The Pupdorf School

Conquer Mount Mulcherest or memorize the state capitals?

In face of the -- pardon me -- frakking absurd claim from a throne of authority* that puppies of eight weeks of age ought to be "error-free" housebroken, and trained to sit, down, and roll over, we here at Brandywine Bone 'n' Breakfast opt out of the Puppy Einstein / No Pup Left Behind hype. We are not in favor of eliminating recess from the puppy curriculum so that we can cram in another half-hour of multiplication tables and maybe up our scores on the next round of standardized tests.

Think of it as a Steiner preschool for puppies. Plenty of outdoor play time, access to natural materials in preference to plastics, simple toys (a knotted flannel rag is a favorite), opportunities to learn by imitation, and inclusion in adult activities, such as tagging along to help feed the goats.

I like how fluidly the pups segue their interactions -- amongst themselves, with their mother, with the other adult dogs, the human visitor, and their physical environment. (Including the truly impressive tunnel project they are collectively executing under that landscape boulder.)

When I raised litters at our former home -- a suburban tract house with a large fenced yard -- I put out lots of interesting obstacles for the pups to explore.

Notsomuch here. The topography, landscaping, livestock, shrubberies both domestic and freelance -- all fill that developmental niche much more organically than my old tires and wicket walks and ramps and puppy teeters. Bonus, there are periodic appearances by chickens. Very fast chickens.

There are some play objects on what is now known as the poopdeck -- a ramp, wobble disk, cardboard boxes, tug toys -- but now that they have unrestricted access to the outdoors most of the day, they spend little time there.

In a little over a week they'll be starting off in their new homes, perfectly ready to learn sit, down, and I before E except after C in a matter of minutes.

What they can learn best now is how to be happy, relaxed, bold, curious baby dogs in a world where the affairs of big dogs and big humans continue in their presence.

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*NB: An "authority" who, as near as I can determine, has neither bred nor raised a single litter of puppies. Ever.

Base Seven

One of the gospels of dog breeders who make a good-faith effort to do right by their puppies is the popular "Rule of Sevens."

Not a bad floor. If someone pays enough attention to a litter to meet this criteria, it's likely that the pups will go to their homes well-socialized and fairly resilient, ready to be well-adjusted pets or show dogs.

But if one is aiming to develop the most confident, flexible, intelligent, unflappable working companion allowed by each pups' genetics, one should be aiming higher and thinking more about process than checklists.

When I learned to do bodywork on animals, my witch doctor friend Maryna taught us a low-velocity, deep-penetrating pulse in-hold-pulse out pattern. One's fingers "intrude" on the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, remain at the point of deepest intrusion until they detect the desired change (a release of tension, or of some of it) and then gradually retreat, allowing the animal's mind and body to register the change and assimilate it into the whole.

This principle of pressure and release works in behavioral rehab, too -- you push your student/patient/subject to the point of discomfort, hold that degree of pressure while the mind copes with the challenge and achieves some incremental change, and then gradually take the pressure off, allowing a period of rest while the change assimilates into the whole animal.

Without pressure -- challenge -- there is no forward momentum. Without pausing and holding the pressure, there is no change. And without retreat and rest, there is no processing of what just happened, no long-term application.

The Roseannadannas don't need rehab. They are clean and shiny and new; they are perfect, and so is their world. But their world will expand, and they will expand to meet it, through the same process of pressure, hold, release.

Much of the "pressure" comes from inside the puppies. They are bursting to grow. They push their own comfort levels in order to satisfy their intense curiosity. This is the pressure to expand that is natural to every intelligent creature, and all we need to do is support it.

Monday they were enjoying their free-range time. Now, whenever I can, I close the gates and open the doors so that they have access to the puppy-proofed kitchen and living room, the deck, and the whole outdoors via the front door (which opens from the kitchen). They are lightly supervised as we go about our business. The big dogs can mingle with them, or go in the back door to the parts of the house that are gated off -- pups can't get there yet. There's nothing between pups and poultry other than the poultry's good judgement and speed.

In general, they move in groups -- this is their time to learn about dog society with one another. They spend a lot of time playing and contending, and a lot of time sleeping. They play with Cole or Ernie or mob their mother. They play with any humans who are among them. The social world takes precedence.

But some of the time, they are pulsing out -- pushing the physical boundaries of their world. On
Sunday, the theme was to climb the landscaping boulders in the front yard, push leads into their crevices, and generally work in three dimensions. Monday we were all about getting into the mint patch for a little aromatic puppy caving. (Few photo ops in that endeavor.)

Generally, when I walk a hundred feet from the front door, the pups fall back. But not always. On Sunday, Garrett followed me all the way to the barnyard for night chores, then found his way back without drama. This meant negotiating some stone steps, down and then up. Monday, tiny Gilda followed me to the pole barn, hung out while I assembled tools, and then followed me back. These are long treks for little puppies, precursors of the pack walks that will start in a few days.

As they develop, we also provide some pressure -- not often to push them further outwards, but to direct their expanding psyches.

Chevy roo-roos and wants to be picked up. I love his drive to engage a person, but he's a bit pushy and full of swagger. I pick him up and cradle him, and he becomes slightly stiff -- he did not want to be cradled on his back, he wanted to come into my lap and nibble my chin and generally have me enable his agenda. I keep him cradled and he pitches a minor tantrum. Alas, it does not succeed in granting him his wish. When the tantrum abates, not before, I set him upright in my lap for stroking and kissies. Pressure ... hold ... hold ... hold ... hold ... releeeease. We will repeat this many times.

Gilda is playing with a bit of cotton rope. I take the end and apply gentle traction. We play "tug" while I stroke her whole body with long, firm, calming strokes, the way I've seen the best schutzhund trainers work with a young puppy. Nothing exciting, no thrashing around, no proving I'm stronger than a five-pound furball. Her grip stays firm. I let the rope slide out of my hand (gradual release). We will teach her to release a toy in a few weeks. To my delight, when she finds she has full possession of the rope, she cheerfully brings it back to me and asks me to re-engage. Playing with someone is more fun than having something. A lesson she will learn many times, in many contexts, until one day she is teaching it to some pup in the dog park or some toddler who is learning about grabbiness.

The pups have the routine and the familiar, and they have challenges to the routine and familiar. I put a new obstacle onto the deck -- it is a challenge and a diversion. Can I climb on it? Under it? Does it move if I hit it? Is it shreddable? This is exciting! But other things stay the same. If I get too stimulated, I can always go sleep on my same pillow with my same brother. Mother changes -- now she says no to me, and sometimes she plays with me -- but she is also the same -- she smells the same and the milk still tastes so good and she still cleans me like she did the minute I was born. With every pulse of pressure to grow and change, there's a corresponding path back to the familiar, a physical or emotional space to rest and contemplate that becomes the springboard to dive back into the unfamiliar. Each pulse-hold-release strengthens the whole pattern, until the familiar becomes the puppy's own sense of herself, and to the degree that her genetics permit, nothing can faze her.

Transitional

Click little speech balloon icon for captions.

The Roseannadannas turn three weeks old today, leaving behind the label "transitional."

They have met and been handled by ten people, including two (older) children.

They've had a field trip outside every day in the past week when it hasn't rained. On each trip they are exposed to a slightly more challenging area (slope, undergrowth, and "obstacles" getting increasingly challenging.)

They are still riding in their Moses basket to their night crib in the bedroom closet, and back downstairs in the morning, but it is getting really heavy, and sometimes I have to sway it a little to keep them from climbing out.

They've experienced, I think, seven substrates, not counting human laps, etc.

They now rush the the front of their containment field when they see a person. Rush laps. Kiss faces, and try to get to faces to kiss them.

