THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

There’s a new book out for children that is designed to help them cope with the death of their dog. It’s titled “Give a Dog your Heart” and is written by Aubrey Fine, Ed.D., a child psychologist who has been using dogs in AAT as long as anyone. I’m not completely objective, Aubrey and I co-authored a chapter in his new Handbook of Animal Assisted Therapy, and I found him to be kind, compassionate and a joy to work with.

Still, if I didn’t like the book I wouldn’t post a note about it. The book is beautifully written and designed, has break your heart photos of a black lab, and a wonderful section at the back for children to use as an album and a journal. Hard as it is, pets are such a good opportunity to help children learn about how to wend your way through the woods when you are grieving. I just read an advice column in which a woman felt guilty because she took her child to a movie in which a pet died, and the child was upset. The columnist, yeah for her, wrote there was no reason to feel guilt, but that the movie was a wonderful ‘teaching moment’ to help a child learn that death is a part of life, and that we feel sad about the loss, feel grateful for a beloved pet’s life, and go on to celebrate it as best we can.

I’d love to hear about other books that you have found useful, especially for children. Any others out there?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Well, I’m not actually. I’m about in the middle of the Milford Track right now, deep in the  South Island of New Zealand. I pre-posted this, knowing that my connection to the internet will be sporadic at best.  Here’s a photo from home, to remind  me that it might be spring in New Zealand, but this is probably what it will look like when I get home.

Gail Caldwell’s new book, Let’s Take the Long Way Home, is nothing short of exquisite. It is a book for anyone who has had and lost a soul mate best friend, for anyone bonded to another by their love of dogs, or their need for another who understands them without explanation. It is a love story in a way, a memorial to Gail’s friendship with a brilliant writer named Caroline Knapp, who most of the world knows through her book Drinking: A Love Story, and dog lovers like us know from her last book, Pack of Two.

Gail’s writing is so spare and honest and pure that I read the book non-stop, bleary-eyed at 3 in the morning, tears streaming because after Gail and Caroline find each other — two single women writers who shared living alone, having similar boyfriends (the same one sequentially at one point), being professional writers and battling alcoholism in earlier years — Caroline died of lung cancer. As Gail writes: “It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and we shared that too.”

Full disclosure: I know Gail, and although I have only met her once, long after Caroline had died, we connected in seconds, old friends like comfy bathrobes on cool fall mornings. I had first seen her at a Book Fair in Florida, saw her speak on a panel and liked what I heard, bought her book A Strong West Wind and read it over a solitary dinner at the hotel, picked up and carried along by her words with such force I could barely eat. In the book’s acknowledgments she mentioned Caroline, and since I had just written in For the Love of a Dog that Caroline’s book Pack of Two was the best book on a relationship between a person and a dog I’d ever read, I was interested in the connection. Months later I found the nerve to write Gail, a Pulitzer winning writer, to tell how much I’d liked her book, and how much I had liked Caroline’s.  She wrote back that she was the best friend in the story, that she and Caroline had spent their afternoons walking their dogs together, talking about all the things true friends talk about, often with the dogs at the center. Later I was able to visit Gail in Boston, and meet her dog Clementine, heard how she had survived a horrific attack by another dog, and talked to Gail about the impossibility of life without our soul mate dogs, much less our soul mate human friends.

And so, I am not objective. But here’s what others say about the book:

“Stunning . . . a book of such crystalline truth that it makes the heart ache.” (Boston Globe)

“Caldwell (A Strong West Wind) has managed to do the inexpressible in this quiet, fierce work: create a memorable offering of love to her best friend, Caroline Knapp, the writer . . . who died of lung cancer at age 42 in 2002.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

This book is not about dogs, but Gail and Caroline’s love of dogs is central to the theme, as is their swimming, sculling and battle against alcoholism. It is also a lesson, pure and simple, about the power of language, and how very beautiful and powerful it can be.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Finally, it cooled off, cooler temperatures, lower humidity. Ahhhhh. Willie and I have worked sheep every morning.  Things with Willie and Hope are complicated, too much so for me to write about them now, but I will at length early next week (and yes yes, answer your questions about what I am doing about their reactivity.)

Here’s a photo from a walk we took today, a bunch’o dogs and a bunch’o friends, what a joy. Most of the dogs were out of the picture, but they were all Black and White (but not all BC’s.. we call it the Domino Group).

