DogTown (27 page)

Pat also discovered that Johnny had a much less endearing habit, which to most people would be a genuine deal breaker: He liked to nose around in the kitty box and eat the little “kitty crunchies” he found there. It was yet another bad habit he’d have to unlearn.

THE POWER OF POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

When Pat brought Johnny home to foster, he thought the biggest problem was going to be the thing that had gotten him thrown out of his first home—his inability to be housebroken. Pat prepared for the worst, fortifying himself with a fresh supply of paper towels and spray cleaner. If Johnny hadn’t learned to succeed at this most basic of tasks at the age of 11 months, retraining him could be difficult. Pat knew that, with an unhousebroken dog like Johnny, he’d have to keep an eye on him all the time. “Most dogs will give you some sort of a cue as to what they’re about to do, particularly male dogs, who will often have to find an object, sniff on the object, get sideways on the object, and then raise the leg. As a trainer you’ll have a lot of warning that he’s about to do something; you’ve got time to hustle him outside before he does it.”

But to Pat’s amazement and delight, he didn’t really need all those paper towels. Johnny was almost—though not quite—housebroken from the second day at his house.

Johnny’s goofy antics and sweet nature won him many fans among the Dogtown staff.

When Johnny was about to do his business, Pat picked him up and gently pushed him out his doggie door. After a few tries at this, Johnny would dutifully scramble out the doggie door when the time was right, relieve himself in the outdoor run, and then—get stuck outside. Because the riser on one of the back steps was too high for him, Johnny would clumsily, and unsuccessfully, struggle to get up it. Pat had to fix the step so Johnny could come and go as he pleased.

“I certainly couldn’t have him going out and thinking he was trapped out there, and then not wanting to go out anymore,” Pat said. “Because one of the basic principles of dog training is to make it as easy as possible for him to do what you want him to do.”

The primary tool Pat was using to change Johnny’s behavior was positive reinforcement, which is at the core of Best Friends’ training philosophy. Negative reinforcement—that is, punishment for bad behavior rather than rewards for good behavior—can also produce behavior changes in dogs. But Pat knew it can also produce unwanted side effects. “I don’t want Johnny to be afraid of me,” he said. “I want him to
enjoy
our training sessions. I don’t want him to think, ‘I have to shut down and not behave around this guy because if I make him mad, he’s going to smack me around or punish me somehow.’ Instead, I want to encourage behaviors that I like, which means making them not just fun for me—because I’m tickled that he’s doing the right thing—but fun for Johnny too.”

Pat would simply ignore Johnny’s bad or unwanted behavior: if he jumped up on Pat, or chased the cat, or dug in the kitty litter. Instead Pat only paid attention to the behavior he wanted to encourage, the one he would reward. But for Johnny to learn a whole slew of new behaviors at the same time that he unlearned all the old behaviors would require constant, nonstop attention.

“If I work with him 20 percent of a day, he’s going to find out the old behaviors are still great 80 percent of the time and the new behaviors may only need to be looked at when he sees me hanging around,” Pat explained.

The main thing about a reinforcement that matters is that it should be something that’s valued by the dog, Pat said. If he used dog biscuits and Johnny didn’t like them, the whole exercise would be futile. He’d seen dogs who would close their mouths and turn their heads when offered a treat—indicating that they wanted to be petted, not fed. So petting and affection is the reinforcer that should be used in that case.

According to Pat, if a dog can do something on his own, he can be taught to do it on cue. If a trainer says “sit” and the dog doesn’t move, he can gently
force
the dog’s body to sit, force him to obey the command by leading his head with a handheld treat (if that’s the reinforcer that works). The trick is finding the dog’s trigger—the stimulus that gets a response. For a small boy, it might be a toy truck; for Johnny, it’s physical affection, toys, and—Johnny’s favorite—treats.

Pat demonstrated this profound, simple principle while Johnny was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor. Pat held out a treat and then waved it around the room. Johnny’s nose followed it here, followed it there, and finally followed it into a sitting position because that was the easiest position to reach it from. It was also the place where he got to eat the treat.

“He’s learning to sit on cue,” Pat said. “He’s learning, ‘My butt on the ground is when the guy lets go of the treat.’ This is not a dog that can’t learn,” Pat said, after he’d fostered Johnny in his home for two weeks. “I can show you a whole myriad of things he’s mastered, just like any other dog—I’m kind of embarrassed to say that he already knows more than my other dogs! He literally was sitting on command within 24 hours and then we built on that.” Even Johnny’s most revolting habit, digging in the kitty litter, yielded to the power of positive reinforcement.

Why had Johnny seemed so slow? Well, Pat says, maybe it was because he
was
slow, and still is—but that didn’t mean he was untrainable, or unlovable.