They know and trust Gramma Pip and Uncles Moe, Cole, and honorary Uncle Ernie. Aunt Sophia -- a proven good puppy Auntie -- is still at more of a distance, because Rosie says so. The grown dogs take on different roles. Moe is vigilant and protective, but increasingly keeps his distance as the pups become ambulatory, just as he did when Rosie and her siblings were tykes. Cole blocks Sophia and either blocks or distracts Ernie when Rosie starts getting unhappy about him. Pip would totally take over if Rosie would let her. She's very relaxed and matter-of-fact with the babies, just casually nurturing them, and they respond to her as if all puppies have a Gramma to babysit them, and it's just automatic for a puppy to grok that.

I'm just feeling little teeth under the gums now. Nursing is about to get a lot less fun for Rosie.

They are beginning to play with one another, soft toys, and parts of their mother, and to gum on humans in a way that suggests mischief or piranha-fish rather than suckling attempts.

Their new day pen is a 4'x6' space bounded by 16" deep (high) Closet Maid wire shelving* zip-tied at the corners. Big enough for a person to lie down and snuggle inside. It is half carpeted and bedded, half newspapers. They went to the newspapers to eliminate literally within seconds of being set down on the carpet remnant. They do this en masse when they wake up from a nap, even though the newspapers are slippery and hard to toddle on, to say nothing of hard to squat on.

For a completely raw video, taken with some smudges on the lens, of their first time outside on grass, look here.


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* One of the few human constructions that I am convinced will survive global nuclear annihilation. Based on my observations during Katrina recovery search.

Bye Bye Baby(hood)

With the appearance of all their tiny peepers over the weekend, the Roseannadannas are officially no longer neonates.

They've now entered the week of their life that has long been relegated to, in essence, "miscellaneous" or "other" or puppy limbo -- what behavioral researchers call the "transitional" period, prior to the explosion of learning and brain pruning between the ages of three to twelve weeks.

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As neonates, they experienced three different puppy dens and a Moses-sized wicker basket. A couple days after the first Moving Day, Rosie decided that she didn't want to give up the company of the rest of the family in order to care for her puppies. So, until they start eating solid food, they all get loaded into their Moses basket at night and come upstairs to bunk in my bedroom closet. Most mornings they get breakfast in bed -- a chance to imprint on human scent, snuggle, bump into Uncle Moe, and occasionally plop off the edge of the bed, lemming-fashion, and promptly fall asleep on the rug. Then, downstairs to the day den.

Their eyes opened precociously. They are sometimes getting their feet underneath themselves. I'm hearing proto-barks and liquid little growlettes among the squeaking, crying and puppy whale song. They recognize the existence of people and toddle closer, even climb into laps. They are great climbers; whenever I didn't provide lumps and bumps and texture changes in the puppy den, Rosie would heap the bedding into an infant monkeybars structure.

They are rather relaxed about handling. I'm still looking for that orienting reflex that allegedly "forces" a young puppy to right himself when he finds himself saluting the sky. Their reflex on being picked up and put in nearly any position is to go slack and fall asleep. They especially love being cradled.

If altricial infants can be said to "imprint," they have been imprinted on the scent and touch of human beings and the rest of their dog family, a great springboard for multi-species socialization.

Brain Breakfast

Old wive's white-coats' tale -- you can't teach a puppy anything before his eyes open.

No less a pair of authorities than Scott and Fuller proclaimed it, more or less.* After all, neonatal pups are blind, hear poorly, and don't get around all that well. Terrible at mazes. Nevermind that their little noses can lead them to the biggest nipple in their dark, warm world. Humans are a bunch of sight snobs. Worse than our hangup about thumbs.

Michael Fox** discovered that neonates could be conditioned to localize the scent of anise, but essentially concluded that this was as far as it goes.

Jebus Christmas -- they are living, growing beings. They don't just wake up from a coma at three weeks of age. Shit is happening.

Differential equations and whistle commands -- save it.

Neurological connections, resilience, trust, persistence, scent-imprinting -- now we're talking.

While the neonates' nervous systems are pruning and strengthening connections, their immune systems are also beginning to develop under the protection of mother's magic colostrum.

Interestingly enough, the same kinds of mild challenges can strengthen both body systems, just as massive insults to one can throw the other out of whack. (The immune system/nervous system nexus is huge and unappreciated. The New Agers basically ate the white-coats' lunch on this one, and it will be a while before those who apply the scientific method sheepishly catch up and distinguish the valid information from the moonbeams.)

Our "program" for imprinting and stimulating neonatal puppies is mostly the terrible chore of picking up little grunting sausages for snuggle time every day. I know! What we breeders sacrifice. Zrrrbting pink bellies, nibbling tiny toes, smooching little schnozzes -- oh the humanity.

But we do some extra stuff, too. We get a head start on the "Rule of Sevens" and make sure that the pups experience different surfaces in the whelping box. (With this litter, Rosie is intent on making sure they experience four or five different dens in the first two weeks -- still fighting that battle.) We create little moraines under their blankets, so that puppies must climb obstacles to reach the milk bar. (Or Rosie bunches the bedding into Mount Pupali and really gives them a workout.) As soon as Momma allows, pups are touched and cared for by their relatives -- Gramma Pip and Uncle Moe are already cleaning pups. And we do "Superdog" early neurological stimulation -- a little first taste of challenge for the puppies' developing brains and nervous systems.

The neonatal exercises arose from the DoD's "biosensor" program -- an attempt to breed and develop a better military working dog -- in the 1970's. The "Superdog" breeding, developmental, conditioning and training protocols were mostly cloaked in obscurity -- possibly secrecy -- but a few consultants, including the late lamented Cap Haggerty, brought results and protocols out into the light. While the program itself was not a success -- whether due to errors in breeding selection, failure to follow up with appropriate socialization, training shortfalls, or the interaction of all three -- there was a general consensus that the neonatal conditioning, once initiated, improved the results within the program.

It takes only a few minutes a day. Used as directed it does no harm, and may do considerable good.

I've never seen photographs or video of the process, so here you go. Apologies for the poor video quality -- lighting is poor in our living room, and my video camera batteries were all dead, so we used my regular camera. Cutting off the puppies' heads is a YouTube issue -- they were properly framed in the original. My assistant didn't feel confident panning and zooming, so we put the camera on a tripod. And I wasn't sure that it was properly recording audio, so I didn't narrate what I was doing.

I know, I know -- paint drying. But it is fast-drying paint.

Some important points. No puppy is in any given position for more than five seconds. And you only do this once a day. (We couldn't do a second take yesterday for this video.)

One isn't evaluating puppies during this exercise. Whether puppy sleeps or squirms is of no consequence. This is neurological stimulation -- a little bit of challenge that the puppy would not normally get.

Two things I've noted over the course of five days:

• The puppies are responding much more vigorously to the head-down position, and are squirmier in general.

• The puppies are dramatically relaxing in the belly-up position, a little more each day. I don't know whether that can be attributed to the short stimulation sessions, or if it is due to all the snuggle time they spend in this position, in a lap or tucked under someone's chin. Their epic six days of experience on the part of the planet that is not the inside of their mother is already overriding their programmed reflex to right themselves when tits-up, at least when the touch and smell of a human being is part of the equation. This will stand them in good stead in their lives with people, no matter what jobs they hold.

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* "Early in our observations of newborn puppies, we noticed that they did not seem to learn by experience. A puppy would fall to the edge of the scale platform, fall off, and begin to yelp in distress. When placed in the middle of the platform, it would do the same thing over again ... Some recent experiments (Stanley et al 1963) indicate that the puppy is capable of some degree of slow learning with regard to sucking. A puppy which is given milk after sucking a rubber nipple will eventually begin to suck more often than a puppy which is not so rewarded, and one that is given quinine instead of milk will eventually refuse to suck the nipple at all."

Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, 1965, pp. 87-88.

** Before he went all woo-woo.

Hormonal

I have never quite grokked it when a woman complains that she is feeling "hormonal."

