THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

I’m just back from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. I was one of several speakers discussing the Human/Animal Bond at NIH’s STEP Forum, a monthly meeting for all NIH staff designed to educate staff about issues relating to science in the public health. It was very much worth the travel; the talks given by zoo-anthropologist Dr. James Serpell, Dr. Sandra Barker and Dr. Joan Esnayra were each worth the trip alone. Dr. Serpell discussed historical and cross-cultural aspects of the human-animal bond, and dispelled the myths that “pets” are only luxuries indulged in by industrial societies and that people who love animals do so from some social pathology that prevents them from “normal” relationships with other people. His books In the Company of Animals and The Domestic Dog are classics, you might want to look them up.

Dr. Barker, a Professor of Psychiatry and active participant using animal in therapy, spoke about the impact of Animal Assisted Interventions (distinguishing between Animal Assisted Therapy, in which the animal works with a licensed therapist toward a specific goal for the client and Animal Assisted Activities, in which animals are brought in to comfort and alleviate stress–both vital efforts) and her ongoing research projects at VCU to elucidate the context in which AAT  and AAA can be clinically valuable.

Dr. Esnayra founded the Psychiatric Service Dog Society and gave a compelling speech about the effective use of assistance dogs for those with mental illness (instead of physical disabilities). She is absolutely up front about living herself with Bipolar Disorder and PTSD, and has 2 beautiful (and beautifully behaved) Rhodesian Ridgebacks who work with her (and attended the forum). We also met Mike Townsend and Donna Dellaglio, who have a Helper Monkey who has ‘changed their lives’ . Mike has severe MS, is confined to a wheel chair and no longer has the use of his arms. Kathy, their capuchin, allows him to watch television, turn lots of equipment off and on, and most importantly, use the computer. “Kathy gave Mike his life back” is a pretty inspiring thing to hear at the end of a morning on the importance of animals in our lives.

I spoke second, after Serpell, arguing that the profound love that many of us have for our dogs is a biological phenomenon that deserves more scientific attention. In my talk I speculated, as I did in the book For the Love of a Dog, that one of the reasons we become so intensely attached to dogs is that dogs have such expressive faces and as Darwin argued over a century ago, their expressions of fear, anger and happiness are very much like our own.

Those comments were soundly criticized by a veterinary behaviorist in the audience who argued that I was being problematically anthropomorphic to 1) make any association between the expressions of people and the expressions of dogs and 2) use the word ‘anger’ in association with dogs. I can’t quote the person exactly, but the point was that anger is a human construct, and it is wrong to attribute it to dogs.

I was (and am) fascinated by her criticisms. First off, the evidence continues to grow about the continuum of the biology of emotion in mammals.. we share the same basic neuro-anatomy related to emotions, the same neuro-physiology related to emotions (serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin to name a few) and many of the same behavioral reactions. Emotions are such primitive things, it always interests me that ascribing them to non-human animals makes people uncomfortable. Of course, there’s a huge difference between how an emotion is processed in the brain of a human and that of a dog, but the glass is half full as well as half empty, and the biology of emotions is far more similar in dogs and people than it is different. In addition, I’d love to claim credit for the notion that the expressions of emotion on the faces of dogs and people are related, but since Darwin wrote about it over a hundred years ago I don’t think I’d better! Unless you believe that people and other animals have virtually no biological connection of any kind, it is sound science to compare the expressions of 2 highly social mammals who use subtle visual signals to maintain social harmony.

I am especially interested in the expressed concern that anger is “human construct.” I’ve heard that before from several different fields (mainly psychology and from other veterinary behaviorists), and yet… anger, or ‘rage’ as it is usually called in the literature, is considered one of the most basic and primal of emotions. Jaak Panskeep, the author of Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions calls rage one of the “core” emotions of all mammals.  Truly, you can’t attribute fear to a dog and deny then that a dog could get angry… those two emotions are too closely tied together in so many, many ways.

I believe completely and without question that dogs can experience anger, the biology to support that is overwhelming. However.. and this is a big HOWEVER… I also think that anger is one of the emotions that people most mis-understand in dogs. Owners often tell trainers or behaviorists that their dog defecated on the carpet because he was “angry” that he’d been left, when the motivating emotions was either fear of being left alone, or none in particular, because the dog simply wasn’t house trained!  I suspect that although dogs can get angry, (for example when frustrated by being pulled away from the window while barking at a passer by), dogs actually experience anger very very little compared to humans. I write more about this in For the Love of a Dog… and am inspired to write more in a magazine article somewhere, sometime . . .

