THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

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.

A friend and colleague (Toni Ziegler, an internationally known primatologist) sent me an article in a journal I usually never see, Hormones and Behavior, and I was sure you’d be as interested in it as I am. The authors, M. Nagasawa et. al., found a correlation between the level of an owner’s oxytocin and how much their dog tended to gaze directly at them.

First off, you probably know that oxytocin is the “feel good” hormone that is associated with lactation and social bonding. Someone called it the “wine and candle light” hormone, because it seems to play an important role in social relationships and feelings of trust and affection. (People are more trusting of strangers if oxytocin is sprayed into their nose–leading me to speculate in For the Love of a Dog that we should all be armed with a spray bottle of the stuff). Oxytocin correlates with friendly social behavior in rats, monkey, sheep, you name it, and even has been found to calm “depressive tendencies” and anxiety in people.

The authors of the study first surveyed 55 people to evaluate the level of relationship with their dogs. (They asked: “How much are you satisfied with your dog?” and “How much do you feel you can communicate with your dog?” Of course, if I’d been asking, my questions might include “How often to you rub your dog’s belly?” and “How important is your dog in your overall happiness?” and “How many months would you say you spend more on your dog than yourself?” and “Don’t you think you should consider buying yourself a new pair of pants before you buy another dog toy?” But then, it wasn’t my study….)

Each owner/dog pair then came to the researchers, and was video taped in a room with the owner sitting in a chair. At first the owner was alone in the room for 20 minutes, then the dog was allowed in for 30 minutes. Once inside, the dog was allowed to move around the room freely, but was asked to sit on cue every 3 minutes. The owners could talk to their dogs and pet them, but not give the dogs treats. Before and after, the owner’s heart rate and blood pressure was taken, and they were asked to provide a urine sample both before and after as well.

Here are some of the results: The 55 owners sorted into 2 groups: 12 of them reported high levels of satisfaction with their dogs and ALSO had the longest duration of times that their dog’s looked (”gazed”) at them during the experiment. Those people, whose dogs looked at them the most, also had significantly higher levels of oxytocin after the experiment than the people who reported lower levels of satisfaction and whose dogs looked at them for shorter periods of time. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between the frequency of “exchange bouts” (looking, talking) initiated by a dog’s gaze and the level of oxytocin in the owner’s body. In other words, the more the dog looked at the owner, the higher the level of oxytocin IF the owner was one of the one who reported a high level of satisfaction in their dog. There was no correlation between duration of gaze and oxytocin levels in the (larger) group who reported less satisfaction and whose dogs looked at them for shorter periods of time.

What does all this mean? Well, if you put your science hat on, you know to be careful of correlations. It seems reasonable and (common sensible) to argue that IF you are strongly bonded to your dog, then you have a surge of oxytocin when he or she looks at you and you look back. (I think my oxytocin is rising right now, just thinking about Lassie’s face!). However, I’ve always wondered if some individuals inherently have lower levels of oxytocin and that makes them less affiliative with others, a bit more stand off-ish. Dogs too? Could that explain why some dogs are puddles around people and others more aloof? Levels of oxytocin do correlate in mice, for example, with less or more affiliative behavior, so it seems reasonable that it could occur in people too.

That could create another hypothesis for the results. Do people with inherently higher levels of oxytocin tend to be more bonded to their dogs? However, a good study should account for this, and indeed, there were no significant differences between oxytocin levels before the experiment between the 2 groups of people. So it looks as though it was the interaction itself, during the 30 minutes that the dog and owner were together, that increased oxytocin levels. Although none of us can accurately guage our oxytocin levels without measurements, I swear there’s a feeling I get that correlates with an oxytocin surge. It’s the way you feel when you look at a puppy, or a kitten, or a two year old child… and get what I can only describe as “goo-ey” and “warm” and just overwhelmed with loving feelings. Know what I mean? Do you thank that is part of what makes a dog a “forever” dog or a “heart dog?”

Whether we can feel  it or not, oxytocin has got to be good for us. Remember when I said that oxytocin decreases anxiety? It seems to have a positive effect on many systems: it is produced in the hypothalamus and decreases activity of what’s called the “hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis” (use that when you want to be cool, you could also just call it the stress response though!) In other words, more oxytocin, less adrenalin, less anxiety, less immune suppression, etc. We’ve always known our dogs are good for us (mostly… unless, uh, they’re not), but here’s a biological explanation for it beyond the fact that they make us feel good.