When a man makes a sub-simian crack about a woman along those lines, I just figure he's looking for a convenient excuse for why she ceased tolerating his bullshit and either gave him what was coming to him or is currently weeping/in a bubblebath behind a locked door. But why would a woman say this about herself? Accepting the patriarchal dismissal of her legitimate grievances? Does she need a copy of Right Wing Women more than a cup of chamomile and a Pamprin?

Me, I'm a contextual Raging Bitch From Hell. It's very easy to externalize that which calls forth The Dragon, because it was probably some gratuitous bullshit you just pulled, jackass. As for the weepies, I'm also from Leaky Irish stock, which knows no gender of phase of the moon. A sad television commercial can bring it on.*

But Rosie -- Rosie proves that one can be utterly and sincerely ruled by hormones.

The three weeks before she produced the Roseannadannas featured some of the hottest, most unforgiving weather I can remember. We also brought a teenage foster puppy into the pack for rehab work. Everyone had every reason to be crabby. Rosie is crabby and controlling with the other dogs as a baseline. Rosie would like me to inform you that she is not crabby or in any way a control freak, but merely committed to responding appropriately to Sophia and Moe and all new dogs' incomprehensible failure to line up and get with the fuckin' program.

So what did heat indices pushing 120° F, a new teenage dork-boy up in her grille, and the sudden eruption of a hot watermelon full of squirming aliens pressing against her liver do to Ebil Rosie?

Why, made her sweet** and tolerant, of course. What else would it do?

Oxytocin is a helluva drug.

On Monday, a few hours after her temperature dropped, she began a prolonged Stage I labor -- several days before I really expected it. Her new beatific tolerance for fooldogs did not exactly abate -- it's just that the other dogs fell off her radar for 21 hours, while she paced, dug, whined and panted.

I did not fall off the radar, and my presence was not optional. I slept in fitful snippets on a dog bed next to the whelping kiddie pool, to anchor Rosie to her assigned nest. And to be available when she needed to periodically crawl into my skin. What the hell is happening to me?! Mommy, I feel weird!

The moment the first puppy appeared, she understood what it was all about and was ready to assume her primal role as Ur Mommy. She expertly severed his umbilical cord and went to work cleaning and stimulating him.

So did I. Firstborn was not breathing.

The big, shiny, pink puppy didn't respond to resuscitation -- either his mother's traditional methods or the modern options available to a well-briefed primate doula with opposable thumbs and a tube of glucose. He looked perfectly good, but never drew a breath.

Rosie knew it wasn't right, but she also didn't know what right was supposed to be. I kept hoping for a second puppy to occupy her, but after twenty minutes I had to take her firstborn away from her. It was another twenty before a living squalling sibling appeared.

Until he did, Rosie periodically stared intently at the table where her firstborn lay inert, and cried out.

I don't know whether the immediate needs of a squirming, squalling infant causes a bitch to forget the inert one that the monkey took away, or whether she just becomes too busy to dwell on her loss, but still remembers. I hope for the former; it would be a uncharacteristic kindness of Nature.

As the night wore on, Rose produced four more healthy, squirming pups. Then a long and worrisome interval -- and a terrible presentation, one shoulder and tiny foot protruding. For a brief and horrifying moment I thought I was seeing a headless puppy. The sable runt's head was folded back onto his chest; I pushed him back to free it. Released, the tiny, skinny puppy seemed much more dead than his firstborn brother. Rosie and I worked on him, and another moribund brother quickly appeared; I woke up PC, who worked on that one while I gave Little Man a drop of glucose and chest compressions and his mother licked his face, and licked, and licked, and then Little Man gasped, and gaped, and breathed. But he did not move -- his little legs did not pump, and his Gumbied neck could not support his head.

The brother who had been held up in passage was blue-grey and full of fluid and not coming back. Just bad luck.

A sister emerged, squalling, and then Rosie just knew that she was finished, message received from the same mysterious set of chemical switches that had told her that she was starting; but this time, she knew what was finished. I put Little Man under her neck so he could pass his life in warmth and love, and we both lost consciousness for an hour or so. When I woke up, expecting another dead puppy, he was crawling and squalling and moving his head. He was half the size of his biggest siblings, but he could suckle. It could happen.

Rosie is not the relaxed and world-tolerant dam her mother was. She fretted. Not only wouldn't let her best buddies come into the room, but was vexed about them being on the other side of a gate or outside on the deck. It was near-impossible to get her outside to powder her nose. She'd even nose my hand aside when I touched the puppies; no implied threat, just firm persistence. If a puppy squeaked, she looked for someone to blame.

Little Man squeaked the most, and he squeaked differently from his siblings. He suckled, but did not gain. His ribs showed. He got cold in the middle of the pile-up. He worried her. He worried me. I called the vet and arranged to bring him by to measure a feeding tube. Tucked him under his sleeping mother and went out to milk the goats, so I'd have fresh warm supplemental formula for him. The least I could do, and the most I should. To bully Life where she does not wish to abide only delays and magnifies and perhaps delegates suffering and heartbreak.

I'm grateful he completed his brief pass through this world asleep and snuggled up to his mother's fur, and not in a vet's cold exam room or a box in the car.

For the little sable fighter, and his two unlucky brothers -- both Rosie and I have remained rather hormonal, if not so anxious as before. Rosie passed the next two days with her six fat healthy pups who hardly ever squeak, shedding some of her worry. Has she been more fretful and paranoid than her own mother because the gain is set too high on her ruling hormones -- or because of the grief of losing babies, something Pip never experienced? She seems to find her six healthy puppies more precious and vulnerable.

I occasionally hear of helpful people who declare that a mother who miscarries or loses an infant at birth can't or doesn't, or shouldn't, grieve the loss "as if" she'd bonded with the baby. You know, you can always make another one.

Rosie made six on the same damned day, and still ...

I know I am "hormonal" over those lost babies. Dwelling on the lost potential and what ifs. Thinking of our Mel, resuscitated at birth by her breeder, and how much poorer the world would be today if she'd never drawn that breath and gone on and made her mark on so many lives and hearts, lives she saved, not metaphorically, literally saved them from imminent death. Then I look at Rosie and her treasured brood, how protective she is of them surrounded by love and safety, and think of the unimaginably sad life of a puppymill brood bitch, and what it would be like to need to protect one's babies while trapped in a wire cage, surrounded by barking and chaos, no one rubbing your ears and telling you how beautiful your babies are and what a good Mommy you are, no one hand-feeding you balls of ground beef or bringing you fresh goat's milk and homemade chicken stock, just a hopper of Old Roy hanging from the wire, and a hamster bottle, and good luck with that. You can go down that pathway into a very dark and tangled forest, with grief driving at your heels.

Friday morning PC told me that she left the pups for several minutes and accompanied him on morning chores. "I think she's bored."

But no, that wasn't it at all. The Hormones had spoken again, and they were very specific this time.

After breakfast she started trotting around the house and yard. She greeted her mother as if someone else had enforced a separation. I could see her casing the joint. Because Day Four is Moving Day.



When her mother declared Moving Day eight years ago, one of Rosie's half-brothers† suffered a lot of indignity and wear while we argued. Pip was adamant that puppies belonged in the bedroom closet; I, as the opposable-thumbed higher mammal, was equally adamant that they belonged in the whelping box in the family room. After several hours of serial head-butting, we finally came to a compromise. I cleared all the shoes out of the closet, moved the puppies exactly where she wanted them, and she did exactly the hell as she wished.

On the next Moving Day, four years later, I snapped to it the moment Pip trotted down the hallway with the first protesting pup.‡

Rosie selected a corner of the living room, bounded by the end of the futon sofa and the raised brick hearth. My end-table and monkey lamp were evicted, I vacuumed and fashioned puppy containment, and then did her bidding. It's really a rather spiffy den, good choice, in with the family but out of the way, convenient to the regularly forthcoming meatballs and bowls of yogurt. She's allowing Gramma Pip and Uncle Moe to check out the little ones, and they are all an easy reach from the sofa and my chair. It's like having a mini-fridge built into the Laz-E-Boy, only with warm puppies instead of cold beers.




