THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

I originally called this post “Barbie’s Not Always a Nice Girl,” but then I thought about what the title would look like on Google and the kind of people who’d click on it. Hmm, not really my “brand,” as they say.

I thought though, that you’d be interested in yet another interaction between Barbie, my cantankerous, lead ewe and Willie. Barbie, as you may recall, is the only sheep who has ever seriously challenged Willie. She won a few times when she had three-week old lambs this spring, literally chasing Willie away, her anvil-like head down and ready to bash Willie into the ground. He ran away like a frightened chipmunk, because Barbie was serious, and because we all know she can be a witch, and because well, he’s just not the bravest dog in the world. That’s partly why I love him so much, because he’s not perfect and neither am I, and he still tries his best, and when I’m being who I want to be, so do I.

Here are photos I took just a few minutes ago (Willie is still panting rapid fire at my feet.) First we found the sheep lolling in the shade of the woods on a steep hill between the barn and the main pasture. Barbie was lying by herself under a dead tree.

Soon after I took this photo she grudgingly got up (who could blame her? — it’s mid day and hot outside) and trotted down the hill with the others toward the barn. Willie picked them up (eventually, more on that later) and we moved them into the Orchard pasture and practiced driving a little bit.

In this next photo you can see, as is often the case, Barbie being the last to move away from Willie and turning  her head toward him. I imagine her saying something like “Your mother eats kitty litter.”

Willie stood his ground, good boy, and here’s the result: Barbie turned away and began walking forward.

You might ask yourself at this point: “I get the Barbie and Willie title, but what’s with the mad dogs and Englishmen in the title? Simple: Remember “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun?” (Words in an old song for those of you not familiar.) We were working in the noonday sun, and I’m wondering if I had a mad dog. Not “mad” as in with rabies, but “mad” as if angry.

We all know how often people wrongly assume their dog is being disobedient because they were “mad” at them. Usually it’s confusion or mis-understandings or pain or fear or anything beside the fact that some dog is ticked off at its owner. But, here’s my question to you: Can it EVER be true, even if rarely? Are dogs ever truly irritated by their owners, especially while doing difficult work? I wondered this while I was working/photographing Willie for this post. He behaved atypically: he didn’t listen as well, he seemed slow and disconnected. But more than that, he gave me a look a few times that was hard to interpret as anything but some canine equivalent of a finger. There are several reasons he could have been off his game: We’ve been working on driving for an upcoming trial, and it’s difficult, tiresome work. I think it’s stressful to dogs (constant whistle signals given out 2-3 to a second), and especially to dogs like Willie who don’t like being in constant contact with the sheep.

In addition, during the “photo shoot” the sheep got all the way back to the barn before Willie could round them up again, in part because I was busy taking that first photo of  Barbie. It’s hard work running down the steep forest floor, going into the small, enclosed area of the barn and forcing the sheep back up the hill. He wouldn’t have had to do it if I’d been paying more attention. Hummm.

It’s far more likely that Willie was tired from our work of the past few days, or maybe his shoulder was hurting. But that look he gave me started me thinking: Although most attributions of anger as a motivation for disobedience are undoubtedly incorrect, are they always? Have you had an experience in which you had good reason to believe that your dog was irritated by your behavior? I’m curious.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Today is all about wrapping up work and leaving for the WWSDA herding dog trial up in northern Wisconsin this weekend. Willie and I run in our first big Pro-Novice course  against some of the best dogs and handlers in the country. The outrun will be 250 to 300 yards, the drives through 2 drive panels ridiculously far away and over my skill set, and the sheep have never been worked by dogs until the day before. If we get numbers (ie, a score) versus letters (ie DQ for Disqualified or RT for Retired) I’ll be satisfied. If we get in the top half (there are about 42 entries) I’ll be thrilled. If we do any better than that I’ll be over the moon. Tonight I’m going to work Willie when it’s cooled down, and just ask him to do some simple, easy outruns. Then tomorrow he won’t work all day, so he should get a good rest. He deserves it.