My UW students just took their last exam, and along with grading all 150 of them, I’m off with Jim to pick up the pup tomorrow. He’ll be nine weeks, a male Border collie of excellent herding lines who are also carefully bred for health and temperament. I’ve known his dad for years, always considered him a “bomb proof” dog–so much so that he was the first dog that Will was allowed to be in physical contact with after a year of classical and operant conditioning to turn his dog-dog aggression around.) Some background:

Two days after Lassie died I was online looking at rescue sites and shelters. I’ve never done that before, always needing a long time to let the other dog go.  I’m not sure why I did it after Lassie died. Her death was profoundly difficult for me; the loss of her was hard enough, but a decision I made at the end turned out to be the wrong one, and she died on her own, and not well. I should’ve put her down the night before, but I didn’t, so she suffered at the end and I had promised her I wouldn’t let that happen. I felt physically ill about it for days and no doubt my internet search was in part about finding something to ease the pain. Three days after she died I found a little, sorrel and white fluff-ball dog, the kind I call an “oxytocin pump” on my local shelter’s website. We went the next day to donate unused medications, and I told Jim if we were lucky the dog would already be adopted. I knew it probably would be, dogs like that leave shelters within hours if not days, and it was indeed already reserved for a new home. “Whew” I said to Jim, dodged a bullet there–probably not too wise to get a dog 3 days after Lassie died. And I would’ve taken it if it had been there, no question about it.

Since then, I’ve been looking on-line for months, waiting for just the right dog to appear, the plan being to end up with a total of 2 Border collies and a small, fluff ball dog as the canine residents of Redstart Farm. I wasn’t planning on a puppy, but heard about a litter from two solid dogs with great temperaments and super herding skills, met the parents, had long talks with owners of 3 year old dogs of the same breeding.. and here we are, about to bring a new little life into our home.

I had 5 pups to choose from, 2 females and 3 males. Overall, a female would have a lower probability of getting into competitive interactions with Will, but his best friends have been smaller, submissive males, so I decided I’d take either sex if I found a pup I really liked. I thought you’d be interested in how I chose. As many readers know, there are many “temperament tests’ out there (tho’ really they are “behavioral assessments” or “personality tests,”) and I used a combination of standards tests and measures that I’ve used for decades. My own opinion is that although no tests of a young pup are as predictive as we’d all like them to be, they are better than throwing your hands up in the air and choosing based on coat color or a pretty face. It helps that I’ve done hundreds of these in a similar way, and my belief is that doing it so many times to so many different kinds of dogs surely must provide some wisdom… at least, one can always hope.

Here’s what I did: The pups were in an EX pen in a grassy area.

ONE: I took one pup out at a time, and put them down about 20 feet away from the pen, and then clapped and moved away from the pen. I hadn’t planned this to be a test of “bold/shy” but it was windy and noisy and we had to pass barking dogs in a kennels, and it turned out to be a great way to compare the pup’s responses.  My pup (we called him Tri Male) was only one of 2 who stayed with me. He actually did baby outruns around my feet and tried to stop my forward motion, all open mouth and happy. Three pups ran back to the pen, ears flat, one other pup stayed with me, seemingly oblivious to everything but staying with me. (Good sign of boldness and interest in being with me? Maybe! (Maybe not!) Good sign of herding potential from Tri Male? (NO… I know of absolutely no way to test herding interest or ability in a young pup! The behavior often doesn’t show up until 7-9 months, so I would never make any guesses about herding ability at 8 weeks.)

TWO: We moved to a quiet area, I let the pups sniff a bit, did some petting, and then tossed a crumpled up piece of paper about 2 feet away. Tri Male followed it, picked it up and brought it back 2 times in a row. One other pup did the same, 2 tracked it and touched it with their noses but didn’t retrieve, one paid no attention at all. (Retrieving a good sign of willingness to work as a team? Maybe, maybe not. Good sign of interest in objects and potential for lots of object play… maybe…)

THREE:  I gently rolled the pup over onto its back, and held it down with my hand on its chest. I scored intensity of struggles as 1 to 5, 5 being most vigorous, 1 being none. Tri Male struggled “3″ for 3 seconds, then stopped, went quiet, relaxed and looked at my face. He was only one of two who stopped struggling, but he had no signs of fear or appeasement on his face when he did so, he just looked relaxed. (Good sign of frustration tolerance? Maybe… )

FOUR:  Teach sit with food lure. All pups behaved the same. They loved the food and were all sitting easily within seconds. No differences here, great responses.