Snuggled down after a long day, a round, shiny, milky-smelling being who has only ever known love and warmth and safety tucked between neck and shoulder, trusting belly to the sky, tiny pink paws on my cheek, all the accumulated strains sublimate off into the ether. The world is, briefly, perfect.

Must be the hormones.


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* I was going to post the link to the Iams dog food commercial featuring the child/girl/young woman and the Irish setter named Casey. You know the one. It is inexplicably not on YouTube or anywhere else on the web. (wipes tear)

** She's always "sweet" to people, in the "It's really your idea to keep petting me indefinitely and also you should tell me how pretty and smart I am just now" kind of way.

† It's been my experience that on Moving Day, the same pup gets picked up over and over if Ur Momma is thwarted. They never choose a different pup.

‡ For those who have never raised pups from birth: this does not present the kind of sanitation challenges one might imagine. Birth is, as with any mammal, a gooey, messy affair. Puppies three weeks and up are a very messy affair. But neonates are clean and shiny little things, induced eliminators whose mothers handle the hygiene. By the time they start toddling it's generally possible to move them to the containment facility of one's choice without incurring the implacable resistance of Ur Momma.

Job Application

A friend's account of a puppy at the shelter where she volunteers brings back a story.

This is Goose. He's at B.A.R.K. in Billings, MT, and he is looking for a home. Goose is a RRR -- random reservation ranch rover. But he looks a lot like someone else I know. And he's a precocious retriever. That just might mean something about the kind of dog Goose intends to be.

It's June, 2007, and the Pistons -- the offspring of Pip and Boston -- are about five weeks old. Eight adorable little fuzzy landsharks. They're precocious, by which I mean, they have responded to the interaction of their driven genetics and their enriched upbringings by teaching themselves all sorts of skills -- going outside to poop, climbing out of their pen, bossing around full-grown German shepherds.

Personalities are starting to stand out. Rosie is already ebil. Tuck (nee Ed, for Edmund Hillary) is already a genius. Maggie (nee Sally) is already sweet.

The back patio door is open, and the pups are swarming outside in the yard. I'm in the kitchen when Andy trots in, looking for attention, because that's what he does, his thing, to want to be constantly interacting with a person, and usually talk about it the whole time.

Oddman offering an opinon.

I don't know why I did it, but I wadded up a ball of paper and threw it the length of the kitchen.

This is the "fetch test" that one does when evaluating working puppies. You do it at seven or eight weeks of age, in a place free of distractions. If the pup brings back the paper ball when you call and clap encourage him, great. If he runs off with it and plays keepaway with you, well, then you know something important about his potential to be challenging. If the pup doesn't go after the ball, or is lackluster about it, he may just need another few days or weeks to reach that developmental moment. Sometimes I'm quite sure that a pup just can't see far enough or track motion with his eyes yet, but a week later it's all there.

I hate it when handlers talk about pups "flunking fetch." The test has become a shibboleth in some working dog circles, generally among people who have no clue how to administer it correctly or interpret it in context, and the sketchiest black and white notions about puppy developmental stages.

So that's the fetch test, except it wasn't, because one would never "test" a pup as young as Andy; he was simply not old enough to have reached the appropriate developmental moment.

I suspect I was seeing if I could get him to go away and stop bothering me, kid.

Instead, here is what happened.

Andy trotted the full length of the kitchen (about 18'), picked up the ball, trotted straight back to me without any encouragement, sat down between my feet, looked me straight in the eye, and dropped the ball. Then maintained eye contact.

Oh. I did not just see that.

I picked up the ball and threw it again, full length of the kitchen.

Pup trotted out, picked it up, trotted back, sat, eye contact, dropped ball. Maintaining eye contact until I picked it up again. There was no air of goofy puppy play in this retrieve. He was serious bordering on somber.

I felt my heart in my mouth. A brand-new being was making his decision about himself known to me, a rare and momentous declaration. I had to be sure.

Third throw. Andy trotted out to the end of the kitchen. He'd just picked up the paper ball when two of his brothers came rioting in the back door, a few feet from him.

Woohooo! Brudder Andy has a prize!

I figured that was the end of that. Before he could turn, there was a brother latched onto the spitty paper wad on each side of his mouth.

But it was not the end. Andy -- the male pup lowest on the puppy totem pole -- turned anyway, wrenching his brothers loose. He started back towards me, a brother on either side, and dragged them with him as they yanked on his trophy, ripping bits off as he forged on. His teeth remained resolutely clenched on the paper ball, eyes forward, undeterred.

He eventually reached my feet, sat, looked me in the eye, and at the moment that both siblings let loose of the paper, spit it out between my ankles.

Oh.

One in a million. No hyperbole.

No less responsibility, as his breeder, than if I had a handicapped puppy to place. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. With dogs, "ability" and "needs" are the same damned thing. Dogs don't know about alienation of labor.*

And that is why -- not how, but why -- Andy went to live with Janeen, and become Audie, aka The Oddman.



Because he had to go to someone who would exploit him, know him, challenge him, adore him, and get him. Someone's whose needs and abilities were also the same as one another, and aligned with his. He was a gift, mine to give, not keep.

Five weeks old, and he applied for his dream job, trusting a headhunter to find the right position for him.


____________

* Unless they've been conditioned to it with bribes and bad training ideology.

Take Two, They’re Small

It was a great compliment to a newly-minted dog handler to be asked by my training mentor to evaluate a litter of puppies to identify the search and rescue prospects.*

The big litter of superficially near-identical black German shepherds was from her own breeding, offspring of two SAR dogs. The buyers were a family from Pennsylvania who already owned two of her dogs, both operational SAR dogs. It was time for them to start bringing along a new pup to eventually succeed their oldest bitch.

After messing with the pups for the better part of a day -- observing the litter interact amongst themselves, taking them out one at a time for some formal puppy tests and informal play and mild stress, watching them move -- I arrived at the same answer that their breeder had. “Either of these two bitch puppies is an excellent prospect. And I can find no reason to prefer one over the other. I think they might be actual identical twins.”

A few days later Martha and Dan, SAR dogs JT and Schatten, and Martha’s two teenage boys arrived in an SUV the size of a city block, to visit for a few days, train, and choose their new puppy.

I liked them. We had a lot of fun navigating the baffling New Hampshire topography behind Annabella’s cabin. It was refreshing to cross-pollinate with handlers from another unit who were not using the interaction as an opportunity to gain local political advantage or attempt a mean-spirited alpha roll on the New Kid.

Martha agreed about the two bitch puppies. She spent three days with them, and could find nothing to favor one pup over the other. So she took them both.

Annabella tried to talk her out of this course of action, but in the end relented. Martha and Dan insisted that each one would train a pup.

Less than a year later, Perfesser Chaos took a new job. We packed up Lilly, two cats, all our crap, and the lives we had started in New England and relocated, Clampett-like, to Pittsburgh. We weren’t close enough to Martha to join her SAR unit, but it was nice having a friend and guide in the general area. Their spacious home, set back in the woods near the Laurel Ridge, was our rural refuge, as Annabella’s Unabomber cabin had once been.

Things were not going as one would hope with the puppies, Lauren and Danielle.†

They were still physically indistinguishable (to me) -- color-coded collars were a necessity. But one puppy (I cannot remember which one, seventeen years later) had taken on the role of leader, the other of follower. It was fortunate that the dichotomy was as strong as it was; that’s probably what spared that family the fun of littermate bitches deciding to kill one another at unpredictable intervals.** The fact of the relationship -- the absolute need that dogs have to define their roles relative to their packmates -- cause the identical puppies’ personalities to diverge much more dramatically than they would have under other circumstances.

I cannot remember a single dog who was raised with her mother to adulthood who could be successfully trained for a Guide Dog. Where two litter mates are raised together in the same home we have had the same results. Puppies raised in homes where there are dogs not related to them have never been affected this way by the association with other dogs ... In the case of two litter mates raised together, one becomes a successful candidate for Guide Dog work and one fails, even if their aptitude tests were equal.