I know several of you compete in a variety of dog-related sports, from Agility to Sheepdog Trials. You’ll understand then when I say that all I really want is to not let my dog down.  I have worked with dangerous dogs for decades, but standing at the post about to run my dog is a million times more nerve wracking to me. I am basically a lousy competitor because I get so nervous, but yet some strange compulsion is getting me back into the sport. So cross your paws that I don’t throw up at the post in front of all the other handlers, and am able to keep my senses about me enough to handle my good dog Willie as well as he deserves.

This is Part II of our case study about helping a dog after a loss (see August 24th blog for Part I). As usual, many of you came up with  insightful and helpful comments. I benefit from your thoughtfulness every day, and I thank you for it. If you are interested in this topic, either personally or professionally, I encourage you to read the first post about Dogs Grieving as well as the comments.

Here are some of my thoughts and comments about the most important things to do if a dog is behaving as though he is grieving a loss:

1. ACCEPTANCE. Easiest to say, hardest to do. By “acceptance” I mean accepting that you couldn’t prevent the death or disappearance of another, and that you can’t ‘fix’ the pain that your living dog may be going through. If your dog is truly grieving (and I think some do, more on that later), it helps greatly to understand that you can’t really ‘fix’ it, anymore than someone else can make your pain go away when you are grieving. Yes, others can help ease the pain, and soothe and support, but no one can do what the griever wants–which is getting their friend back. What does help many of us is acknowledgement that the pain is there, and I suspect that might also be true of dogs. I realize that some do not agree, but my experiences suggest that some dogs really do grieve a loss in ways similar to humans, and perhaps finding some way to acknowledge that, without trying to ‘fix’ it might be helpful.

Now I suspect that some of you really are going to think I’m crazy, but one way to acknowledge it is to talk about it. Will your dog understand what you are saying? Nope, not in the sense that a person would, but just saying the words has an impact on your behavior and emotions and perhaps that has an impact of our dogs. I’ve heard many stories of dogs changing their behavior after someone sat down with them and said “Chief is gone and won’t be coming back. I am very sad about it and I think you may be too.” I know, I know, I can see folks shaking their heads, but I don’t think it matters that much that your dog understands the words, or even the concept of death. There’s just something about giving voice to an emotion that, just perhaps, might help a dog sort out his or her own confusion over what’s happening.

2. ALLOW YOURSELF TO GRIEVE: I agree wholeheartedly with many of the comments that if you are sad your dog will know it, and I don’t think it’s good to try to hide your grief from your dog. That said, I did ask Cin about how much she’d been crying around Sleeve, because I’ve had clients whose dogs appeared to be overwhelmed with their owner’s grief. This is a very tricky line to walk… not trying to hide your own sadness around your dog, but being aware that, perhaps like children, dogs can be extremely sensitive to your suffering and feel powerless to ‘fix’ it themselves. For myself, for what it’s worth, I’ve found that for the first few days after losing a dog I am not capable of taking care of much of anything. I’ll spend time alone, time with closest friends and time with my remaining dogs, usually very quiet and in a kind of a shock. I think dogs need something similar to what we need, gentleness, caring concern and time time time.

3. STICK WITH ROUTINE OR CHANGE IT UP? I suspect that time is the answer to the question of which is better, “Keep things the same,” or “do new things”? Reader’s comments from last week, as one of you so observantly noted, were about equally split between “keep up the usual routine” and “add new things into your dog’s repertoire.” Early on (the definition of which is, of course, extremely variable depending on the dog), I think it’s important to keep things the same as much as you can. Perhaps for the first 3 days, or 3 weeks…? Let your dog grieve, be kind and gentle and as “there” for your dog as you are capable of. However, at some point I’ve found it very helpful to create new routines. Do things with your dog that aren’t triggers for “But where’s Chief?” Surely every context and activity that used to include the deceased dog is a reminder that he or she isn’t there anymore. So I’ve advised clients to take walks in new places (if the dog enjoys them), teach new tricks, perhaps meet new doggy friends if that is something your dog might enjoy. I always like to add Nose Work in for any needy dog, given that it’s the nose that defines a dog’s understanding of the world, and their way of finding their place in it. Many dogs seemed to be thrilled that we have caught on to their ability and want to play too, or at least that we are giving them a chance. And it’s something you can do with dogs of any age, even if they are geriatric and slow moving.