FIVE: Gently restrain and open mouth 3 x in a row. Most pups squiggled so much that I couldn’t divide my attempts into “first, second and third” (and had to struggle myself not to just lie down and laugh). Tri Male was the only pup who I could record 3 different actual “mouth opens” and we recorded him as “No struggle lst attempt, 2 out of 5 for the 2nd attempt, 4/5 3rd.”

SIX: Let explore on their own for 2 minutes, then called come (“pup pup pup” + hand claps) without moving:
4 pups ignored me completely (including Tri Male), one pup (a sweet, slightly shy female) responded and came over. All pups had moved under a large tree (in the shade, we were in the sun) and seemed obsessed with a scent in the leaves.) Tri M totally ignored me until I came closer.. no way to know if he was ‘not forgiving’ me for the mouth handling, or wanted to stay in shade and distracted by the scents.

SEVEN: Got pup’s attention by going closer, then called to come by clapping, calling and running away. Ran back and forth 4 times, about 6-8 feet each time. All pups followed perfectly. (Sign of all being Border collies? … I think I can say a definitive yes here.)

EIGHT: Startle response: threw bait bag down beside them, about 2 feet away from pup’s head. Noise loud, but was on grass so not as loud as if on hard surface. I did not do this with the slightly softer female, seemed too much for her, but did with the other 4 pups. Tri Male startled briefly without flattening, then approached and sniffed. (Good response and recovery to potentially frightening event? Maybe….)

NINE: All back in EX pen, adult dog let out who ran to pen. All pups approached, one female with tail up and over, almost touching her back, all others with tail horizontal, including Tri Male. Adult dog began to run fast, vigorous circles around pen. Four pups followed, running in circles inside the pen, except Tri Male, who moved to the center of the pen, with big eyes and flat ears. He eventually lay down in a crate and went to sleep while the others were still up and active.  (Sign of being easily stressed by .. what? Other dogs? Rapid movement? Hummmm…..)

And so, after a half hour of talking, Jim and I decided on Tri Male. Overall, it looked like a lovely litter.  One male and one female were super sweet and affiliative, and one female is going to be a pistol, the kind of dog who pushes your buttons but you still love like life itself. They all seemed like good, good dogs, but Tri Male had the best overall score of the bunch, doing great on 7 out of 9 tests. The only possible red flag was his last response to the circling dog, which I won’t pretend didn’t worry me. However, based on the fact that 1) his other responses were excellent, 2) he comes from solid stock (although every dog is different, so I didn’t want to make too much of that), and 3) okay, I love his face (another post will come someday about how much looks should matter.. if at all), I decided to take him. That last response could indicate huge trouble (easily stressed by a commotion and inability to recover quickly?) or nothing at all. How much do we make of one incident, either positive or negative? There’s only one way to find out, and you know what that is. . .  (FYI, Tri Male ran in circles with the other puppies when the same scenario occurred a few days ago. Yeah!)

Meanwhile, back on the farm: Crates are ready, puppy food is on the counter . . . and it turns out that Jim will need surgery, ASAP, on his arm. Ah life, never a dull moment, hey? No more photos of the pup yet, but we’ll take tons over the weekend. But here’s a photo I took a few days ago on the road to the farm, a perfect image of what it looks like here now. Yup, it really is that pretty out here.

A short post today, but I hope a helpful one. It’s inspired by the “mud luscious and puddle wonderful” nature of spring, and the need to wipe off Will’s paws as we enter the house when it’s wet outside. As I was drying Willie’s paws a few days ago, I thought about how much easier it is now that I say “Ready?” right before I pick up each leg. Since I started communicating my intention (“now I am going to pick up this paw”), he is beginning, on occasion, to pick up a paw himself, but more often he will shift his weight so that it is less awkward for him. (Yep, I could train him to pick up each paw on cue… also a potential solution, but keep reading for some potential benefits of a more generalized cue.)