Clarence Pfaffenberger
The New Knowledge of Dog Behavior
Howell Book House, 1964 (p. 125)

Lauren and Danielle presented a classic picture of this kind of squandered potential, except that neither were heading for the success promised by their early puppy profiles. They were co-dependent, whining and pacing incessantly whenever separated from one another, even if one of the other dogs was there. Their obedience and general response to human leadership was sketchy at best. I would not consider them housetrained. They barely paid attention to what their humans wanted. They lacked the aura of intelligence and awareness that JT exuded. And neither puppy was all that committed to working. The noses functioned, but the fire did not blaze.

Indeed, at a year of age, they were still “the puppies.” At two, three years of age, “the puppies.” No real progress towards operational status that I could see, and general arrested development compared to their own older dogs, and other SAR dogs of the same cohort.

One divorce and many life changes later, Martha and Dan split up “the puppies.” Each ex-spouse went away with one good older SAR dog and one unfocused, slightly neurotic, unfulfilled young pet. Neither ever fielded a second SAR partner.

Well what does all that matter to me? you say, I just want dogs as pets.

Two puppies will keep one another company, so I can go to work and not feel guilty. It’s a lot of fun watching them play with one another. And they never have to go through the full trauma of leaving their first family. They’ll be friends all their lives, so we don’t have to identify other dogs with whom they can socialize. Throw in a fenced yard -- no need for time-consuming leash walks.

Oh the temptations.

If I wasn't so aware of the number of hits this post is likely to receive from people looking for validation for a decision to buy two puppies, I'd give you the phone number of the clients who called me two weeks into their two-puppy adventure. They were "smart." They didn't buy littermates (partly because they had a thought of breeding the two German shepherd pups in the future.) They got a big robust bitch puppy and a smaller, more retiring dog puppy who was a week or so younger, from a different breeder. The two pups commenced ignoring every human directive, enticement, and entreaty, while the bigger pup began mercilessly bullying the smaller one.

When they called me, this couple who had successfully raised three children had not slept in a fortnight. I felt as if I'd come to help the parents of quadruplets who were both suffering from post-partum depression.

I was able to help quite a bit with puppy management, training, general stress levels. This was a couple who really wanted to do right by their dogs, had high expectations of them, and had found themselves completely unprepared for the onslaught.

I’m down to one Indiana Plague Puppy; Donna went home this morning. They are about 13 weeks old now, several weeks older than the optimum age for going to their permanent homes. Puppy care just got harder.

Four puppies was herding a troupe of striped-assed baboons. Two puppies are half as many as four -- half as much poop, half as much cuddling, half as much training, half as many little ferrets diving for the door or scattering like cockroaches when I needed to contain them.

Two puppies is not, however, twice as many as one. I haven’t yet suffered through a sleepless night of foresaken wailing. I could gate the two of them in the puppy-resistant kitchen for long periods and they entertained one another. I called the puppies, and if one was inclined to come to me, the other almost invariably followed. If I corrected a pup for mouthing me while she was in a ripping frame of mind, she just turned to her sister and piled on -- redirection always available..

In short, raising two puppies rather than one makes it easy and apparently consequence-free to neglect them both. It is the canine developmental equivalent of parking the toddler in front of Gilligan’s Island with a bag of gummi worms and a loaded diaper.

He’s not just less likely to get into Stanford in the long-term; he’s significantly more likely to treat you to phone calls from the school principal and later, the police chief. Or, better yet, to be living in the basement eating your Hot Pockets when he's 35.

I departed from the easy path in several ways. I separated the pups for some period of time every day, taking them each out for leash walks that were, from the standpoint of exercising puppies, entirely gratuitous. They ate from separate bowls, spent time in separate crates, had separate lap-times. But mostly, they were “the puppies.” Neither had launched out of her natal pack and into a new life in a human family.

There are things they ideally should have started learning at seven weeks -- the age at which they found themselves in the dog pound, riddled with cooties, and still a week from coming into foster care where we could begin to address their vetting and start matching them with potential adopters.

It’s neither wise nor productive to unleash two uncivilized puppies -- much less four of them -- into a non-puppy-proofed area of the house. While you are rescuing a shoe from one varmint, another one is behind the TV eating power cord. Whisk one outside when she circles and sniffs, and her brother is makes a deposit to greet you at the door on the way back in. So they lived in the kitchen and did not learn to leave my stuff alone and ask to go out.

One puppy sat sweetly for a treat or attention, another jumped on her head and started gnawing as the human reached down. Each learned that sitting sweetly for what she wants is asking for an ambush -- much better to keep leaping on my legs like a wild heathen.

Shout NO as a pup engages in suicidal or criminal misconduct, and his sister who was innocently playing with a new toy is hit with discipline shrapnel. Uh oh, maybe I shouldn’t play with my toy. Or, maybe this “No” thing is overhyped, and I can ignore it.

One puppy runs from the giant rattling monster garbage bin that is chasing her down the driveway, and her sister concludes that it must be terribly dangerous, and follows in retreat. The fact that the grown-up dogs and the human aren’t a bit worried about this thing doesn’t get through the collective puppy panic.

As a result, the last two girlpuppies were, as of 6 a.m., pig-ignorant barbarians compared to any single pup we have raised. The latest we have ever had littermates together was eleven weeks. At thirteen weeks, the girls were on the verge of overripe; when they had the rips, they were about as tame and approachable as these:


Which, frankly, they closely resembled in more ways than I care to contemplate.



The developmental window for primary socialization and learning has not closed. They will be just fine. And they are still miles ahead of our group-raised ONB puppies, some of whom were with their littermates to the age of eight or nine months.

One or two more weeks of litter-living, though, and these pups would be courting real developmental challenges.

Starting today I am sucking it up and raising one puppy properly, as if she was my own, until she goes to her permanent home. The adult dogs -- trained, civilized,‡ full members of a human family with all the privileges and duties attendant thereof -- act as uniform assets in the pup’s upbringing. They teach her things that can be best, or only, learned from another dog, and they reinforce the policies and procedures of the human household. But the real work will be down to me and PC. Little Susie is Canis lupus familiaris, not plain ol’ C. lupus. She needs to look to human beings for her physical needs, play, direction, leadership, an explanation of her world. As her foster humans, it's our duty to prepare her to keep doing that all her life.

And Miss Susie is already doing this; there is a dramatic change in her compared to last night. I liked her before; now I really enjoy her puppy company.

Here's some free unsolicited advice:

Never buy or adopt two puppies the same age to raise together. Especially littermates. Especially same-sex littermates.

Do. Not.

Here's some more:

If you are a breeder, or place puppies for adoption, never sell or adopt two same-age puppies to one home.

Never. Ever.††

You don't see that "never" here very often. Here's how important I think this is: It is more unwise to buy two well-bred puppies from a breeder who raises them skillfully and lovingly, and bring those puppies up together in the same household, than it is to buy a puppy from the deli case at Petland.

A breeder worth her salt knows this. She won't sell you a set. She most certainly won't offer, suggest, market, discount or hard-sell pups in pairs. Wanna test the balance between a breeder's behavioral savvy and her walletitis? Ask her to sell you two at once. If she says O-tay, walk away clean.

_______________________

* In retrospect, this may have been one of Annabella’s characteristically opaque Zen master lessons about what she thought I had actually done right with my first SAR dog, a truth that I later discerned about myself: I’m a fair to-middling-trainer. What I am good at is selecting puppy prospects who can withstand ham-fisted management, beginner’s mistakes, bad training methodologies, rotten timing, and the whole litany of handler incoherence -- pups who are nearly idiot-proof.

† Martha had a husband named Dan, a son named Dan -- why not just go with it again? Yell out “Dan!” and see how many beings answered.

