Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs (25 page)

whose couch Is it, anyway?
If I can listen to what he tells me, if I can
understand how it seems to him, if
I can sense the emotional flavor which it has for him,
then I will be releasing

the portent forces of change within him.
carl rogers

the afghan bitch, opal, was lovely, and her
adoptive owner Mary Anne was delighted with this
quiet, well-behaved dog. Opal's background
was unknown-a rescue group had discovered her in an
animal shelter and had fostered her until Mary
Anne adopted her. All was fine until the day
Mary Anne entered the living room to find Opal
on the couch. This was not a problem in and of itself-dogs were
quite welcome to share the furniture. A longtime hound
owner, Mary Anne knew that most hounds possess
a gene that unerringly directs them to the nearest (and
softest) cushion in any situation. What
surprised her was the deep growling that arose from
Opal when Mary Anne approached the couch. Though
taken aback, Mary Anne moved closer, motioning
with her hand as she told Opal to get off the sofa.
The growl grew more intense, and when Mary Anne
reached for the dog, meaning only to gently guide her
on to the floor, long jaws snapped at the air
near her hand. Not sure what to do, Mary Anne
retreated from the room, unwilling to be bitten. As
she stood staring out the kitchen window while she thought
about this ugly turn of events, Opal trotted into the
room, tail wagging. The dog seemed
fine, as loving and friendly as ever, and Mary Anne
put the behavior down as perhaps a leftover from the
dog's mysterious past or maybe even just an off
day. Perhaps, she told herself, she had startled the dog
or woken her from a dream. Quite a few days passed
before the situation repeated itself. This time Opal
began growling
as soon as Mary Anne entered the room. This time
Mary Anne was concerned enough to call for help.
When I met Opal, the aloof yet soulful
Afghan gaze sent me flying back in my
memories to my own Afghan many years ago. She
was surprisingly assured in my living room, which was
filled with the scents of my own dogs. A warning bark
from behind my office door (carson notifying all
interested that she was on duty) merited only a
mildly interested glance from the hound, who calmly
curled up between Mary Anne and me. Though quiet
and friendly, Opal was also quite confident, something Mary
Anne did not fully recognize. "The poor
thing-I feel so bad for her. How could anyone give
up such a beautiful dog?" She gazed down at
Opal with a pitying smile. "I guess maybe this

aggression comes from being abused?"
When problem behaviors arise, kindhearted owners
sometimes blame the dog's history, as Mary Anne
did, believing that the problem was a result of prior
abuse. Like Mary Anne, many owners who have
rescued or adopted a dog also hold the image
of the "poor thing" so clearly in their minds that they cannot
see the reality of the dog standing before them. Opal's
assured greeting of me and her total relaxation on
what was decidedly the home turf of many large,
strange dogs revealed a dog with a fairly high
degree of confidence. Having sympathy for a dog's
past experiences is a good thing, and understanding a dog's
background can provide important clues. And in
cases of extreme abuse or neglect, there may
be gaps or holes that can be only roughly patched,
never fully overcome; scars sometimes remain in
body and spirit. But we must always keep our eyes open
to really see our dogs as they are, not lock them in
their past or carry for them the emotional baggage that
they have discarded.
If good, reliable information is available, understanding the
past is helpful in that it may point to reasons why
certain behaviors or attitudes are more
difficult to change. Far too often, however,
well-meaning people such as Mary Anne
"hallucinate" the dog's past. While abusive
pasts certainly do exist for many dogs, it does the
dog very little good if we interpret his behavior through that
particular filter. No relationship thrives if one
of us is busy hallucinating what the other's reality
might be; intimacy is not founded on supposition
but on knowledge of how the
world seems through another pair of eyes. In trying
to know another, we may guess, but then need ways
to ask if we have guessed correctly, "Is this so
for you?" If we can't create a way to ask the dog
in some way whether our guess is correct or not,
we are indulging in kindhearted hallucination.
I often remind clients that if they had simply
found the dog on the street, they would have no clue as
to the dog's past, no rationalizations or excuses for
why a dog acted in a particular way. The only
assessment they could make is the one that needs to be
made: What, if any, of the dog's behaviors
offer evidence that the dog needs to learn better ways
of coping with his life so that fear, anxiety,
uncertainty or even anger can be minimized or

