Born to Bark (42 page)

In obedience trials Flint had become a reasonable, if not always predictable, working dog, and he was much loved by many of the other competitors who would gather at ringside to see him
compete and to see what kind of mischief he might get into. Nonetheless, I was still surprised to receive a certificate from
Dogs in Canada
, indicating that Flint was the highest-scoring Cairn terrier in obedience competition that year—and this time his name was even spelled correctly. Tucked into the envelope with the certificate was a handwritten note, signed with only a single initial. It said, “Congratulations. I was curious and checked our records and your dog has the highest annual point count ever obtained by a Cairn terrier in Canada!”

I proudly showed the two pieces of paper to Joannie, who shook her head and asked, “He may be the number one Cairn ever in obedience competition, but where does he rank
when compared to real dogs?”

She had asked a good question, so I checked out the other high-scoring obedience dogs for that year. Flint’s record-breaking score was a meager 39 points, while the number one dog in Canada that year was a Border collie with a total of 1,960. I decided not to mention these facts to Joan.

On most dogs you can see the signs of age when the hair on their face and muzzle begins to turn gray. Because Flint was a gray dog, I didn’t see the age-related gray hair that should have reminded me that he was growing old, and so I treated him as if he were still young and vigorous, with the expectation that he would continue to perform the way that he always had. However, much like an aging human, you can push a dog’s body only so far.

Flint’s first physical crisis came one evening when we were at the dog club practicing directed jumping, where a dog is sent out across a ring with two high jumps and must leap over the one selected by his handler. Flint liked this exercise and launched himself toward the jump I indicated with his usual happy bark. But as he went over it, he landed awkwardly. When he arrived in front of me he was limping and not putting any weight on one of his hind legs. I thought that he simply had developed a strain or sprain, so I stopped exercising him that night, and assumed that in a d
ay or two the leg would be normal again. I was wrong.

After 2 days, Flint was still not putting any weight on his
hind leg so I took him to our veterinarian, Dr. Moore, who indicated that Flint had damaged his cruciate ligament. “Although this can happen to any dog at any age, it is more likely in older dogs who are still engaged in rigorous activities that involve a lot of running or jumping. He will require an operation if he is going to regain use of that leg again.”

The operation was expensive, and after the operation and some time for recuperation, the vet said that Flint’s full recovery would require that he start to put his weight on the leg again. Flint was still favoring it and moving around on three legs as if the repaired leg could not bear his weight. I was becoming a bit frustrated trying to figure out ways to get him to exercise the leg properly and to let it carry its normal load again.

The solution came one sunshine-filled afternoon when I decided to take the dogs for a walk along the shore of the bay. The route down to the water’s edge took us across a sandy beach and my feet sank into the loose sand on each step. I looked back at Flint and noticed that under these conditions he had no alternative but to put some weight on his hind leg as he plodded through the soft sand that let each leg sink down a bit. This was obviously the therapeutic conditions that we needed.

For the next several weeks, Flint, Wiz, and I had hour-long walks on the soft, sandy shore. Flint’s leg gradually strengthened as he was forced to exercise it, while Wizard just seemed to collect sand in the fine hair that made up his coat. When we arrived home after each walk, Flint would flop down as if he were exhausted and watch patiently while I carefully brushed the sand from Wizard’s coat.

When we returned to Dr. Moore for a checkup at the end of the month, he was very impressed at how well Flint had healed and how much strength he had recovered in his leg. Flint was now moving normally and the vet announced that if I wanted to have him return to obedience competition, he thought that it would be all right for him to go over the jumps again
. I considered
this recommendation for a while and decided against it. I had an image in my head of Flint going over a jump and coming up lame again because he had reinjured that ligament, or perhaps damaged another, which was more than likely now that Flint was getting older. A piece of blue-colored ribbon for a qualifying score or even the prospect of him becoming an Obedience Training Champion was not worth the risk.

On our car ride back home, I looked at Flint sitting beside me and told him, “Well, old man, it looks like I’m retiring you from obedience competition. I don’t want to risk having you jump anymore.”

He answered in a rather philosophical tone,
“As long as I can still jump up onto your bed to sleep, and can still jump up on the window seat to protect the house with my barking, I can survive. And, by the way, I’m not so old. I still have all of my hair—what about you?”

Other things made me acutely aware that my terrier was showing signs of aging. A slight haze was forming on his eyes, although this didn’t seem to affect his vision much at first, and his hearing was clearly going downhill.