Speaking of oxytocin (with apologies for indulging myself), here’s a photograph I found last night, buried in files on my computer. I wasn’t going to use it, but it makes me all goo-ey and oxytocin-y to look at it, so I thought it was relevant. It’s of me and my Tulip long ago, several years before she passed away. Here’s hoping you have a dog right now that raises your oxytocin too.

And here’s another feel good picture, fall leaves that fell this weekend after a hard, hard freeze.

xxx

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.

xx

Not going to write much, am a bit tuckered from doing an all day seminar at Happy Tails in Portland and an evening speech at Planet Dog in Portland, Maine. Both events were hosted by great folks and had educated, informed audiences that were a joy to work with. The talk at Planet Dog was on play (appropriate for a company that makes dog toys, hey?) and reminded me how interesting play is to biologists. It’s common in many species, it’s dangerous and injurious and no one really knows what makes it worth all the risks. Especially relevant to our relationship to dogs is our mutual love of “object play,” which is not very common in most species. There are exceptions, (river otters, etc.), but few species are as obsessed as dogs and people are about balls, frisbees, etc.  I’m inspired for my next seminar in July in California–an entire morning on play. What fun.

The seminar was on dog-dog reactivity, both between unfamiliar dogs and dogs within the same household. The demo dogs were great and the audience was truly lovely to work with. I am, however, a bit droopy, and I’m committed to keeping my laptop shut for TWO ENTIRE DAYS (oh my!) and visit a dear friend in New Hampshire.  I’ll be back in the ‘world’ on Wednesday. My sincere thanks to all my hosts and helpers… you were great.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: I MISS MY DOGS! (and Jim, and Sushi, and sheep……)

Here are some photos for you:

Okay, this is a trite shot of boats in a harbor, but it sure looks different than the farm!

Here’s some of the good staff at Planet Dog in their retail store. The place makes me want to retire and do nothing but play with my dogs!

This license plate is thanks to the work of BOTH Planet Dog AND Happy Tails (and others), who worked to get a state license plate whose income goes to shelters and animal care. How cool is that?  Shouldn’t we do this in other states?

“See” you next week….

Trisha

There’s an interesting discussion going on, on-line, in my university course right now. One of the students asked why some people like non-human animals more than they do members of their own species. There are some extremely interesting comments posted to that question, especially about animals being ‘innocents’ rather than moral agents who can choose to be cruel.

The question, and other potential answers, reminded me of an essay I wrote in Dog is My Co-Pilot, titled “Love is Never Having to Say Anything at All.” In it I argue that one of the reasons we love dogs so much is that, well, because they can’t talk. As I write in the essay: “Words may be wonderful things, but they carry weight with them, and there’s a great lightness of being when they are discarded.” Of course, this appliesall to animals, not just dogs.

Surely there are many other reasons that so many of us are especially comfortable around animals, whether it is dogs or members of another species: so much research attests to the lack of social anxiety that is normal in human-human interactions being absent in the presence of another species (heart rate decreases in the presence of non-human animal, even fish; cortisol decreases while petting a dog (but may increase in the dog!) etc etc. But I’m curious–how many of you feel especially comfortable around animals compared to people? How many feel more comfortable around animals than around people, even friendly, familiar ones? And if so, why do YOU think that might be true?

Meanwhile, back at the farm, it was 9 below this morning, and windy. You’d think we’d all be used to the cold by now, but it felt especially difficult to me last night when I fed the lactating ewes for the last time around 9:30 pm. The cold requires a lot of energy from the sheep, even though they are masters at keeping themselves warm.  Snickers and Truffles, the ewes with lambs, are starting to lose weight, no doubt in part because it takes so much energy for them to stay warm. But most ewes lose weight while they lactate: their lambs begin to put an incredible amount of nutritional pressure on them, so I’m giving the ewes ridiculous quantities of alfalfa hay along with supplemental corn, oats and a protein pellet. I wish they could be eating grass, but that’s a long way off. However, it’s supposed to go into the 40’s by Friday. I can’t imagine.  Here’s what it looks like now:

And just for contrast, here’s another absurdly colorful and ridiculously structured orchid from the orchid show last weekend–I think I’ll look at this photo every day after reading bad news, yet again, about our economy. You have to admit, isn’t this just the most joyfully amazing thing?