** Two bitches in the same household who have each decided that the other needs to Go Away Permanently are among the least-favorite projects that face any dog trainer. When those two bitches are littermates whose owners earnestly believe they should loooove one another because they are sisters -- chewing up and swallowing a box of lightbulbs with a Betadine chaser ranks higher on the list of things to do today.

‡ And Sophia. Sigh. She is as God made her.

†† Of course not. Pack hounds. Buy whole litters of 'em and keep 'em in the kennel. It's all good. Carry on. I'm talking about pets, and working dogs that are not pack-hunting hounds.

Also, does not apply to cats. Kitten pairs work well, especially for owners who need them to be contented indoor latchkey kitties.

Life or Death

I could not stay inside a house. Again and again I went to the wall, the window, and finally an old man who had been sitting at the table with me laughed and said something to the others ... that I didn't get.

"What?" I asked, turning from the window.

"You have become one of them," he said. "A dog. You pace, you look out, you move ... like a dog."

"I smell like one, too ..." He nodded, smiling.

"Yes. You do. Only with that other smell there, too, the smell that comes from white places. But that is going away. Tell me now, isn't this better?"

"What?" I had been looking at the dogs again.

"This -- this way to live. With the dogs and the sled and the snow. Isn't it better this way than the way you live the other times?" ...

And I nodded. "Yes. It is."

"Good. You finish this goddamn thing and when it is done you get your woman and come back down the coast and live with us. We'll go hunting seals on the ice and your children will get fat and we'll sit and talk."

-- Gary Paulsen, Winterdance

Lambs pronking through the meadow in the spring are as entertaining to watch as a litter of puppies romping in the kitchen; we must assume that they take the same infant joy in their play. I can think of no morally relevant distinction between the young of the two species, as species.

Cows love their calves; they are gregarious creatures who take pleasure in the company of their herdmates.

There are few vertebrates that are simpler than a Cornish cross hybrid meat chicken. Even they have their bestial satisfactions and uncomplicated personalities, and can be seen to be happy when their short lives play out in green and pleasant summer pastures.

In the end, we eat them. Some of us omnivores consider it important that our food has a decent life, one that is not only free from suffering, but replete with those things that bring happiness to each creature after its kind.

We demand the animal's death to feed our lives, but his pleasures belong to him. A well-kept food animal's life is his own.

Not so the lives of our animal partners. The companions who are designated "pets," and those who work for us or with us to achieve human ends unknown in the animal world. Our lives are commingled, boundaries blurred. They accept a mission for our well-being; if we are not perversely self-absorbed, their happiness becomes ours. We demand their whole lives as if issuing a mandatory marriage proposal. You and me, kid.

We can demand a life, or demand a death.

But both?

Every impulse of decency, every instinct towards fairness screams out against it.

Give me your life. Make my pleasure and my profit and my command your joy. Entwine yourself in my work and life and goals. Meet my eye with your own honest, shining gaze, and cavort with anticipation of the task I have for you. Serve me with your mind and heart. Become my will, and I will become your joy.

Having demanded that kind of devotion and received it, how does a human being then revise the contract to read "And when you are inconvenient to me, when I no longer require that you do my work, when the task that you literally scream to accomplish is not profitable to me, then die and get out of my way?"

The dog's screams had gone on all this time but with the last kick -- the blow must have almost literally exploded the dog's liver -- the dog fell back and grew still and it was over, in seconds it was over and he looked up at me, directly at me, and I saw things had never seen, never want to see again. I saw hate, self-hate, hate and rage and such savagery that I drew back and suddenly understood Nazis and rabies and rape and pillage and My Lai and the death camps ...

... to be able to do that to a friend, a close friend who has pulled you halfway across Alaska and wants only to love and be loved and to pull and see the next hill and is now gone. Killed. Murdered. To savage a dog that way, a friend -- he could do anything.

-- Gary Paulsen, Winterdance

A Profane Open Letter to the Leader of the Free World, and an Apology to My Readers

Dear President Obama,

You know I love you.* Now shut the fuck up.

Okay, I gave this some time to cool, so I've now read that you did not actually call up the Philly Eagles in order to congratulate them on guessing right about the profit potential of a paroled sociopath.

Nevertheless.

When you call up an executive in the corporate entertainment world -- which, I might point out, as the POTUS you should not be wasting time doing -- you stay on your goddamn message. No frills. I understand your message was supposed to be "Good job making your stadium less of an environmental catastrophe."

But that's not what Jeff Lurie went running to the media to crow about, is it?

No, Lurie spun your phone call into a Presidential endorsement of loving† the puppy-hanger while maybe hating the puppy-hanging faster than a Kensington whore flips a BJ into a crack hit.

Are you surprised?

The White House hasn't denied that you talked about this parolee, or that you used tired cliches such as "second chance" and "level playing field" in referring to the hiring of a creature with bloody hands to catch the ball, run with the ball, throw the ball.** For far more money than you make.

So I reckon you did say that bullshit. Dumbass.‡

It's less clear whether you used the hackneyed language of "redemption," in your boy-talk with Lurie. If so, let's be perfectly clear about something.

Catching the ball, throwing the ball, running with the ball -- done well, done poorly, not done at all -- is not a morally relevant activity.

Jebus doesn't endorse men who play boys' games, or the mega-corporations who own employ them.

But more important, catching the ball, throwing the ball, running with the ball does not and cannot "redeem" anyone as a moral agent.

I'm going to repeat that with smaller words for you sports fans: Good at football not same as good man.

The usual sequence in, for the sake of argument, the "Christian" formulation is sincere repentance -- meaning that one is sorry one did wrong, not sorry that one got caught or suffered consequences -- followed by penance -- that is, working hard for the benefit of others (often the victims of one's misdeeds, or their proxies) for no personal gain and under no extrinsic compulsion in order to make things right -- leading to personal transformation into the kind of moral agent who is no longer capable of the kind of wrongdoing that led to the need for redemption.

Just, you know, ferinstance.

As for "comebacks," these are noteworthy -- not necessarily morally, but of interest -- when the "setback" that provides the stage is extrinsic, or at least not a direct and easily avoidable result of the staggering moral perversity of the one who has "suffered" the setback.

One can perhaps be inspired when an athlete comes back after blowing out a knee. It is not morally relevant in the way that sports writers like to sell, but it may speak to character traits such as perseverance that we generally favor and to which we aspire.

From what has Vick "come back?" Merely the cushioned, mitigated, kid-gloved semi-consequences of his own freely-chosen, focused and sustained moral depravity. From a token prison sentence for a few of his crimes, and unconscionable legal and media gloss over the worst of them.

Also, just saying, court-ordered community service is not a mitzvah. It's part of the goddamn sentence. Completing it is not optional, so you don't get extra credit points. It is not intended to "clean up your image" on the way to lucrative endorsement contracts.

There is, likewise, no "heroism" in apparently discontinuing ongoing acts of violent atrocity after being stopped by force of law. Most of us manage to refrain on a daily basis without threat of prison. Our "self-restraint" is not praiseworthy, even in these grade-inflated times. It's not even self-restraint, because normal people do not ever fucking want to electrocute dogs in our swimming pools.

I am quite certain, Mr. President, that as the doting father of two daughters, you would not go out of your way to praise an employer who hires an unrepentant serial child torture-murderer to perform any job -- and because he's good at it, to pay him $5.2 million. You wouldn't justify the crime because the murderer had served time, even if he'd served time for the actual crime. (It bears repeating, Vick has not).

Doesn't the same consideration extend, in its way, to your dog?

While the tradition of political-pet-as-prop is too longstanding to ignore (nearly as venerable as the political wife/accessory), you seem to be genuinely fond of that hairy beastie Ted Kennedy gave your kids. It's hard not to be, right? That's the thing about dogs, isn't it? Like children, they disarm you; even despite yourself, they bring out some of the best core parts of the real person in there. For most of us, that's the open, trusting, innocent, unselfconscious giver and receiver of love. And with a dog as a catalyst, we might even bring a little bit more of that creamy center out into the rest of our lives, where the people around us can enjoy it.