The persistence of the trainers at Dogtown in dealing with a dog like Johnny is genuinely inspirational. Pat Whitacre simply did not give up. He didn’t make one of those pragmatic bargains people often make with the universe: “Look, this is a dumb, difficult dog with disagreeable habits, who won’t behave and really isn’t worth much trouble. Save your energy for a dog that’s worth the time.”

Instead, Pat simply focused intensely on helping Johnny learn what he needed to know in order to survive in human society—all the behaviors that would make his shining star visible to the world—even if it meant tethering himself to a rambunctious golden retriever all night long. And to what purpose? In order to give Johnny away to a stranger.

Dogtown is, one might say, actually a spiritual community for humans masquerading as a no-kill shelter for animals. It’s a kind of monastery where the goal is simply giving dogs a happy life, and then giving them away—with no worldly credit for having done so, and only the guarantee of long hours and low pay. For the dog-monks of Dogtown, the payoff is entirely psychic and spiritual. And their good works—in the form of contented, well-behaved dogs—spread out into the world like wave after wave of blessings.

With Pat Whitacre’s help, Johnny proved that he could learn better manners while staying true to his goofy personality.

THE SMARTEST DOG ON THE BLOCK

Pat is sitting on the sofa at his house, with Johnny sprawled beside him, his head in Pat’s lap. While he talks, Pat absently strokes the resplendent golden fur on Johnny’s head and neck. From time to time Johnny heaves a big, contented sigh and looks up, cocking an eye from side to side, as if by means of some cosmic prank he could actually understand every word Pat was saying.

“The biggest measure of how far Johnny has come is that he has come at all—that he is learning,” Pat says. “He’s learning what he needs to learn to fit in to a home, and he’s doing it fairly easily.

“Johnny’s come such a long way, from having to live in a kennel because his manners were so bad he couldn’t be adopted, to living pretty well in my house. He’s only been here two weeks, and he’s already well on his way to being completely housebroken.”

Johnny, the dog people said was untrainable, has come further than anyone believed possible.

“I’m gonna miss him when he gets adopted. He’s a very personable dog—he’s one of the most popular dogs at Dogtown right now. He loves everybody. You’ll never get bored of him watching his antics, whether he’s dragging things around or digging through the trash, or whatever he’s doing to entertain himself. He’s quite comical. He’s very well loved.”

Not long afterward, when Johnny’s story and photo were posted on the Dogtown website, a childless couple from Utah saw what Pat had seen. The couple had lost a beloved nine-year-old golden to bone cancer a year earlier, and the death of their dog had left a hole in their household.

“We are wanting to add a new member of our family—we are wanting to come meet Johnny in particular,” the couple wrote in their adoption application.

When the couple arrived at Dogtown, Johnny greeted them with his sweet, dopey grin, his readiness to play almost any kind of game, his limitless hunger for affection—and a few new tricks, like “sit,” “stay,” “lie down,” and even “roll over.”

Rather than being a dumb, slow bungler, unable to learn or even to live in a house, Johnny was about to become the new member of a family, and maybe even the smartest dog on the block.

I
n the news photograph, nothing was visible except a sea of dark water and the face of a small dog, terrified and barely afloat, frantically paddling along behind a rescue boat. The photo rocketed around the world because it summed up the plight of thousands of animals stranded, abandoned, drowned, or starving after the city of New Orleans sank into the sea due to the furor of Hurricane Katrina.

By some estimates more than 250,000 animals—dogs, cats, horses, birds, rabbits, fish, ferrets, and every other kind of pet, in addition to zoo animals—either were left homeless or died after the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. In the desperate chaos following the storm, rescue boat captains and helicopter pilots refused to take on animals, reserving space only for humans—which means that the little dog in the picture very likely drowned.

Some pet owners simply fled as the storm bore down on the city, leaving their animals to fend for themselves. Others left food and water for their pets, expecting to be back in a few days; but the days grew to weeks, and many animals starved or broke free and roamed the wrecked city, fighting for survival. Desperate house pets, accustomed to regular meals and a favorite couch, had to revert to living in feral packs on the street, where they were sometimes found covered with chemical burns from polluted water. Many simply did not survive.

Not long after the great storm devastated Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a small, intrepid team from the Best Friends Animal Society arrived in New Orleans to do what they could to rescue dogs who had been left behind. What they found was appalling.

“We had dogs on houses, we had dogs in attics—we were receiving dogs that had gone through the most horrendous, traumatic experiences I could ever imagine,” said dog trainer John Garcia, who was in New Orleans during the nine-month rescue mission. “No wonder half of the dogs we dealt with had some kind of behavioral issue.”