Keep in mind that this is the dog who, as an adolescent, growled at me  when I picked up a paw to dry off the mud. That was 3 years ago, and I remember saying something like “Oh, don’t be silly” and continuing what I was doing. He growled one or two more times, but we worked through it and I haven’t heard him growl at anything in years. However, he doesn’t enjoy his paws being cleaned, as most dogs don’t, and the process got me thinking about how little control a dog has over having his/her body moved around, even gently, without any say in the matter. That’s especially difficult if there is any pain involved in putting more weight than usual on one limb. I’ve always been aware of Will’s bad shoulder, and have always been extra careful about picking up the other paw, but a few months ago I started saying “Ready?” right before I picked up a paw, giving him a chance to shift his weight himself.

It’s made a difference to both of us. I lean down and put my hand close to a paw and say “Ready?” and he either shifts his weight or picks it up. Paw cleaning is not only faster, it feels like Will and I are moving down the same path, instead of trying to go in opposite directions. This is a cue that has so many applications; Will’s structural troubles require acupuncture and chiropracty, and he’s not the kind of hail-fellow-well-met who takes being handled lightly. I would bet the farm (and, hey, I have one) that handling Will with force and punishment would have created a severe aggression problem within a few months. In both cases, we give Will lots of options, using patience and communication during the treatments. He adores both practitioners, but he literally hides behind me when the greetings are over and it’s time for treatments. But we work through it, sort of like a dance; sometimes asking, sometimes quietly insisting, but always with an awareness that Will desperately needs to have some say in what is happening to him.

I know many others use cues like “Ready” for a variety of reasons. I’ve heard similar cues most often in obedience, meaning “Okay, time to start working together”. But I’ll bet there are many examples from your own experience of using a cue to communicate your intentions to a dog. I’d love to hear them. I think we’d all learn something from hearing about all the ways that concept can be used. (By the way, signals like “Ready” are called “meta-communication,” meaning “communication about communication.” A play bow is an example in dogs, meaning “Everything that happens next is in play, don’t take these bites and growls seriously!”

Meanwhile, back on the farm: The new fence is working beautifully (more on Will and the fence soon), the bottle lambs have learned to use the self feeder, though they still mug me relentlessly for more, and Snickers has stopped looking for her 3rd lamb, the one I had to take to a friend because 1/2 of Snicker’s bag dried up. The tulips and blossoming trees are in full bloom. Here are Tulip’s tulips, the flowers I planted over my Great Pyrenees grave, her body deep in the soil, nestled onto a bed of of hundreds of tulips, warm and safe in the small hill in front of the house, where she’d stand strong and tall, and bark out her great, white presence to the world.

There’s been a lot of hugging lately, from dear friends expressing love and sympathy after Lassie’s death. And oh, a good hug feels so good, doesn’t it? Thinking of it reminds me of how very differently dogs and people express affection and care, and how hugging is so hard-wired in humans, but not natural to dogs. This photo, that I can’t attribute to any source but has been all over the internet, is a perfect example of the primate propensity to hug (and a dog’s typical reaction).

I must have 50 images of people hugging dogs in which the person is beaming with happiness and the dog is looking uncomfortable. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, but they are more rare than I suspect most people realize. (After all, we can’t see a dog’s face when we hug him, now can we?) I do know lots of dogs, Willie included, that love lots of body contact with people they know and trust, but not with strangers. Which is not that different from us after all — how would you feel if some guy you’d never met threw his arms around you on the street?

But what IS different is that dogs don’t make “ventral/ventral” contact (chest to chest, belly to belly) like primates do when they are nursing, and thus don’t develop a positive association between ventral/ventral contact and feeling nurtured and loved. But we could help that. What if every puppy class included instructions on how to condition your pup to accept or even enjoy hugging, because people ARE going to do it. (Sigh: I JUST finished the new version of Puppy Primer and didn’t think to include that. Ah well, next time.)

I’m curious: How many dogs out there would rather not be hugged? What’s your experience? (And have you gone out of your way to look at your dog’s face when s/he is being hugged?)

Meanwhile, back at the farm: What can I say? We’re still in that raw place in which you feel like you’ve had surgery without an anesthetic. There’s lots I’d like to write about grieving after a dog’s death, but not now, not yet. But I can say thank you from Jim and me for the outpouring of support. Oh my, it means so much. And I have read and cherished every one of the Six Words you have written. Gorgeous.