eliminated? Having made such an
assessment, it's time to get to work on making
positive changes. As a Zen saying asks, "This
being the case, how then shall I proceed?"
Undesirable or unproductive behavior-whatever
its source-always needs to be resolved.
Mary Anne's kindheartedness had also played a
key role in leading the dog to the unfortunate
conclusion that she, Opal, was actually the
highest-ranking member of the household. Eager
to make the dog feel secure and loved, Mary
Anne had thoughtfully provided for Opal's every
need. If Opal nudged her hand, Mary Anne
showered her with attention, trying to make up for the sad
circumstances she imagined in Opal's past. Should
Opal cast a glance toward her food bowl, Mary
Anne was quick to provide a treat. A slight
restlessness on Opal's part resulted in Mary
Anne leaping up to take the hound outside or even
for a leisurely walk. While all of this loving
care was provided with nothing but the very best intentions, it
backfired. To the canine mind, certain
privileges such as access to resources and the right
to elicit demand attention are associated with high
status. When Mary Anne lovingly delivered
valuable resources like food and fun
(walks) at Opal's request, the hound
interpreted this as proof that she was a high-ranking
dog. When Mary Anne responded to Opal's
desire for petting, this just underlined the message.
To top it all off, Mary Anne's gestures
toward the dog looked even to my noncanine eye
to be quite deferential: slow, almost hesitant, quick
to freeze or withdraw at any sign from Opal.
Although I knew Mary Anne was intending only
to act in gentle, nonthreatening ways, Opal was
viewing their interactions quite differently from her thor-
oughly canine perspective. After a period of
months of receiving these inadvertent messages regarding
her status, Opal felt quite well within her rights as
the top-ranking family member to tell others that she
did not wish to be disturbed while on the couch.
Rule setting was her high status privilege, and
she intended to enforce her edicts in fully canine
ways with growls, snarls, and even bites.
The conflict between human and dog occurs when we
don't realize that what we consider loving acts of

caretaking may be interpreted by the dog as
deference to him and our agreement that he is the one in
control of resources. We intend to send the
message "You are loved and cared for, your needs will be
met." The dog may hear "Your wish is my
command." It takes no imagination or even an
understanding of dogs to see how quickly this can become a
serious problem. A message that twists in the
space between speaker and listener is always problematic,
particularly when we do not take care to note whether
the message that lands is shaped precisely as it was
when it left our lips.
As we discussed all this, Mary Anne was
surprised to learn how different Opal's canine
perspective was from her own. She understood how
Opal might have come to the wrong conclusion, but frowning,
she said, "What I don't understand is this. All my
life, I've had dogs, many of them dogs I
rescued from the local shelter, and I've treated
all of them just like I've treated Opal. None of
them ever growled at me or seemed to think they were in
charge. I see your point, but it doesn't make
sense when I look at all the dogs I've had."
Mary Anne's conclusion was understandable and quite common.
A woman I dealt with at a seminar had a
similar response based on her
experience. She'd had Cocker Spaniels her
entire life, had treated them all with the same
approach and had never had anything but compliant,
well-mannered dogs who were a delight-until her
last dog, a hotshot puppy she had chosen
specifically as her next competition dog because of his
gung ho attitude and athletic ability. This
dog had both delighted her with his lightning-fast mind
and dismayed her with his often- problematic behavior.
When I pointed out that Mr. HotShot needed a more
crisply defined leadership, she found that hard
to swallow-her particular style of leadership had been
very successful for a long time with many other dogs.