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 …

Much warmer now, might even be up to 20 degrees. Wow, feels like an entirely different place. The lambs are doing beautifully. On Sunday Jim and I opened up the panel dividing the two ewes with lambs and let them all in together. We wanted to wait to be sure that the lambs were well bonded to their moms (and vice versa) and that they were stable and healthy enough to tolerate being shoved around a bit by the ewe that wasn’t their mom. Given how vigorous Snickers was (I am being so kind here, using the word vigorous instead of several others I can think of) when she was trying to reject her own little ewe lamb, I didn’t want to subject the single lamb to that kind of abuse. However, we don’t call him White Dude for nothing. He looks like he’s in training for a starring role in professional wrestling, so we figured he would be able to handle some ‘nudges’ from Snickers.

(You should know that lots of sheep people will be laughing right now… getting shoved away by sheep that aren’t your mom is just part and parcel of being a lamb.  Granted, I was being a bit, uh, cautious, partly because of the cold, party because Snickers seems out-of-the-box aggressive to other lambs, and partly because, okay, I’m a wuss.) After a few minutes of confused lambs and indignant ewes, everyone seemed to get it all sorted out. Whew. Now the lambs are able to play together and have more space to run around. Ideally, they’d be frolicking on emerald green pastures up the hill, but the grass is  under about a foot of ice and snow.

Here’s the lambs from this weekend:

You can see how big White Dude is in this photo of him and the little ewe lamb:

Meanwhile, Willie and Lassie are warming my heart. They started playing in the living room Saturday night, and I was completely transfixed while watching them. First Willie threw himself in front of Lassie, with his head held high, his ears up at the base, with the rest of the pinna (ear flap) flattened against his head. His legs were erect and stiff, and he stood still as if frozen for a moment, then threw himself down in a play bow in front of Lassie. She responded with her “play bark,” (only heard while she’s playing, one WOOF, repeated about every 3 or 4 seconds) and picked up their favorite tug toy.  They proceded to play tug for several minutes, while I was transported away from huddling in the cold on the couch, blue snow, frozen ice buckets and bitter winds.  I imagined that they were individuals of a wild species that one rarely sees… imagine how enchanted you’d be if you’d never seen a dog and all of sudden there were 2 of them, playing this amazing game right in front of you. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude that they were in my life, and that by simply doing what dogs do, I could be elevated and warmed with amazement and appreciation. Those of us lucky enough to have dogs are lucky indeed.

Tall Two Leg Female can’t write today, because she is busy arranging for my very special birthday party. If it is anywhere around Is It Time for Dinner Yet? time, then I am getting the attention that I so deserve as you read this. I am sorry that Tall Two Leg Female and Tall Two Leg Fuzz Face Male did not ask all of you. I do not understand why not. I think you should be here to rub my belly.

Here is what I sent out the Two Legs I was allowed to invite:

Dear Two Leg:

Please don’t tell anyone I’m writing this but I turn fifteen years old on December 7th. I think everyone should come and pay attention to ME that day but Tall Two Leg Female and Tall Two Leg Fuzz Face Male are leaving AGAIN that weekend and I think they’d better be here to keep Willie in his place.

I want you to come and rub my belly and tell me how pretty I still am, and give me treats and everything. Tall Two Leg Female said you could do that on Saturday December 13th at 2:30. She said she’d have snacks and drinks and no one needs to bring anything except I am hoping you will bring your undying admiration for ME. It would be fine if you brought your REAL animals (the ones with muzzles who are able to smell things and have the right amount of legs for cowpies’ sake) if you wouldn’t mind leaving them in the car for the party so that I can be the CENTER OF ATTENTION, as I should, and then we could all go on a walk up the hill together if you would like that. Just as long as the REAL animals are nice to me, because I am deaf and getting fragile but am ever-so pretty still…

If you could write me back on this clicky-clacky thing then I’ll know how many of you are coming. Please let me know by at least 5 dark times before the party.

Lassie

Tall Two Leg Female says she already sent this flat thing that is me but isn’t me to you, but I asked her to send it again because it shows how very beautiful I am even though I am 15 years old now:

I am fascinated by your posts about differences in training with male and female dogs (or not.) I’ll keep reading, and in a few weeks I’ll summarize what you’ve all said on another post. But just to add to the fire, I want to ask another question about male and female dogs, but this time about the sex of your “forever” dog.

Here’s the question: If you have, or have ever had, a one-in-a-million dog, a dog who who you think of as our soul mate or your “forever dog,” was he or she the same sex as you, or the opposite? Again, I’m not saying nothing til I hear from you.