Willie had a hard time. When Lassie died (unexpectedly, shockingly) I cried so hard that I scared him. It took him 24 hours to stop tongue flicking. Now he is so clingy he hid behind my legs throughout a dog romp Sunday afternoon. However, he also ran like a greyhound with a young BC who he loves just a few minute before, so he’s doing well some of the time. I suspect on the dog romp that it was the pack of dogs, and all the activity, that made him nervous. He’s never been in a group of dogs before without Lassie. The two of them never interacted in any visible way when on dog romps, and so I was surprised that he seemed so different. In hind sight, it makes sense, but then, hind sight is always 20/20. However, he did come out of his shell around the other dogs once I got out a stick, and he now, finally, will again eat food out of his Kong in the morning. Day by day.

Here’s a photo I took this morning of the remaining hay in the hay mow, sunlight streaming through from the east. I love old barns, and am so lucky to have one. This one collapsed right after I bought the farm in 1982, but we brought it back to life (several times actually.)

Lassie went home today.

I am thinking of the famous story about Hemingway, in which he challenged his writer friends to write the shortest story possible. All agreed that he won. Here’s what he wrote:

For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.

Since then, summarizing one’s life in six words has become something of a parlor game. I have done so for Lassie, summarizing what she means to me in six words, and I think it would bring pleasure and comfort to everyone who reads this blog if you were inspired to do the same for your own special dog, and to share them, if you would, for us all to read.

Here’s for my Lassie:

French Vanilla. Ice Cream. Summer Day.

Off you go dear Lassie, my god how I loved you.

With apologies for the change in topics, I just have to respond to a comment on my last post, and to the hundreds of comments I’ve heard over the last 20 + years, about the guilt associated with putting a dog down. It is always wrenching, heart-breaking to euthanize a beloved dog, but taking a dog’s life away for a behavioral problem can be especially hard. I can’t take away the pain, no matter what the reason for the death, but here are a few things that I have found that have helped me and some of my clients.

First, for anyone who has had to euthanize a dog, I hope it helps to know that devoted owners are often wracked with guilt, no matter why the dog died. For example, I euthanized Cool Hand Luke after a long battle with kidney failure. By the time he died (he was close to death when we helped him along), I had worked extensively with five veterinarians, including specialists at the UW Vet School. He received the best that money can buy of western medicine, homeopathic medicine and chinese medicine. I cooked him a special diet every day and monitored every thing that went into his mouth. I’d go on, but you get the idea: I moved  heaven and earth for Luke, and still. . . I was wracked with guilt for a good year after his death.

Surely I had missed something? Surely there was just one more thing I could have done? One of my vets told me that Luke had an inflammation somewhere, but she couldn’t say where or what it was. I obsessed over trying to find it, and felt a crush of failure when nothing we did turned around his failing kidneys. I was consumed by the idea that IF I JUST WORK HARD ENOUGH, I could “fix” things and save Luke.

After he died, devastated by his untimely death (he was 12,  his daughter is now 15 3/4), I couldn’t get it out of my mind that somehow I should have done a better job of trying to save him.  In the cold light of day, this was, frankly, absurd. Luke had 5 of some of the best vets in the country and if they couldn’t save him, how in heaven’s name was I supposed to?

But as he always had, Luke left me with a gift. It took awhile, but I slowly began to notice how EVERYONE I talked to who loved their dog, like we all love ours, was guilty about something related to the dog’s death. It didn’t matter how or why they died: hundreds of owners, from prof’l trainers and behaviorists to the dog loving public, found something to feel guilty about. “I should have seen the symptoms sooner,” or “How could I have not known that the lock on the door was faulty and allowed my dog to run out the door?” or “Surely I could somehow have prevented the bite if I just hadn’t……”

Here’s what Luke taught me, along with the wise comments of a psychologist friend: It is easier to believe that we are always responsible (“if only I had done/not done this one thing….”) than it is to accept this painful truth: We are not in control of the world. Stuff happens. Bad stuff. As brilliant and responsible and hard working and control-freaky that we are, sometimes, bad stuff just happens. Good people die when they shouldn’t. Gorgeous dogs brimming with health, except for that tumor or those crappy kidneys, die long before their time. Dogs who are otherwise healthy but are a severe health risk to others end up being put down. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and it hurts like hell. But please please, if you’ve moved heaven and earth to save a dog and haven’t been able to… just remember:  Stuff happens. We can’t control everything. (Difficult words to dog trainers I know. . . Aren’t we all control freaks to some extent?) You didn’t fail. You tried as hard as you could. It’s okay.