The first sign of Flint’s fading hearing was that he failed to show up instantaneously at the sound of the refrigerator opening or closing, or in response to the crinkling sound of cellophane as I opened packages of crackers or other food. If Wizard sashayed into the kitchen upon hearing those sound signals that often predicted that some extra food might be available, Flint would sometimes follow him, but more and more often he would not even awaken in response to that activity. Flint had always responded reliably to spoken commands, but now often seemed to ignore my call, es
pecially if he was looking away from me. Outdoors he seemed oblivious of the sound o
f approaching
cars or the noise of kids on skateboards approaching from behind, which before had always caused him to turn and watch them alertly.

I mentioned Flint’s diminishing hearing sensitivity to Joannie, who merely said, “Maybe things will be a bit quieter around here since he won’t be barking at the sound of every leaf that falls near the house.”

Unfortunately for her, that was not to be, since at last Wizard became the accomplice that Flint had always wanted. Flint was sleeping more soundly than he used to, not bolting awake at every noise to sound the alarm with a cascade of barking, but Wizard now seemed bothered that Flint was no longer going to the door or window to bark. Previously, when Flint would bark to alert us to sounds in the street Wiz would always tag along behind him and studiously look over his shoulder in the direction the noises were coming from. Wiz never joined in the barking but wagged his tail merrily
as though he recognized that his housemate was doing a good job and one that clearly needed to be done. Now that Flint was not responding to these sounds Wiz began to look uncomfortably in the direction that any noises were coming from and then he would look back at Flint, who was usually napping on the sofa. Rather than take up the job of barking himself, however, Wiz hit upon another strategy. He walked over to where Flint was resting and sounded a single loud high-pitched yip, close enough and loud enough to affect even Flint’s diminished hearing. When Wizard’s call registered in his co
nsciousness, Flint would open his eyes and raise his head. Wiz would then run to the window or door where he’d heard the sound. This activity stirred Flint into action and he would excitedly race to where Wiz was standing and immediately start barking in response to a sound that he had not actually heard. His own barking apparently sounded lower in intensity to him, and so he seemed to be barking louder and longer now. Wiz stood contentedly but silently beside him, gently wagging his tail
in recognition that he had ensured that a needed service for the family was still being provided without requiring a royal spaniel to engage in common canine work such as barking.

Dogs with reduced hearing can undergo personality changes. Some may become more fearful or dependent, and some more snappish and apparently aggressive. They startle more easily as things suddenly spring into view or make physical contact without any prior warning. Normally dogs sleep fairly lightly, which means that they are still, at some level, monitoring the sounds around them, which lets them anticipate some events that are about to happen, but a deaf dog may awaken with a growl or a snap if touched while sleeping simply because he did not expect it. In Flint’s case this
state of affairs resulted in a major crisis.

I was in my home office writing one afternoon when my attention was caught by a huge commotion in the living room. I stood up and was met by Joan who was holding her hand up to show a trickle of blood dripping down.

“Your miserable old dog bit me,” she shrieked.

I walked her into the bathroom and washed the blood away from her hand to reveal a small puncture wound on her thumb, which I covered with some antiseptic ointment and a small adhesive bandage. Then I asked her to tell me what had happened.

“He was asleep on the sofa—on my side of the sofa—and I went to wake him up to get him off it and he turned around and bit me!”

“Please, Joannie,” I said, “remember that his hearing is going downhill. He probably didn’t hear you and was startled awake when you poked at him. He might have awakened in a fright, and of course he would snap at what was touching him.”

“He bit me because he never liked me,” she insisted.

I tried to explain what she could do to prevent this from
happening again. “If you walked more heavily when you approached him, he would probably feel the vibrations from the wood floor and awaken on his own. Another way is to just hold your hand near his nose and your smell should alert him. He’s not totally deaf, so he might even awaken if you clapped you hands a couple of times.”

Joan looked at me in disbelief. “You want me to clomp around my own house, stamping my feet, just for the benefit of your dog? You want me to applaud the beast that just bit me so that he can wake up more gracefully? This is my home and I expect to be treated with some respect and not to be bitten by your dog. You are a psychologist. Fix his attitude!”

Although Flint had always been a trial for Joan, this physical assault crossed some critical line in her mind. Joan would not change her behavior to accommodate my dog, Flint was of course too old to change, and his hearing was certainly not going to get better. I feared that there would be more bites, more shouting, and a general escalation of the conflict between my wife and my terrier. The best that I could do was to keep them apart, so whenever I was in the house I kept Flint near me and as far from Joan as possible, sometimes even resorting to the umbilical that I had used whe
n he was a puppy.