I make this recommendation in the belief that it’s important to be aware how powerful classical conditioning is, and how our emotions & expectations can be influenced by environments and actions. I remember flying for the first time after my father had died. It had been many months, closer to a year, and I frankly hadn’t thought about him in quite awhile. And then I got on the plane and began to cry, because every time I’d ever been on a plane my father had been alive. Flying had nothing to do with him directly: I didn’t fly with him or associate him with planes in any way. It was just the confluence of two events that hit my emotional brain like a rock. These systems are profoundly primitive, and there’s every reason to believe they function in dogs in similar ways to the way they function in us.

4. EXPECT ANYTHING OR EVERYTHING. I’ve seen dogs react to the death of others in just about every way possible. Lassie sniffed Mist’s body and walked away as if she’d sniffed an old shoe. But when Tulip died, she paced around her body in circles, finally lying down beside Tulip with her head on the ground. Lassie’s father, Luke, paid no attention to another dog’s death at all. When I finally encouraged him to sniff the body of Misty, he snorted and startled backward like a frightened horse. I’ve seen and heard about dogs who seemed to pay no attention to either the absence of a dog or its body. I’ve seen and heard about dogs who reacted by not eating for days, sometimes weeks. There are a few things to keep in mind here: a) just because a dog doesn’t visibly react doesn’t mean we know they are not ‘reacting’ emotionally and b) not only is every dog different, but his or her relationship to any other dog varies greatly. Lassie was truly relieved when Misty died, appeared to be distraught when Tulip died and devastated for months when her father died.

What’s important to remember is that there is no “right” in how your dog responds. Accept it (ah, there’s that word again!) and go from there.

5) WHAT IF MY DOG WONT’ SNAP OUT OF IT? If a dog stays quieter than usual, has little appetite and/or has no interest in social interaction or play after several weeks, it is probably time to make an effort to change his emotional state. Long walks are truly therapeutic for dogs as well as people, off leash ones, if they are safe, are absolutely best. New experiences, as mentioned earlier, can be very helpful, as well as new play partners or companions.  Don’t get a new dog for your own home if you don’t want one yourself, but there’s a long list of dogs who perked up when some playful little cutie entered the house. (And a list of dogs who hated it, so be sure you know your dog!)

You are always wise to consult a veterinarian if your dog seems listless for an extended period of time. It is possible that the change in behavior is correlated in time with the death of another, but not due to it. If there is not treatable medical or physical cause, you might consider adjunctive medicine if there is a well-trained practioner in your area.

6) LAST BUT NEVER LEAST: Take care of yourself as if you have just had surgery. Your brain thinks you have. See my post Love, Guilt & Putting Dogs Down for more information about how your brain processes pain and grief as similar things. Once I understood that fact (thanks to the brilliant neurobiologist Jaak Panskepp), I’ve learned to treat loss as if it was a serious injury–with gentleness, care, compassion, and the understanding that time is the best healer of all. Good advice for our dogs too, yes?

And what do we do for people who have had surgery? We bring them food and flowers. Since I can’t deliver strawberry/blueberry pie to all 24,000 of you, here are some flowers. I think I’ve already posted this picture, but it made me happy to look at it. I hope it does you too.

Lots of you liked the idea of doing some case studies, as well as reviewing and discussing photos and videos. I think it’s a great idea, so here goes our first one:

Here’s Sleeves on the left, and Patch on the right. I’m sad to report that Patch died just last week and her sister Michaela died only a month ago. All three of them, “Boonie” dogs–or mixed-breed dogs as they are called on Guam where they were born, were raised together and were litter mates. The litter lost their mother at 4 weeks, and owner Cin bottle fed them and raised them together.

Brother Sleeve appears to be devastated at the lost of both of his litter mates in such a short period of time (not to mention poor Cin, the owner).