But right now I’d better get home. Lassie and Willie have been waiting for me to come home and start the holidays with them, and I don’t want them to get angry at me if I come home late. (Please, oh please know that I am kidding and that no, honestly, truly, I really do not believe that my dogs will experience anger if I get home later than I am hoping to. . .

Meanwhile, have a great holiday.  I hope you have a lot to be thankful for. I certainly do and I am overwhelmed with gratitude because of it.

I’m on way to Bethesda MD to speak at NIH at a forum about the Human-Animal Bond, I’ll write about the other speaker’s talks when I get back later in the week. The talks promise to be very, very interesting. But today I wanted to alert those of you who are interested in animal behavior and animal cognition in general to a new book that has just come out: Alex and Me. It is written by Irene Pepperberg, and is about her relationship with the African Grey Parrot, Alex. Alex is the internationally famous parrot who Dr. Pepperberg taught to use words, not just to describe objects or actions, but to label concepts, like bigger or different. Many had argued that non-human animals were unable, cognitively, to understand something as abstract as a concept (you can’t pick up a “bigger,” now can you?). Alex, Irene and a host of helpers were able to show that Alex’s tiny ‘bird brain’ was more than capable of understanding abstractions, and of using words to communicate thoughts, emotions and intentions. One of my favorite comments from Alex was to a trainer who was clearly becoming impatient with him. “GO AWAY” he finally said to her, seemingly as exasperated with her as she was of him. (To say that Alex held strong opinions is to delve into the land of Understatement.)

Full disclosure here: Irene is a friend of mine, so I can’t pretend to be totally objective about the book. I haven’t even read it yet (just got it), but I know much of the story, including how hard Irene had to battle to have her work taken seriously and to get funding to continue what I think is one of the most important research projects in animal behavior of the last few decades. I can report that the book, as of this morning, is #79 on Amazon, which means it is selling fantastically well. I’m not surprised (though very pleased!)—Alex was perhaps one of the most famous animals of the past few decades, and his death resulted in articles in the NY Times, the Washington Post and papers around the world. Irene told me that after his surprising and untimely death she struggled terribly . . . the press called incessantly for interviews, which was complimentary, but terribly hard for someone who had just lost one of their best friends.

If you are interested in animal cognition and what goes on in the brains of non-human animals, I’d pick up this book. I’ll write more after I’ve gotten back and read it… sounds like perfect Thanksgiving holiday reading to me!

On the home front, it’s deer hunting season in Wisconsin now, which means that walks in the woods are limited to areas that you are 110% are safe. Even then, we all wore blaze orange on Sunday when we went for a walk, thought you’d enjoy seeing Jim, Will and Lassie all tricked out in their classy orange duds. The other photo is from this morning, the first ‘real’ snow besides the dusting we had last week. Not much, about an inch or so, and a far cry from last year’s 9 or 12 inch snow falls that started in mid November and didn’t let up til spring.

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…..

This is an honest question! I’m truly curious what you think.  The editor of the Bark Magazine asked me to write my next column on whether male and female dogs need to be trained differently, and whether they perform differently. I have some thoughts about it, but I am primarily interested in what YOU think! I’d especially love to hear from trainers or people who have had a good number of dogs, so that they have seen a good ‘sample size’ to use to compare the sexes.

I must say, I take this on with trepidation! Would it be less potentially controversial to talk about the Iraq war or the recent election?! I’ll tell you what my experience has been (and what I’ve heard others say so far) after I’ve gotten a good number of comments…

The face of Mike, shown below, is suggesting he’d love to know what you think. (owned by a great guy name Rich, from Chicago, Illinois, member of the Wisconsin Working Stockdog Association…

So much to say, so little time! First off, I thought I’d let the folks who get WPR daytime know that I’ll be a guest on Larry Meiller’s show tomorrow at 11:45. It’ll be a hoot to see him. I’m feeling sort of smiley-silly about it, so watch out what you ask me if you call in!