By the end of their stay, the Best Friends team had rescued more than 4,000 animals, many of whom were eventually reunited with their owners. Others were placed in shelters or other rescue organizations around the country while efforts to locate their original families continued. About 20 of the most difficult dogs, whose owners could not be found or whose behavior was scary or difficult, were shipped back to Dogtown, in the sunny canyon lands of Utah (at an elevation of 5,000 feet, well above the high-water mark).

Many of these hurricane-damaged dogs showed signs of something similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in humans—psychic scars that can manifest in a variety of different ways. Two of the dogs, Vivian and Scruffy, were badly traumatized by their ordeals. But they appeared to have dealt with their traumas very differently. Vivian displayed what the trainers called “fear-based aggression,” which the average person would probably interpret simply as scary, snarling hostility. Scruffy, by contrast, was pathologically shy and withdrawn, so frightened by everything that he hardly had a life at all.

SCRUFFY’S ISLAND OF SAFETY

Scruffy is a well-named dog because he looks, well, scruffy. He was some kind of corn shuck-blond terrier mix, just a little furry fluff bomb who always appeared to be in need of grooming even after he’d just been groomed. His wet black nose jutted out from behind a curtain of long blond fur, but his pale amber eyes often disappeared behind it.

After being rescued off the streets during the aftermath of Katrina by the Best Friends rescue team, Scruffy was first placed with a rescue organization in Tennessee. Many of the Katrina rescues were placed in foster care or with shelters that made room for them while every effort was made to locate their displaced families. Scruffy’s family was never found, and so he stayed in Tennessee.

Life at the animal rescue didn’t suit Scruffy and might have worsened his anxiety. Traumatized and uneasy, Scruffy found a safe hiding place underneath a shed in his enclosure where he could go when he felt threatened. When strangers approached, he crept underneath, which made finding an adoptive home very difficult.

The Tennessee shelter eventually closed down two years later, and Scruffy needed a new place to stay. Luckily for him and every other animal who came under Best Friends’ care during the Katrina rescue, Best Friends had made a lifelong commitment to Scruffy, so he was taken in at Dogtown. Unlike many other traumatized dogs who passed through the sanctuary’s doors, Scruffy was not aggressive or particularly dangerous. He was just so frightened and so shy that he could barely breathe. Many dogs breathe hard or pant when they are in a stressful situation, but Scruffy’s breath came in heaves and gasps, as though he was hyperventilating. Scruffy also struggled with everyday dog tasks; for instance, he vigorously resisted walking on a leash. In fact, Dogtown Manager Michelle Besmehn discovered how strongly he could resist soon after she started working with him. Scruffy also refused to walk through a doorway into a building.

Nothing certain was known about Scruffy’s history before the hurricane, and nothing was known about the trauma he’d lived through. One could only speculate. Had he been trapped in a house, perhaps his family home, as the familiar rooms filled with dark water? Or could it have been something as simple as Scruffy having always been an outside dog who never spent any time indoors? Perhaps the clinic’s unfamiliarity scared Scruffy so much that he wanted to avoid it at any cost. If any of these things had happened, or anything like them, it would make perfect sense for him to want to avoid buildings. This was not “dysfunctional behavior” it was a reasonable response to his old life in New Orleans—except that now Scruffy was safe and sound in Dogtown, and the fear response was no longer needed.

SCRUFFY AND THE SCARY DOOR

One day, with a co-worker, Michelle decided to try to coax Scruffy into the clinic at Dogtown to see how serious a problem this building was for him. Michelle crouched close to an exterior entrance to the building, while a volunteer held Scruffy on a leash nearby. But as the volunteer tried to gently lead Scruffy toward the door, suddenly the little dog stopped short and wouldn’t budge. He crouched low, tucked his tail, and avoided eye contact—all signs that signaled panic. As the two people tried to bring him farther, he started fighting the leash, at first just pulling against it and then finally thrashing his head back and forth, like a furry fish caught on a line.

“This is a big temper tantrum,” Michelle observed evenly as Scruffy twisted and turned, his golden hair flying furiously. But she and her co-worker didn’t try to force Scruffy inside the building. Forcing him inside could increase his fear and make future training even more difficult. Their aim was to have Scruffy figure out for himself that the door was not a scary thing. They wanted him to enter voluntarily without being dragged against his will.

In another attempt, Michelle and the volunteer tried a different door to the clinic. But Scruffy would have none of it. His reaction was the same—strong and panicked. Trying not to push too hard, Michelle approached him, talking gently. But Scruffy had grown so agitated and upset, he snapped at her. The assessment, they all concluded, was over for the time being. Scruffy would have to learn to enter the door on his own terms.

Bottom line: Scruffy had a long way to go.