What Mary Anne and the Cocker Spaniel lover
were overlooking is that while a dog is a dog is a
dog, every dog is a different dog. Anyone who
has raised more than one child or had more than one
meaningful friendship understands that successful relationships
of any kind require that we adapt our particular
style to the needs and responses of the other. To stand
rigidly in our preferred patterns and insist that
all others bend to suit us is hardly an

effective approach in any relationship.
To then blame the other when conflicts arise is
selfishness of a very high order, and denies the
importance of the other's needs. Within a loving
relationship, even when we are in a leadership role
(perhaps especially in that case), we must always consider
what the other's behavior tells us about our own. The
bottom line for the Cocker's owner was that the approach
that had worked beautifully with a twenty-year lineup of
Cocker Spaniels was evidently not sufficient
leadership for a particularly bold, confident pup.
Mary Anne's previous dogs may not have been as
assured as Opal, and possibly not even interested
in being a high- ranking dog.
Contrary to popular belief, not all dogs are
alpha wannabes just waiting for the humans to slip
up so they can take over the household if not the
country and perhaps the world. What all dogs
are willing to do is shape their world as best they can to suit
them. The Cocker lover's previous dogs may have
thought their world was just dandy, so going with the flow was
pleasant and easy. If life is good, why rock
the boat? (as politicians know, a well-fed and
entertained citizenry rarely causes problems.)
For whatever reason-different experience or
personalities- Mary Anne's other dogs
evidently had been happy to go along with her gentle
style. Opal, on the other hand saw the world
differently and was comfortable in a high-status role.
Her particular personality was actually quite strong and
assured-rude dogs she encountered received little more than
a haughty stare, and people she did not care for she
dismissed by looking through and not at them, as if they did
not even exist. It's fair to say that her
personality was one that was more sensitive and alert
to nuances of leadership. From Opal's point of
view, Mary Anne's attentive care to her every
need had shown that Mary Anne was very trainable and
compliant; in other words, lower-status. This has
nothing to do with love-Opal clearly loved Mary
Anne and vice versa. But
love and leadership are two different issues in a
dog's mind, and loving though she was, Opal was
setting rules about the couch.
Resolving the problem required that Mary Anne
establish in Opal's mind that she was worthy of the
hound's respect. "Am I going to have to yell at
her or jerk her around? Because I'm not going to do that,"

Mary Anne warned me. She was relieved
to know that the most effective techniques were also
humane, nonpunitive and nonconfrontational.
As Opal had already demonstrated, in situations where
respect for a person is limited, any confrontation
or use of force may be perceived by the dog as an
attack by a subordinate and may result in a
completely canine response.
Earning a dog's respect can be accomplished
by making it clear that the valued resources come through
you-and only after a doggy "please" has been heard.
When a dog walks directly to us and places his
ball or toy in our lap, he is saying "Play
with me." And he's not including any form of
"please." Envision your dog as a rude child who
walks up, slams a board game down in front
of us and demands that you play with them-
now.
We would find such behavior unacceptable, and
to remind the child that there are more appropriate and
respectful ways of interacting with others, we might
set conditions: "I'll play with you after you've taken
out the garbage." Or, "You may leave the room, and
come back and try asking me again, but this time in a
nice way, with "please" and "thank you"
included." Even young children can learn not to just
point at something and expect it to be handed to them;
wise parents teach children to say "please" as a condition
for cooperating with their requests.
Person or pup, politeness counts. For
example, a low-status dog who wishes to engage
a higher-status dog in play needs to offer
deferential behaviors while shaping the request
to come play. Play bows, licking at the mouth,
lowered body posture, groveling-all these are
gestures of great respect and deference, and to the
canine mind, part and parcel of a polite conversation.
If we fail to keep our end of the bargain by acting like
a high-status animal who will insist on
politeness, then the dog may interpret our
response to his request as proof that his status is
greater than ours. And we really don't have a right
to be shocked if our dogs tell us that we've been
acting like lowly puppies unworthy of their
respect.