Sleeve appears to be grieving, and is described as “so sad” by Cin. Usually this means that the dog is atypically quiet, inactive, and has what we think of as a sad expression on its face.  I don’t know if he’s eating well, but I’ve had several cases where dogs lost their appetite after the death of a buddy. I have no doubt that Sleeve is indeed struggling with this profound change in his life. Cin has told me she has tried to do her crying away from Sleeve, but is sure he is aware that she is grieving terribly herself. It is, of course, hard to know how much of Sleeve’s behavior is a response to Cin’s grief and how much is his own directly, but the latter seems to be key, given how bonded he was to the other two dogs.

Cin describes Patch as a “determined and confident spirit” who “took care of everyone.” When Michaela died Patch stayed with Sleeve and refused to leave him, not in the sense that she needed him, but that he needed her. She was always in charge, always active, smart and funny. Without her Sleeve appears to be lost. (Cin admits to feeling the same way: Patch was her “heart dog.” Poor Cin, my own heart goes out to her.)

Here is Cin’s question and my question to you: What can she do to help Sleeve? How does any of us help a “lost” and grieving dog? I’ll add my answers to your comments on Monday, but will start by saying there is some advice that is generic to all situations, and some that requires more information from an owner. If you agree, what more would you want to know from Cin? You can ask her in the comment section.

I’ve chosen this as a case study because it is a relatively common question that we get here at the office. Besides helping Cin (who graciously agreed for me to use her dogs as a case study), we can help many other dog owners too.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Hot and dry again, in spite of some of the recent rain, we’re still classified as in a severe drought, and you can see it easily in the crops and pastures. It’s time to start watering in the yard. Argh.  Even the trees look stressed, and it’s terrible for them to go into winter in bad condition. The pasture was coming back a bit, but it looks rough again and I am keeping the sheep off of it for now. Back to feeding hay.

Willie and I had a heavenly time at a friend’s on Tuesday night working sheep in a huge, perfect field, with a backdrop of woods, fields and a break-your-heart sunset. We’re getting ready for our first “big” trial coming up, where the outrun will be a 200-300 yards and the drive panels a dauntingly long way away. The fact is we truly aren’t competitive at this level yet, but I think Willie is far enough along that that the trial won’t set him back. I may have to crawl away from the post because of bad handling, using rapid fire whistles to keep the sheep straight on a cross drive is truly beyond my skill set right now. My ability to handle a dog on a cross-drive is, uh, low and there’s just so much practicing I can do. My friends said it didn’t look as bad as it felt…seemed to me that the sheep zig zagged around the course like drunken monkeys. But it’ll be harder in a real competition. I’ll ask Jim to tape us when we run if you promise to laugh at us quietly and gently.

Tootsie is in heaven because the wild plum trees are dropping fruit. The ones lower in the valley have little fruit because of the warm spell and subsequent deep freeze, but one tree higher behind the house is prolific. Tootsie thinks finding little squishy plums in the grass is like manna raining from heaven. Obviously, there’s just so many I allow her to eat, but for brief moments of gobbling she thinks she’s gone to heaven.

Here’s heaven for me: Our CSA allows members to come pick 10 lbs of Roma tomatoes which we and guests did on a cool, sweet Saturday morning. I sliced them in half, drizzled on olive oil, sprinkled them with fresh Basil and cooked them at 325 F for about 2 hours. They condensed down into a sweet, intense tomato-ness that is amazing in pasta, quiches or even as a side dish all by themselves. I freeze them in layers and take them out all winter when needed. They go a long way toward brightening up a cold, bleak winter’s day!

Here’s what they look like before they go in the oven:

Here’s what they look like when I take them out. They are super sweet, intensely flavored and add a wonderful kick to just about anything, except maybe a chocolate bar. You can’t really tell from the photo, but they are now very thin and flat, probably have lost about 2/3 of their mass, mostly from moisture no doubt.