It is that part of ourselves that bleeds when we hear of a child or a dog who is tortured. And that blood that rises into primal outrage when we see that the abuser will not be held accountable.

Cogitate on what Michael Vick's dogs -- loving, trusting, loyal dogs no different from the "cuter" fluffier kind -- brought out from the inside of their owner, what they revealed to the world about what occupies that center. And then tell me what the prize is for redeeming that ticket.

Sincerely,

An American

_________________________

* This is by no means unconditional.

† Or at least exploiting for execrable profits, as long as that keeps working out.

** Good thing Vick can do all three. No dog in his right mind would fetch it back to him.

‡ If Bush had done the same thing, the world would have found out what a really profane open letter looks like. And you know, that's not fair. So thanks for reminding me of that about myself. I'm going to pay attention to that.

* * *

An Apology to my Readers

Yesterday I published this post.

When I arrived home last night, I found a backlog of comments. (Comments are now moderated, as the spammers have honored this blog with their love). Almost every single comment expressed sincere white-hot outrage at the British judicial system and the RSPCA for this obvious miscarriage of justice. If you think the post above is profane ...

A more careful reader -- or perhaps just a person who has read more of my work and can see it coming -- catches the conceit of the post.

Because the "news article" is a fabrication, and was meant to be recognized as such.

It began with a friend's musing about what the general public would think of Michael Vick if he had gleefully tortured and killed animals other than pit bulls -- something fluffy and "cute." Kittens, perhaps.

Because people get caught up in the dog fighting aspect of his crime, and fail to stay focused on the psychopathic torture-killing of the dogs who disappointed their "master."

I took it further. What if Vick wasn't any good at football?

In other words, what if someone non-famous was treated as Vick has been?

It is too implausible that someone non-rich would be dealt with thusly, so I kept that part, and set the stage in a foreign land.

I asked a British friend with an eye for written nuance to edit the thought-experiment; she made it read more authentically British, and further, British second-rate newspaper.

I'm not going to name these co-conspirators, because the end result is all my fault.

I became rather pleased with the result as a piece of collaborative writing, and lost track of its likely effect on readers. Having constructed something that was too convincing, I thoughtlessly set a trap for them. That was never my intention. I honestly thought that this would play out like many articles in The Onion*; that is, initial outrage or astonishment, followed by "Oh, it's the bloody Onion. Got me again you jerks." But of course, this blog doesn't provide the context that an Onion header does.

I honestly figured that "Victoria Michaels" would jump out at people and cue them. I was wrong. Too subtle when someone is RWA. (Reading While Angry.)

The names of her co-defendants and mother -- also derived from the Vick case. The name of the judge and kennel, invented whole-cloth. The RSPCA, a real organizations that, as far as I know, has never made such a deal with the Devil, unlike its US "analogue." Swindon and District Animal Haven, a real charity that, as far as I know, is worthy. Holloway prison, Swindon, Wiltshire, Goatacre -- real places, where Victoria Michaels has never lived.

After sleeping on it, I've decided not to release the many comments posted yesterday. A big thanks to the spammers who set me up to have this time to consider things. It would be terribly disrespectful to "trap" readers -- many of whom I know to be thoughtful people -- and then leave them hanging out in public to look foolish to people who already know "the answer."

I'll release any comments made after a link to this post is active at the top of yesterday's.

I'm sincerely sorry.

________________

* Without being, you know, funny in any way.

Gestalt

A conversation is not the sum of its syllables.

Rottweiler owners are fond of telling those who (they presume) don't know the breed that Rotties like to "talk."

He's not growling, he's just talking.

Thing is, many Rottweilers (and some other dogs) do have a growly vocalization that is not meant to be agonistic. It is rather charming.

People who are primed to skid their knickers in the mere presence of Satan's draught dogs are difficult to convince. Even most dog lovers and, in my experience, many dogs, can misinterpret these chest-rumbling soliloquies as a statement of most sincere ill-intention.

It gives me a little start every time a dog first does it around me, just like I do a double-take when one offers me a toothy greeting grin.

The submissive or happy grinning dog is quickly distinguishable from the angry snarler.

The "talking" dog is not always so clear.

Trouble is, another thing about Rottweilers is that they also growl. Sometimes a lot. Sometimes at their owners and their owners' friends and family. The growl frequently means something such as "You want the La-Z-Boy? Try me," or "Nail trim. Yeah, I don't think so."

Rottweilers are one of the very few breeds in which a large proportion of individuals can fairly be characterized as highly dominant animals*, dogs who actually want to take over the household and run it, sometimes even when the owner is quite competent.

Most dogs are happiest -- and know they are happiest -- if a credible human handles all the important decisions. "Dominance" challenges are either garden-variety adolescent experimentation or a desperate gambit to take the empty controls of a plane that the dog perceives as plummeting into the side of Mount Doom.

But there are exceptions, and a lot of those exceptions are Rottweilers. The breed supplies a disproportionate number of those truly dominant-aggressive dogs, as well as territorial-aggressive dogs, resource-guarders, and standoffish animals with a well-developed sense of personal space.

The fact that the dog has not bitten anyone yet is not prima facie evidence that he is not growling. When a Rottweiler -- or any dog -- is making a low rumbly sound in its chest, one has to look at the entire gestalt before determining, even provisionally, that the dog is either "talking" or "growling."

First, the circumstances -- the dog who rumbles like a gravel truck when told to get off the couch may be talking, but what he's saying is unprintable, and sooner or later he's highly likely to back up the threats. The dog who makes the same sound while writhing on his back in the grass getting his chest scratched is saying something else entirely -- possibly also unprintable, but only because this is a puritanical culture that frowns on pleasure.

But far more important, the whole picture of the dog's communication -- eyes, ears, eyebrows, lips. Butt and tail**. Muscle tension in neck, legs, and torso. Breathing. Looseness v. tightness. Skin tension and hackling. Not one little pieces-part, and not an imaginary sum of the pieces-parts -- the whole damned dog. How it all hangs together. It's nice to be able to name the parts and their positions, but no more practical than diagramming a diplomat's sentences to discern whether his country is about to declare war.

Those in the thrall of the Dunning-Kruger Effect focus on one thing, some body-language shibboleth that they imagine is the secret decoder ring for what a dog says or means.

We all know the classic, man on the street with some suprise body-perforations who claims, "But he looked friendly! His tail was wagging!"

Worse are those whose cynological expertise would move them to mock that poor civilian who thought the "cute" Akita's slowly-waving vertical tail was a friendly wag. They volunteer at the shelter. They've studied a chart. And doG help us, they've gone to a workshop (or better yet, watched a video of a workshop) in which a presenter attempts to teach them to "see" a dog's communications.

Even the best instructor can only do so much. Most of the students will walk away with a half-understanding of two or three canine field marks; if they retain one for more than a week, it is noteworthy. The rest will latch onto one or two insider buzzwords that become increasingly all-purpose and divorced from anything a dog is actually saying. Because the inexpert student is looking for a one-to-one babelfish dog-English translation, he refuses to consider that a dog, like any sentient creature, may experience ambivalence, threaten and not deliver, change his mind, hide his intentions, use misdirection, or speak gibberish. But he's proud of his insider knowledge, and takes it to the streets.

A few weeks ago, my teammate Rebecca was the recipient of much helpful advice about her young, enormous, steady, good-natured dog's temperament and behavior, from students who had just finished one such seminar. We now know that Cinders is "reactive" (he looked at another dog when it was disorderly) and that he is "trying to be the boss." (Still pulls on the leash a bit when he's not on a training collar and is very excited about working.)

Dominant Cinders reacting.

As Rebecca -- I love her, she's so diplomatic -- said, after I regaled the room† with my impression of Cinders trying to be the boss, "Everyone here is so friendly! And they all want to share what they know, whether or not it's right."