Second, here’s a photo of Lassie with her canine chiropractor, Dr. Mark McCaan (spelling?). We go in every month (Willie every other), and there is simply no question that it helps her 15 year old body (almost, she’ll be 15 in 3 weeks!). The effects are immediate and obvious. If I skip them she develops a significant limp originating in her right shoulder. If I stay on schedule she still clearly has some arthritis (treated in many ways, not just chiropractic). [Did I mention, that in spite of Dr. Mark’s kindness and care with her old body, Lassie is never thrilled about going to the vet clinic? Look at the faces below… talk about absolute opposites of emotional expressions! Lest you are worried about my Lassie girl, she looks exactly like that in the car too… no one does ‘disdain’ better than Princess Lassie!

I was talking to a dear brother-in-law on my way there, and had the conversation you well might have had too…”Yes, really, there really are canine chiropractors and yes, really they can do amazingly wonderful things for a dog’s body, just as is true in human medicine.” (And what wasn’t said was “Yes, really, I know she’s a dog but she’s my dog and I love her like family and I am lucky enough to be able to afford it and look at all the money that people spend on golf clubs and fancy shoes so why the heck shouldn’t I spend the money on my dog!) My brother-in-law is a dear, understanding man, so I don’t think he was being judgmental as much as he was being surprised.) But it seems so common to hear from journalists whose editors want them to write a “CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW MUCH PEOPLE SPEND ON THEIR DOG!” story. Well, yes, some of us do, because we are lucky and can afford it. Is that really so strange or terrible? I wrote in For the Love of a Dog that one interviewer wore $400 shoes while asking me, incredulously, if people really paid money to have acupuncture done on their dogs. I was very polite when I answered, honest.

It’s winter at the farm.. we just got the barn shoveled and scrapped and brushed and bleached in time. Snowed a little last night, 14 degrees on the kitchen thermometer this morning. I am NOT ready. Apparently, Willie is:

Next post will be about great research that’s piling up on my desk… all done on species other than dogs, all relates to us and our dogs directly!

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!

First off, thanks to everyone at All About Dogs and all the participants of the seminar in Woodbridge, VA. Every audience has a personality all its own (anyone every done temperament tests on audiences?), and this group was a delight from beginning to end. About 150 people and I spent the weekend in an inquiry about emotions, ethology, people and dogs. And as usual, I learned a lot. Several people reported that they too had played the music from Through A Dog’s Ear, (designed by a musicologist and a veterinary neurologist to soothe and calm dogs) and that they had seen impressive results. One person said her dogs now lay down and go to sleep as soon as she turns on the music. (Don’t expect miracles though… no sound is powerful enough to sedate an exercise-starved puppy who just got out of his crate!)

I remember learning in graduate school about a French researcher (my apologies, I don’t remember the name) who played classical music to pregnant women as they lay down to nap. Unlike puppies, humans can hear well in utero in the last month (at least) of development, and the unborn babies could hear the music being played perfectly well. We heard a tape recording of what the music sounded like in utero… (yep, they put a microphone inside some incredibly agreeable woman!). It sounded like the sounds you hear when you are underwater, which makes perfect sense if you think about it. But you could definitely discern the melody.

It turned out that, after birth, the babies who who heard the music while their mother slept during the last phase of pregnancy would go to sleep almost immediately when the music was played again. That finding supports the claims of the authors of A Dog’s Ear, (and of my own research in the 80′s) that sound can influence the behavior of the receiver, and can act to soothe and relax the individuals who hear it.

Over all, it was a great weekend, thanks to the hosts and a wonderful group of people in the audience. (And oh, those demo dogs! Can I PLEASE take them all home with me?) Here’s a fun shot of all the great folks at All About Dogs:

On an altogether completely different note, here’s something else I am happy about. I bought a new, quite expensive ram who was delivered last week, and was a bit concerned because he didn’t seem to be that interested in the ewes. He was also much shorter and smaller than I expected; the breed does tend to be very short in the leg (think Corgi), but I still was surprised at how very short he seemed, based on his hunky photo sent by the breeder. So I was a bit worried: In the past my new rams have been crazed as soon as they were introduced into the flock, but this guy seemed a bit, uh, lackadaisical. I switched his name from Fabio (see his glam shot below) to Ferdinand, after the bull who just wanted to pick flowers. The breeder, a wonderfully responsible woman at Crane Creek, suggested I try what’s called “breeding paint,” which you smear on the ram’s brisket and then gets transferred to the butt of the ewe if she’s been bred. So Monday morning Jim and I mixed up a bright red powder with olive oil (no kidding, someone asked if we added garlic), and smeared it all over the chest and brisket of the ram.