On Friday I asked you what you thought was going on here, at least as best one could tell from a still photograph. I’m the first to agree it’s hard to say much from one brief moment in time, but it’s a great exercise nonetheless. It helps us all focus our attention and generate hypothesis about what might happen next. It would be perfectly reasonable to suggest several different scenarios…

Here’s the story in this case: These two dogs are great friends and play together often. The yellow dog is a 4 yr old GR/Husky cross, Tucker, who has a tendency to nip faces when he plays. The white dog in the red coat is Lily, a 2.5 yr old spayed female Dogo Argentino, owned by Katie Martz  here at McC Publishing.

Lily was responding to what appeared to be an inappropriate play action from Tucker (getting into her face in a way both Katie and I would call “rude.”). Katie’s interpretation of the event is that Lily, the Dogo, was irritated by the yellow dog’s behavior and was correcting him.

Immediately after this photo was taken both dogs paused, sniffed the ground and then resumed chasing and playing after a break. I take this as yet more evidence of the importance of pauses in healthy dog play… a chance to take break, take a breath, and decrease arousal levels.

Many of you were absolutely right on in your guess, good for you! (And to one commenter who bravely made a guess even though she was afraid she’d feel foolish if she was wrong… I love that you said out loud what many of us often feel. Good girl!) This is indeed play, as most of you guessed and Lily is, at least in my and Katie’s opinion, telling Tucker to back off. I think the most important visual signals here are the wrinkling over Lily’s nose and exposed front teeth, forward motion toward Tucker along with ears forward. Thus, I’d say she’s on offense and her wrinkled nose suggests some arousal and potential irritation. Tucker’s head is back and lateral, and his ears are back. He thus looks on defense to me, but note his high tail and hips leaning toward Lily… no shrinking violet here. I agree with some of you that he looks a tad surprised, (I want to say goofy but I suspect that’s not a technical term). It’s interesting that most of the responses on FB said the dogs were playing, but some said Tucker was on offense and some said Lily was. Given that the dogs are both pretty equally matched and that Tucker’s tail was high and he could have been hip slamming her at the time, not a bad guess!

Let me know if you think this is a fun exercise to do every once in a while. We could expand it to video… And I’d like to do some case studies here too. Like the idea?

Maybe not a 1,000 in this case, but what words would you put with this photo? What do you think is going on here? I’d love to hear what you all think. I know the dogs, the context and what happened before and after, so after I collect your input I’ll let you in on the story.

This might be a fun exercise for us to play every once in a while, yes? Let me know if you like the idea. I’ll write another post on Monday and describe the dogs, their relationship and what happened immediately after the photo was taken. But before that I’d love to hear how you evaluate what you are seeing.

And no fair cheating if you saw this on Facebook last week! It’s just such a great photo I couldn’t resist putting it out here. So… what’s going on here between these two dogs? What are the most likely things to happen next?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Glorious weather, lots of grass and happy sheep! And happy Willie too, because we’re managing the time to practice our driving skills (or lack thereof).  I’m thinking of entering him in a sheepdog trial this fall that will have a demanding course and difficult sheep, so we have lots of work to do. Tootsie is good too, although she wasn’t a fan of the thunderstorm yesterday morning, but she is already improving greatly with some counter conditioning and cuddles in the bed.

There’s a last chapter in the kitten chronicles too. You may remember that I spent weeks taming the wild things enough to trap them in a cage, took them into the house and began truly taming them in the bathroom converted to a kitty condo. Great homes were found right away for two kittens, and two others went to the good folks at Dane County Friends of Ferals. I kept Callie the Calico in hopes she could grow up to be a healthy, happy barn cat, and that her mother, who I trapped and had spayed, would stay around with her. You may recall I can’t have a cat in the house anymore and have a barn scurrying with rodents, so it seemed like a win/win. But, as often happens, life has other plans. Instead of staying around with Callie, momma cat began trying to lure her away into the woods. Callie, still a young kitten and too small to be spayed, was absent from the barn for increasing periods of time. Her mom was never in the barn anymore. Even when she’d been there with her kittens, she stayed in the upper hay mow and avoided the area in the lower level with the grain and thus, the mice. I actually was trapping mice for her and bringing them up to the haymow on the upper level of the barn and presenting them to momma cat. You may laugh out loud here, who could blame you?