“We at least know where he’s at, which is that he needs work,” Michelle said when it was over. “But I enjoy working with difficult dogs, because it challenges me to come up with ideas to help them through whatever is making them uncomfortable.”

Nothing is known about Scruffy’s life prior to his rescue, making pinpointing the exact cause of his fears unlikely.

Still, until Michelle could find some way to help him overcome his traumatic past, Scruffy had little chance of ever being adopted. After all, how could he ever learn to live in a home if he wouldn’t come indoors?

Over the following days, Michelle kept slowly, gently working to help Scruffy get off his lonely island of safety and walk through a door. Once again, she knelt in the doorway of the clinic while a volunteer held Scruffy on a firm leash. “C’mon, Scruffy! Go for it! Give it a try, buddy!”

But her encouraging words did nothing to help the traumatized little dog. As before, Scruffy struggled and fought against the leash. In another attempt, Michelle tried offering him chicken treats to lure him inside the building, but they may as well have been rocks. Scruffy’s fear of what might happen if he walked through that door was more vivid and powerful than the treats were tempting.

On a different day, Michelle decided to try a new approach—peer pressure. This time, she was going to try to coax Scruffy through the doorway using an accomplice—one of Scruffy’s dog friends, who could serve as a role model to demonstrate that walking through the door was not the same as walking off the edge of the Earth. This time, when Scruffy was brought on the leash close to the doorway, his dog buddy stood there, also on leash and just inside the door. This time Scruffy seemed torn. His fear and trauma pulled him back; his curiosity and love of company pulled him forward. He whined. He wagged his tail. He whined. Push, pull, push, pull. Forward, back, forward, back.

Finally Scruffy jumped forward onto the small welcome mat just outside the door and stopped there, frightened to go any farther. The two dogs touched noses reassuringly.

“You can do it, Scruffy!” Michelle whispered encouragingly. “You can get inside!”

And then, after days of trying and multiple failed attempts, almost casually—as if he’d never had any problem with it at all—Scruffy marched through the dark entrance to all his fears.

SCRUFFY AND THE MAGIC CARPETS

Once inside the building, Scruffy faced a new and unexpected challenge: the linoleum floor. Its cool, smooth surface terrified him. So Scruffy found his safe haven on the rug just inside the door. This fear is not uncommon in dogs; the cold, slippery texture of linoleum or floor tiles can make them feel insecure. Though he had made it through the scary doorway, now he was stopped again, paralyzed by a fear of the new surface. He sat huddled on the little square of carpet like a polar bear on a lonely ice floe. Finally Michelle found another small rug and laid it down on the floor next to Scruffy. After several minutes of indecision, Scruffy made his big move, quickly stepping over to the safety of the second carpet.

Cheers went up from everybody who was watching this unfolding story of triumph over fear—a profound human story, as well as an animal story, if ever there was one.

To help Scruffy get used to the floor, three of his dog pals came into the room and reassured him with their presence. The dogs all sniffed each other, and Scruffy seemed to momentarily forget the precariousness of his situation. Things were going so well that Michelle wanted to remove the rugs to see if Scruffy would stay relaxed without them. When the two rugs were pulled up, it was clear from Scruffy’s body language that he was not amused. He crouched low to the floor, almost as if he were trying to vanish into the ground, and he began panting, his tongue hanging all the way out—both signs of fear and stress.

Scruffy seemed to be so panicked that even the other dogs could not distract him, so Michelle ended the session. “If it’s not positive and we can’t figure out a way to make it positive, it’s not helpful,” she said.

On succeeding days, Michelle began to work with Scruffy’s small successes and the “breakthrough” of the magic carpets. To see if she could get Scruffy to explore his new world, she decided to lay down a trail of carpets through the hallway of the clinic, like a series of icebergs in a sea of linoleum. “The idea is, he seems comfortable and confident when he’s got the security of rugs, and he seems interested in exploring when he has that,” she said. He was like the neurotic Peanuts character Linus with his beloved security blanket, except that in this case, it was a whole Silk Road of security blankets.

In the parking lot outside the clinic, on leash, Scruffy hesitated at the doorway a bit, until Michelle lured him through the dreaded door with chicken treats. Then he began stepping gingerly from one rug to another, as if frightened that the carpets might capsize. When he got to the edge of the last carpet, he peered over the brink as if he were looking into deep, dark water. “One of Scruffy’s adoption requirements will be wall-to-wall carpeting,” one of the volunteers remarked dryly.

But now, for the first time, Scruffy gradually rose up out of his crouched position and began to wag his tail. He was showing that he was excited to be someplace new. He was discovering the adventure of his own life.

“You can almost see him saying, ‘OK, I’d like to go over there—could you put a rug there?’” Michelle observed. “So even though he’s not confident to do it, you see the desire to do more. It’s really fun to see that.”