Because I had liked the way the ram had been acting around one of the ewes when we caught him, I went back to check just a few minutes after we smeared on the paint. Sure enough, Brittany had a bright red butt! And this morning I discovered red everywhere… the ram has been a busy boy, and has bred 4 ewes in 24 hours. The only problem is that the barn pen looks like a scene from a slasher movie. I expect people to knock breathlessly on the door to tell me that something is terrible wrong with my flock.

Based on all the above, the perfect name for the ram has now come to me: ROBERT REDFORD, Redford for short. Very very hunky and handsome, a class act all around, but shorter than you expected.

Here’s his hunky glam shot and a shot from “the morning after”: (he’s the one on the far left)

I’m off in an hour to Virginia to do the For the Love of a Dog seminar on Saturday (about emotions in people and dogs) and a half day version of Both Ends of the Leash (focusing on how OUR behavior influences that of our dogs). Both seminars are fulfilling to do, I love doing them both. Spending a day on emotions—the basis of our bond with dogs if you think about it—is always wonderful for me. Every time I give the seminar I learn something new, and every time I end the day overwhelmed at the miracle of our relationship with a entirely different species. Think about it: two very different species with individuals who will risk their life for a member of the other species. That’s amazing, truly amazing.

On Sunday we’ll become field ethologists observing the always interesting behavior of people and dogs, focusing on communication. What signal does your dog respond to when you say “sit?” It well might not be the word… do you move your head? move your arms? Does your dog even notice the word, if he’s busy watching your body? And when you do talk, how do you use your voice? Can you use it like a singer, and make your voice model what you want your dog to do or feel? We practice in the seminar (okay, it gets a little noisy when everyone practices at once!) and leave even more conscious of how our voice and our movements are always ‘talking’ to our dogs, whether we know it or not!

I’ve gotta run, but here’s the words that end Saturday’s seminar, after a discussion of why we love dogs so much. It’s a testament to my soul mate dog, Luke, taken from the end of the book, For the Love of a Dog.

There’s a stone I had made for Luke at the top of the hill road, where the pasture opens wide and the setting sun highlights the words carved into its face. “That’ll do, Luke, that’ll do.” The words are said to working dogs all over the world when the chores are done and the flock is settled: “That’ll do dog, come home now, your work is done.” Luke’s work is done too. He took my heart and ran with it, and he’s running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever.

Here’s me and Lassie up the hill, in a beautiful photo taken by Amanda Jones.

I’m getting pretty bleary this mid-afternoon, having stayed up late last night, like much of the country, watching the election returns. As the evening progressed, I found myself on the floor, with Lassie on one side, and Willie on the other. Both of my paws were busy, stroking and petting my dogs non-stop, in my attempt to maintain a modicum of calm. No matter how you feel about the outcome, it was a historic night for our country, and like many others, I was wired, and didn’t go to sleep until well into the morning hours.

As I lay beside Willie’s warm body and stroked Lassie’s buttery soft fur last night, I thought about how wonderful it is that the dogs and I had never had heated, or even heart-felt discussions about politics, the election. . . or anything else for that matter. What a gift that those of us who have dogs can have such close social relationships with sentient beings, and yet base that relationship on something other than words. Not that I don’t enjoy a great discussion, I do. But there’s a cost to speech, as I said in Dog is My Co-Pilot, quoted in For the Love of a Dog:

“Words may be wonderful things, but they carry weight with them, and there’s a great lightness of being when they are discarded . . . Some of my happiest moments are when Luke and I sit silently together, overlooking the green, rolling hills of Southern Wisconsin. Our lack of language doesn’t get in the way, but creates an opening for something else, something deep and pure and good. We dog lovers share a kind of Zen-like communion with our dogs, uncluttered by nouns and adverbs and dangling participles. This connection speaks to a part of us that needs to be nurtured and listened to, but that is so often drowned out in the cacophony of speech. Dogs remind us that we are being heard, without the additional weight of words. What a gift. No wonder we love them so much.”

I hope your dogs (and cats and horses and parrots) are providing you with warmth, nurturance and provide a welcome counterpoint to the amazing complexities of human life and language. How lucky we are to have them! Here’s a puppy, thanks to photographer Patricia Thomas, who looks more than ready to be someone’s special friend!