After recovering from her spay surgery, momma cat began to move into the woods and lure Callie there with her. AT one point there was NO little kitten in my barn at any time during the day, except to come and eat dinner at nine o’clock at night. She came running down from the woods, presumably away from her mother, rubbed all over me and ate her dinner. (I should say here that I have no idea what exactly her mom was doing and even if she was still alive, I’m just guessing it was her mom who lured her away from the barn. I can’t imagine what else would have, and she always went in the direction her mom took in and out of the barn.)

That was enough for me. No way was I going to let a tiny, mostly white, hawk-bait of an unspayed kitten become yet another wild cat living in the woods and having litter after litter if she lived that long. The decision made, I went to the barn at 9 pm, ready to pick up Callie the Adorable, bring her back in the house and find her a safer place to live. No Callie. I called and called. No Callie. I walked back to the house, sick with worry, and back to the barn 15 minutes later. No Callie. This continued for a gut wrenching and endless 45 minutes, until she finally dashed toward me from the woods around 10 at night. I picked her up and carried her into the farmhouse, snuggling my face against her fur, allergies be damned. Dan Johnson, bless him, of Friends of Ferals came to pick her up the next day, and within  just a few more days she’d already found her perfect, forever home.

And here it is, with Veterinary Technician Jenny Maahs. She is as over the moon about Callie as one could be, and I’m thrilled that it has all worked out so well.

And here’s more good news: The remaining two kittens, the two little ginger girls Brava and Gabby, are available right now (Friday the 17th and Saturday the 18th) at the Catapalooza at the Dane County Humane Society in Madison, WI. Here’s my request: If you adopt one (or both?), please, please give Friends of Ferals permission for me to contact you and send you a present. If you’d like to come out to the farm and see where they were born I’m sure I could arrange that!

I promised I’d send this out in a blog when it was ready, so here it is for those of you who’ve been asking for us to do another DVD combo. We put together our two best selling DVDs in a package. Through this Friday the 17th, you can order a PACKAGE of Lost in Translation: How Dogs use Sight, Sound and  Scent to Communicate and Treating Dog-Dog Reactivity and save $20.

Spoiler alert to those out of the US: ARGH, although Katie has been working non-stop on it for 3 weeks now, we still can’t get our new website to manage the postage for international shipping. We’ve made progress and have hopes (springing eternal) that we can soon, but please be patient. We can’t be trying any harder than we are already!

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Lots to tell you on Friday about life on the farm, but right now I’m at the office working hard on my talks for the Wisconsin Association of Behavior Analysts tomorrow and the Humane Animal Welfare Society in Waukesha on Thursday night. Both should be great fun, I’m truly looking forward to both of them. Come up and say hi if you’re a blog reader!

A colleague just sent me a link to one of my favorite science and behavior blogs, that of Harold Herzog, the author of  Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think  Straight About Animals. I use his book in my University class, The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships,” because the author is thoughtful, knowledgeable and one of those rare scientists who writes beautifully. If you find the topic interesting and haven’t read his book yet, pick up a copy. I highly recommend it.

The book includes a section on pets, and his recent blog addresses that issue as well; in this case, whether a video-gone-viral about “Baboons Keeping Dogs as Pets” accurately depicts the relationship between individuals of these two species. If you haven’t seen it yet, the video is included here, but before you watch it I want to give you an alert. Or a warning. The video begins with a male Hamadryas baboon grabbing a puppy by the tail and dragging it, squealing and screaming, across a bumpy field of rocks. It’s not fun to watch, and if your empathy quotient is set on “super sensitive,” just skip the first two minutes and watch the rest.

There are two issues here that I find especially interesting and thought would be interesting to you as well. One is the obvious question: Do baboons really keep dogs as pets? And even more interesting I’d argue, do any animals other than humans keep dogs as pets? Herzog has gone on record that, in spite of the exceptions of some captive animals like KoKo the gorilla’s pet cat, and the YouTube sensation of a grieving orangutan who formed an inseparable relationship with a hound dog, there are no credible records of any wild animals actually having what we would call a “pet.” If you’re interested in this dialogue, I’d read Herzog’s blog about the baboons first, including the comments, then come back here.