To all of us: Try folding up that guilt and pain like a pile of dirty, ripped clothing, and throwing it away. Remember: Much of what we love about dogs is that they live in the present and accept what happens. That’s our job, to accept what happens sometimes, even though it’s the hardest job of all.

Secondly, there’s one more thing I want to remind everyone who has lost a beloved dog, no matter what the reason or whether there was guilt attached or not: Neurobiologist Jaak Panskepp tells us that “social distress,” or what we’d call grieving, is registered in a primitive part of the brain that is also associated with the perception of pain. I learned about this while I was writing For the Love of a Dog, and it blew me away when I discovered it. Ah Ha, I thought; no wonder we talk about the “pain of loss” and “healing” after grieving. And don’t we respond to another’s loss as if they’d been physically hurt? We take people flowers and food when they are grieving just as we do after they have a major operation.  I remember feeling physical pain when Luke died, when Tulip died, when Pippy Tay died, just as I did when my mother died. I told someone it felt like I’d had abdominal surgery. Turns out that’s exactly what my brain thought too.

And so, remember that when you lose a dog, or if you are still grieving for one you lost in the past, your body thinks you’ve been injured. It needs you to take care of yourself. It needs rest and comfort and flowers and sweet soup and gentle kisses and hugs.

As I write this, I think of my Lassie girl. Her 16th birthday party is planned for a few months from now. She’s doing amazingly well, but good grief, she’s old. Really old. It hurts to think of the future… I think tonight I’d better make some chicken soup and put it in the freezer.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Lassie played tug with Willie this morning, oblivious as she is to calendars or human concerns about the future or the past. Willie got lots of sheep work this weekend, is a bit gimpy on his left shoulder but lordy we had fun. It’s fall in full force here: leaves turning cranberry, frost on the grass in the morning, lots of wild apples falling from the trees. Here are 2 photos from this morning, while feeding apples to some of the sheep.

Here’s Barbie impatiently waiting for me to drop apples into the feeder:

This isn’t the greatest photo in the world, but I wanted to show Martha chomping on an apple. Sheep LOVE apples, and right now Martha, Barbie and the lambs are all eating grass (from the front yard, best grass on the farm, courtesy of Will who can reliably keep them herded away from the road), a corn/oat mix, high quality alfalfa hay and lots of apples. Yum.

I took Will to a friend’s to work him on different sheep in a new environment. I’m getting to the point where he and I don’t have too much more we can do at home. My small flock is so tame that Will has to be within a few feet of them to move them, unless I split out a few and force them away from the main flock. Then they are flightier (and more challenging), and I’ll do that more and more, but don’t like to stress the ewes and lambs too much when the lambs are young. Either way, it’s still the same sheep in the same place, and Will needs to learn how to work lots of different types of sheep in different places. (So do I!) We are used to working in first gear, when most sheep work in done in 4th.

I wish I could show you a video of how he did. We were at a gorgeous farm where Will has never worked, and three things happened that made me so happy I could have carried him home myself, all thirty miles.

1) I sent him on a long outrun, two to three times as far as he’s ever gone (perhaps 250 yards? I’m guessing). He did a perfect outrun, and I don’t have the words for what it feels like to watch your dog get smaller and smaller as he runs away from you, curving out at just the right time to go around the flock and not disturb them until he gets to the back. As I think about it, I should  NOT qualify it as a “perfect” outrun, because no one was holding the sheep in place, and they were moving long before he got there and were close to the edge of the field. So, was his ‘lift’ perfect? (That’s when the dog gets around to ‘twelve o’clock’ and first makes contact with the sheep.) I can’t say, because the sheep were moving long before he got there (not because he was too close), he got them stopped once he got around them, he turned on balance and brought them straight to me. We’ve never worked on such a huge field and it makes my heart full to work in a place that open and free.