Combine such shallow "expertise" with a pig-headed commitment to interpret a dog's behavior as a "special" -- generally a breed-specific "specialness" -- and the sum can be a spectacular failure of common sense.

Consider two Rottweilers that, according to their owners, "purr," another term that rottie owners will apply to their dogs' actual or imagined "talking."

No cheating now. View each clip first with your speakers muted.

First this one:



And then this one:



Edit: Sorry folks. The person who posted video #2 has designated it "private." I don't think it was my readers, who are far too classy to harass a stranger on YouTube; it has been zipping around Facebook for a little while now, and I am guessing that some of the attention it was getting was not what the poster had in mind. It's also certainly possible that there was, shall we say, an "outcome" involving this dog that makes this video seem like not such a good idea in retrospect.

Disclaimer: I don't know either of these dogs, or the women shown with them. I don't know their histories, or what either of them might or might not have done since the videos were recorded and posted.

Questions:

Are both dogs happy? Are both dogs enjoying the hugging and handling? Is either woman in any danger of being bitten, either immediately or at some future time? What do you see as the differences, if any, in what the dogs are communicating?

Now watch the clips with the sound on. Does it change your opinion?

Is either dog's non-vocal gestalt at odds with his vocalization? Or does the vocalization mean something different depending on the silent communication that accompanies it?

What would it take for you to believe a stranger when he tells you that his dog is "just talking" or "purring?"

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* I am well aware that the latest fad among the Clinique Calls That Burning set is to declare that (mix 'n' match):

There is no such thing as a canine dominance hierarchy because dogs aren't cooperative hunters / dogs aren't even predators / packs are families, and everyone knows that non-pack predators / families don't have vertical development in their social structures / don't have social structures at all, and that therefore there is no such thing as a dominant dog, and also, dominance is not a temperament / character / personality trait so ipso facto no animal can have more or less of a predisposition towards social climbing, it's all the same, like minnows in a giant school, or slime molds. And also, anyone who says otherwise is a dog abuser. He kicked that dog! There, in the slow motion replay, see that, didn't you see it, that was a kick!

I don't care.

** Yeah, this is more difficult to assess when you have cut off the dog's fucking tail.

† The audience consisted of Rebecca and three dogs, mind you, but it was the crowd most qualified to appreciate the irony.

The Thinking Dot

What is the small black dot, lower left, thinking?

One of the most interesting and unlikely things that human beings can do is drive a car in traffic.

Certainly, there are a lot of terrible drivers out there -- the distracted, inattentive, emotionally unstable, impaired, stupid, inexperienced, homicidal and irredeemably klutzy. They make driving -- and walking, and sitting in your living room near a curve in the road -- a far more engaging activity than it necessarily needs to be.

But really, consider the miracle that most adults can competently pilot a two-ton chunk of metal at speeds that far exceed what evolution should have suited our brains to process (overengineering?), and relatively rarely bump, much less slaughter, another person.

Cars don't have eyebrows, mouths, shoulders, back muscles, hands. Nor do they possess hackles, tails, ears and whiskers. They cannot convey intentions or opinions with subtle body language. They have some simple visual and auditory signals, but their drivers do not always choose to deploy them accurately, or at all.

Yet, provided we are alert and paying attention, most of us can predict the movements of other vehicles most of the time.

We recognize the car that is going to drift out of its lane, the one about to execute an unsignaled left turn, the one whose driver is a chronic dickhead who is working out his Mommy-never-loved-me issues on the asphalt, and we respond to prevent a collision. I can almost unerringly pick out which car is driven by some nimrod who will have a cell phone held up to her ear when I pass her. The incompetence is different from that of the inexperienced teen, drunken maniac, or half-blind Floridian.

One of the most extraordinary acts of civic anything I've ever witnessed was four drivers' spontaneous response to another car's tire blowout on a particularly hairy expressway known for its high-speed bumper-to-bumper mayhem and murderous vehicular attitude.

The car was in the far left lane, directly in front of me, in a place where there was essentially no left shoulder, just Jersey barriers. The left rear tire blew out, and as shards of rubber hit my windshield, I braked and hit my hazards. But stopping was out of the question.

The driver to my right immediately braked in a controlled way, hit his hazards, and stayed in position, gradually slowing down, as the terrified woman driving on her rim eased over one lane.

Then the driver in the next lane did the same.

And the next.

And the next.

As she cleared each lane, the driver remained in lockstep with the other cars, preventing anyone from inadvertently or boorishly passing and creating an additional hazard.

Thus protected, the afflicted driver was able to safely ease over to a wide right berm and pull off; the car in the far right lane then pulled off in front of her, and the last thing I saw in my rear-view was that driver getting out to go back and assist. Or, you know, chop the stranded driver up and ferment some cannibal kimchi in his trunk.

Tell me that we are not hard-wired to spontaneously cooperate non-verbally. Paleolithic hunters did not have a captain shouting orders into a radio when the mammoth did not get with the morning's breakfast plan -- much less a general somewhere playing with pins on a map. But none of these drivers could make eye contact, see one another's body postures, or the bodies of the drivers behind them. It was all inflexible, inexpressive, logically inscrutable steel. And they got it right, exactly right, and may have saved innumerable lives with wit and reflex.

At yesterday's sheepdog finals, we watched handlers demand that their dogs abandon the evidence of their senses, their deepest instincts, and most of their considerable training, for a faith-based exercise: Leave your corporeal sheep, which you have, trust me and the ovine gods that they will not escape despite the fact that you can see them getting away, go to a place you have never been, and fetch my imaginary sheep that you cannot see, and which were not there a minute ago when you could have seen them.

Since profanity at the post is not allowed at sheepdog trials*, we were sometimes treated to impressive displays of truncated verbal oaths when the sheepdogs chose hard-nosed empiricism rather than accept their handlers' unlikely tales of reverse-raptured woolies in that far-right corner. Also, I now believe it is possible to swear in whistle form. I would like to learn this.

Most of the dogs did, after skeptical resistance, take their go back commands, and were rewarded for their faith (or willingness to humor the madman holding the car keys) with the sheepdog's favorite treat, more sheep.

I was sitting in the bleachers with the regular spectators when one little bitch worked through this crisis.

She'd left her ten sheep after the fetch panel, endured the torture of having them trot off towards the exhaust, reversed her course on her handler's whistles, and then become overcome by doubt or confusion or both.

She stopped, looking in the direction the whistles promised sheep. I think she actually sat down, but would not swear to it.

She could not see sheep; the topography was against her. (We human spectators could see the sheep and the set-out crew in the distance, but the dogs could not.)

The women sitting around me -- ordinary spectators, dog owners for sure, but no more sheepdog experts than I am -- all agreed.

She's thinking.

The dog whose thinking we could feel in our bones on the bleacher was over half a kilometer away, and presented as a small black period (Century Schoolbook) against a dun page of dead grass. I'd left my binoculars in the car.

Still thinking.

The period elongated a tiny smidge upward, into a comma.

She's got it!

And she had; in an instant she was sailing on her handler's whistles, away, away, on a lovely outrun for sheep she now believed in.

Stripped by distance of her ears, tail, quivering flanks, knitted brow and worried eyes, the black dog dot was just her essentials -- her overwhelming conflict, confusion, and then intention. All somehow visible to a cluster of non-experts who do not know this dog from Eve.

No more than we know and understand the subtle thoughts and rich internal life of that head-case in the Audi who saw our turn signal and goddammit I knew it, he sped up to keep me from merging, the little prick!

Long before we had need to read a sheepdog's decision at 400 meters, or perceive that the driver of that Ryder truck in front of us was nodding off, our ancestors were heavily selected; the monkey-beast who could distinguish a full leopard from an empty one a quarter mile away stood a better chance of engendering descendants. The noise of detail sometimes just gets in the way.




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* Number one reason I should never, and will never, run in a sheepdog trial.