A related question is: do you think you have a different social relationship with same sex and different sex dogs? Does sex have any role in how you feel about dogs? I will tell you some thoughts of mine about this one: It feels, in some vague, difficult to articulate way, that I relate to my male dogs slightly differently than I do to my females. Perhaps it is all cultural projections, but my forever dog, Cool Hand Luke, was without question a “guy” in my mind. He is the dog, after all, that I said “.. by the next day, Luke and I had fallen in love…”. Don’t get me wrong, I have loved some of my female dogs so much it hurts. Right now, my Lassie will be turning 15 in a few weeks and my love for her makes my heart so tender I can feel it swelling as I write. But she is very much a “girl” in my mind… So, what do you think? Is this all foolish anthropomorphism?

On the home front (the freezing cold home front, it was 14 degrees this morning), I’ve been baby sitting Harriet, a poor old girl who was surrendered to the local shelter, determined to have both Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma and kidney failure, and eventually ended up in the care of a 4th year vet student, Jenna Bueley, who is probably the dearest and most amazingly caring person alive when it comes to old, sick dogs. She’s the one who helped take such incredible care of Tulip in her last year of life. Jenna had to leave on an externship, so Harriet came to live at the farm for a few days. It’s a bit cold in the farm house, so we brought out the blankets…..

It’s a wonderful thing to hold a book you wrote in your hand, long after the writing and the editing and the discussions with the publishers about cover photos and who to ask for quotes on the back… My new book, Tales of Two Species: Loving and Living with Dogs just came from the printers, and I have to admit it feels good to see it. It’s a collection of essays written over the years for Bark magazine, published by Dogwise (who I call the Amazon of dog books). Working with the editors of Bark has been a joy, and collaborating with the folks at Dogwise has been equally delightful (I presume you are not shocked to learn that this is not always the case between author and publisher? I have been exceptionally lucky with my national books, having wonderful editors at Ballantine who have become dear friends. However, I have heard lots of nightmare stories from other authors. . . (no I’m not telling!)

Here’s a couple of excerpts from the book:

From the essay “Canis Cousins? Unraveling ancestral ties” in the section on Genetics, Ethology and Behavior:

“Dogs aren’t wolves, pure and simple. Except, uh, they are. Sort of. Sometimes. Lest you think I’ve lost my mind, I’d like to explain why the statements “dogs are wolves” and “dogs aren’t wolves” are equallycorrect. I’m writing about this issue because it’s inherently a confusing one, and if we really want to understand our dogs, it’s important to get it right.”

From the essay “A Peaceful Walk in the Park: Strategies for defusing tense encounters while walking a dog-reactive dog:”

“It’s okay!” she waves, her two Golden Retrievers racing toward your dog like cheerful, caramel-colored tsunamis. “My dogs LOVE other dogs,” she gushes, while your mouth goes dry and your heart stops, then resumes pounding so hard you think it might thump out of your chest. It doesn’t matter if the approaching dogs love other dogs–not if your dog barks and lunges every time she sees something with four feet. It’s YOUR dog who is the problem, and there you are, trying to be responsible, keeping your dog leashed and under control, while those around you let their dogs run free and turn yourrelaxing walk into a stress test.”

And finally, from an essay titled “Rites of Passage: Navigating the loss of a beloved dog.”

“Tulip was as beautiful in death as she was in life. Her long white fur covered her thin old body like a fluffy blanket. Her eyes were peacefully closed, and she looked as though she might wake up at anymoment and plunk her huge white head in my lap for petting. Tulip died at the admirable age of 12 years, 10 months, a legendary length of life for a Great Pyrenees. But this is not an essay about Tulip, although like many of our dogs, she deserves an entire Library of Congress written about her. Rather, it’san essay about coping with the death of our beloved dogs, and specifically, about how best to cope in the hours right after they die.”

[and how can I resist a photo of Tulip when she was still alive, taken by Amanda Jones?]

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The book is a “curl up n the couch with your dog” kind of book, so I guess it’s release at the onset of winter is well timed. At least, it’s definitely November here in Wisconsin… look at the difference between the pictures of the Japanese Maple in front of the farm house a month ago compared to now…. ah, the greys of November. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 34, with high winds and sleety rain. This does not bode well for the planned “clean out the barn” day tomorrow, which includes scrubbing the cement barn floor with bleach after all the old straw and manure is hauled out by a bobcat (not the living breathing kind) and two strong neighbor boys (and okay, me and Jim). Wish us luck!