2) He’s got his flanking whistles down. Down pat. What’a boy, I’m so pleased. Here’s a synopsis of the process:

a) We work on his flank whistles for 2+ weeks, looks like he has them nailed.

b) Week three everything falls apart, I realize that once I thought he “had” them I tested him by asking him to change directions a lot. I begin to suspect he thought that both whistles meant “change direction.”

c) For 2 sessions, I go back to the first steps, having him run around and around, clockwise or counter clockwise as I repeat his whistle over and over, using the movement of the sheep and visual signals to keep Willie moving. I tested him a few times in a different context, and it seemed he wasn’t making any progress on which whistle meant what.

d) The next time we worked I send him on an outrun and he runs around to twelve o’clock and keeps going. And going and going. He runs an entire 360 degrees around the sheep, ignoring my signals to stop. It takes me a second outrun to realize he had interpreted Step C not as whistle training, but as training to run in mindless circles around the sheep.

e) After realizing this, I sat down and laugh out loud in the wet grass and asked Willie for a kiss. Willie obliged, then peed on a bush, then looked for sheep poop to eat.

f) I stop using his flank whistles for a few days (used verbal), then gradually added them in on occasion, no longer having ‘flank whistle training sessions,’ just using them when I know he wants to go that way anyway. Gradually I start asking for them when he’d prefer the other direction, and with very few corrections (a verbal no), Willie starts getting them right.

g) I take him to Peg’s (where Redford is) and he gets his flank whistles about 19/20 times.

h) Willie not only took his flank whistles every single time at our last outing, he listen beautifully, even at 200 yards. Bless him.

3) Willie came to me as a puppy pathologically afraid of other dogs but was great in the field with a guard Pyrenees (more on Willie and other dogs in other posts, and probably and eventually a book.) We’ve worked on it for three years, and he’s been improving leaps and bounds. My friend’s sheep were guarded by a working Great Pyrenees, described as a “big galoof” who loves all dogs, but still, I was thrilled that Will and he had two perfectly reasonable greeting encounters. At one point Will would have run away in terror, at another he would’ve attacked. This time Will briefly greeted him before going to work the sheep, and then left my side the instant I said “that’ll do” after working sheep and ran to sniff the other dog some more. I won’t say there wasn’t a bit of tension there, but nothing serious and easy to manage. Just being able to have Will around unfamiliar dogs is a joy, especially a big, guarding male.  More to come on that score, as I said, but back to herding for a moment:

Mind you, Wilie and I couldn’t score well in a trial now if our life depended on it. He behaves completely differently if anyone, anyone at all is watching (I know, I know, is it me, or is it Willie?) and he is easily intimidated by sheep. He’ll lose contact with them, take the pressure off when he shouldn’t, get rattled if there’s any stress and if he is confused, but lordy he’s trying incredibly hard and I love him to pieces. And me? Oh dear. I have no ability at the moment to work fast moving sheep… I simply can’t make decisions fast enough to get flighty sheep to stay on a perfect straight line on a drive, but then, I’m trying hard, too. Willie seems to forgive me for it, or at least, he can’t talk and tell me what he thinks…

Lassie terrifies Trisha: Yesterday morning I woke up mildly surprised. In five minutes I was in terror. It was 6:15, and Lassie always, always ALWAYS wakes me up between 5 am (sigh) and 5:45 because she has to go outside to pee. In general, I haven’t set an alarm since we stopped taping Calling All Pets over a year ago (when I had to get up at 4:30 on Wednesdays). But now, it’s 6:15 and Lassie is sound asleep. No worries, I pad over to her doggy bed and gently touch her shoulder. “Lassie,” I say quietly, because she often startles when awoken because her hearing is so bad. Nothing. Lassie is soft and warm, but immobile.  “Lassie” I say, and press with my hand a little harder, shaking her shoulder back and forth. Nothing, and no sign of her chest rising and falling either. This time I push forcefully into her, saying LASSIE now with real fear in my voice. I’m so loud and clearly scared that Jim peeks over the bed, worried himself. Nothing. Not a twitch.

It’s amazing the thoughts that run through your head when you’re in crisis. I remember, very clearly, thinking that “she must have died recently, because she’s still warm and there’s no rigor mortis” and “how sweet that she died in her sleep and presumably didn’t suffer.” These were cognitive thoughts, generated by my cortex, when my amygdala and hippocampus was screaming OH MY GOD LASSIE IS DEAD. I remember the thoughts and the emotions of terror and panic as being parallel, but completely separate from one another.

