizard would respond as well. At first I thought that Wiz was simply learning the meaning of the word “come,”
but I began to worry that he was beginning to respond as though he believed that his name was Flint. I believe that a dog’s name is the single most important word that he will ever learn. A dog lives in an ocean of human sounds and, with only the language ability of a human two-year-old, he has to decide which words are directed at him and which are not. Suppose I had said to Joannie, “Why don’t you come over and sit down?” when one of my dogs was in the room. How is my dog supposed to know whether or not the words “come,” “sit,” and “down” in my request to Joan were really meant for him?

Dogs are masters at interpreting body language, so mine can often figure out who I am speaking to based on what I am doing as I speak. Obviously, if am looking directly into a dog’s eyes and have his full attention, he knows that I mean for him to respond to “sit” or “down.” In the absence of that sort of body language, however, the dog’s name becomes the key to his understanding, in effect, a signal that tells him “This next message is for you.”

All of my dogs have several names. The least important of them is their official name that is registered with the kennel club and appears on their pedigree certificate, since it is never used in everyday interactions and is usually long and pompous, for instance, Remasia’s Our Man Flint. Instead, I use a short, familiar name as the dog’s “call name.” I don’t like to use human names for my dogs because it can be confusing when you call for or give instructions to Fred the dog and one of your visitors or family is also named Fred.

Since there are many times when I want to communicate with both dogs simultaneously, I also need a group name for my dogs. For example, a friend who only has male dogs uses “Gentlemen” when signaling his all-boy collection, while Emma from our club had only female dogs and referred to them as “Ladies.” Another friend, a retired army tank corps officer, uses the group name “Troops,” while one of Joan’s former teacher
friends uses “Class” as the group name for her three little lap dogs. I decided to use the word “Puppies” as an alternate name for my dogs, so that when I call, “Puppies, come,” all of my dogs should run to me.

Flint was already used to name changes and additions, since I often spoke to him using casual labels as names, like “Scamp,” “Gray Warrior,” and “Gray Person,” when I was talking to him. Ultimately Wizard would respond to “Wizard,” “Wizzy,” “Wizzer,” “Wiz,” and “Snarf.”

To help Wiz learn his name better, every time that I touched him or petted him I would repeat his name. I also added a little ritual to my life. First thing in the morning, I would get down on the floor and sing a song to my dogs. It was a bad variation of a few lines of the old standard “You Are My Sunshine.” Starting with Wizard I would focus my attention solely on him and sing

You are my Wizard, my only Wizard
You make me happy when skies are gray.
You’ll never know, Wiz, how much I love you
So please don’t take my Wizard away
.

I would then turn to Flint and substitute his name, for all of the occurrences of Wizard giving him my full attention. These efforts seemed to do the job. After a while I simply had to say his name and Wizard would look directly at me, and if I told him to stay and then called Flint to me, Wiz would remain in place.

I know that my sitting on the floor singing to my dogs to teach the puppy his name sounds weird, but an online survey (where people could answer anonymously) found that 41 percent of responders admitted that they sometimes sang to their dogs. Of those who did sing to their dogs, 92 percent said that they never mentioned it to anyone in their family nor allowed anyone to hear them. Joan had already overheard me sometimes speaking to, and answering for, Flint, so I doubted that her
overhearing me singing to my dogs would further weaken her impression of my sanity. On the other hand, given the nature of my own singing voice and my inability to carry a tune, I felt that it would be a kindness to keep Joan from being subjected to my “musical” performance. Nonetheless, one morning when she had awakened and gone downstairs before me, I was sitting on the bedroom floor singing my little “name song” to the dogs when I was interrupted by Joan’s voice coming from the base of the stairs.

“Are you all right?” she asked, with concern in her voice.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“I was worried,” she replied. “I thought that I heard you moaning in pain.”

When she moved away, Flint’s voice added,
“I’ll bet that being forced to listen to your singing could be classified as animal abuse.”