The panicked part of me shook Lassie one more time, this time shaking her hard and yelling her name with pure terror in my voice, and as I did she slowly raised her head and licked my face. I burst into tears and sobbed like a child, kissing her muzzle and saying her name over and over again. This morning she woke us up around 5:30, and at first I thought, “Oh Lassie, just a few more minutes!” and then…. was overwhelmed with gratitude that she’s there to wake us up at all.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, during the sweetest spring weekend you can imagine. Here is a picture of the yard that Jim took yesterday:

In this next picture, I love the different postures of Will and Sushi: Will is chewing on his Sunday bone, Sushi is practicing her “lion on the hunt” look.

And here’s why Sushi is now stuck inside for the next few days: This baby robin flew/fell out of the nest on top of the porch light this morning, along with two others. There are also Chipping Sparrows in the bush by the living room window, wrens nesting in the exhaust vent from the bathroom (which no longer works, although for years when you turned on the bathroom fan you’d  hear cheep cheep cheep cheep… now it doesen’t work at all and I’ve just given it away to the wrens), a PeeWee nesting on top of a down spout by the porch and barn swallows nesting in the garage. [added note 6/10: an alert reader suggested it was not a PeeWee and she was absolutely correct! I watched carefully the next day and saw the typical tail flick of the Phoebee and heard their typical song. A PeeWee is nesting close by because I hear it often, but not on the house.} That’s four nests attached to the house…. and all with babies about to fledge. Sorry, Sushi!

As promised, I’m going to write soon about helping dogs with Thunder Phobia (and the very interesting issue of reinforcing fear and/or the behavior that expresses it) , but I couldn’t resist posting a few photos from this morning.

Here’s Mr. Will, front and center as usual, as I try to take a photo of the tulips that are blooming over Tulip’s grave. I named Tulip, in part, after the white tulips I planted in honor of my first Great Pyrenees Bo Peep. We buried Tulip with the hundreds of fresh tulips her admirers had spontaneously brought to a celebration of her life a few hours before we put her down.

Tulip the dog may have been all white, but her spirit was a rainbow of colors. The flowers are planted over  her grave, in the place that she spent so many hours, chewing on bones, surveying the countryside and barking at coyotes as they howled across the road. I’ve waited all winter in hopes the tulips would bloom, being at risk as they were from squirrels, mice and voles who love tulip bulbs like Tulip loved chicken. I surrounded and over planted them with bulbs that wild animals don’t like so much, like daffodils, scilla and hyacinth, and crossed my paws.  I can’t tell you what it felt like this morning to sit beside them, a joyful reminder that life goes on, and that our beloved friends never really die–at least not in our hearts.

I started teaching my University of Wisconsin course yesterday, titled “The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships.” It is, granted, a lot of work, but I love doing it. I love the intellectual stimulation it creates, and I love working with 150 smart, motivated young people with minds like steel traps (okay, most of them) who are hungry to learn how to relate their education with the day-to-day issues of life.  We’ll be talking tomorrow about “humans and animals.” Or, is it “humans, and other animals?” What really makes us different from the rest of the animal world, and what makes us the same?

I love thinking about those questions, and I love how dogs are always reminding me that while we humans are special… different in so many ways than all the other animals on earth, we are also so very much the same. It makes me feel connected to the rest of nature. I like thinking of myself as an animal, but historically many people have been uncomfortable with that linkage. One of my favorite quotes is from the wife of the Bishop of Worcester, who, upon reading The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin said something like; “Oh dear, I do hope it isn’t true (that we are related to apes). But if it is true, I hope it doesn’t become generally known.” Too funny, too British (I can say that, me mum was British).

What about you? Are you put off by someone saying “humans and other animals?” Do you like thinking of your connection to your dog, as another mammal, or do you feel like that demeans you as a person?

No new photos from the farm today, but forgive me some nostalgia. Here’s a photo of me and my late Great Pyrenees, Tulip. She died last February, but for some reason I’ve been missing her terribly these last few days. Maybe it’s the lambs, and knowing that she’s not there to protect them anymore …