There are a lot of valuable nuggets of information in this article, in part because of Herzog’s dedicated attempt to discover the truth behind the breezy assumptions of the documentary from which the video was taken (Animals Like Us). Because the baboons and some dogs live in association in a garbage dump, and because the baboons sometimes groom the dogs, it is assumed that the baboons “steal” puppies with the intent of keeping them as their pets. But how do we know why the baboons grab puppies? If you watched the beginning of the video, you’ll have noted that the baboon licks the puppy’s anus before releasing it. Why? Familiarizing itself with the pup’s scent? Looking for lunch? Maybe baboons like poop as much as dogs do. And why is it only male baboons that do the “kidnapping?” I find that fact one of the most interesting of all. Usually it’s females that first keep individuals of another species around to comfort and be comforted by.

The question of what is happening in this particular troop of baboons is interesting enough. However, it brings up the larger question that I asked above: Do animals other than humans keep “pets.” First and foremost, I’ll argue, we have to define what we mean by pet, and already the waters get murky. Standard definitions of “pet” are “any domesticated or tamed animal that is kept as a companion and cared for affectionately” (Dictionary.com), and “a domesticated animal kept for pleasure rather than utility” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Herzog himself defines a pet as a member of other species that are being kept for an extended period of time, for enjoyment.

Of course, “enjoyment” can mean many things. We call a dog kept in a small kennel in the back of someone’s yard a pet, even if it’s only taken out during hunting season. We call the dogs of others who live in the house, sleep on the couch and have their own acupuncturist pets too, yet their lives, and their “purpose,” are significantly different. On the one hand, both of the animals are being “kept for enjoyment,” one because the hunter presumably enjoys hunting and the other because of a close social connection. On the other hand, the key to “petness” and “non-petness” appears to be “utility” versus pleasure, yet the kenneled hunting dog appears to be kept primarily for utility.  Thus, when asking if other animals keep pets, it’s useful to remember that the concept includes a wide range of relationships in our own species.

Perhaps one perspective when asking if non-human animals (in the wild) ever keep “pets,” is to look at the evolution of pet keeping in our own species. Surely our first, close relationships with other species weren’t for the pure joy of petting their fur. How much was utility and how much pure “pleasure?” I’d guess those things weren’t particularly black and white.  And our relationships still vary widely. In many areas of Africa now, a Masai village for example, dogs live in close association with people, but I doubt they would fit the definition of a pet. The only time I ever saw one “petted” was when tourists asked about the dog, and a Masai grabbed one and posed for a photograph. Believe me, the dogs did not look like they were enjoying themselves. When I asked, the Masai told me they had the dogs because they barked when lions approached the edges of the thorn fence that enclosed the cattle and the tribe at night. When I asked them, one at a time, if it was “their dog,” each individual said yes, it was “their dog,” although none had a name for the dog and the dogs did not come when called.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Clearly all I’ve really done here is asked some questions, not answered any. But that’s part of the fun of being a human, right? A few starter questions: What makes a dog a pet? What is the boundary line that makes a dog absolutely not a pet? Have any of you seen anything you’d call “pet ownership” in one of your own dogs? Horses?  (Here’s a key question: What’s the difference between 2 individuals who are socially bonded, and one being the pet of another? Clearly it is something related to autonomy, and who feeds and takes care of who, but how clear is the dividing line?) Here’s another blog post on Primatology to whet your whistle….

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Rain! More and more of it. Not a lot, about a quarter inch two days in a row on the farm. We’re still a good 8-9 inches behind average, being in a seeming rain shadow and getting significantly less rain than just five miles away. But the grass that wasn’t killed is growing, the sheep are on pasture instead of hay right now, and I’m no longer dragging huge, heavy hoses around every day. Even better, Willie and I are working sheep every day. Last night we drove the flock up into the “high pasture,” and I split out a few to practice driving the sheep in a straight line away from me. (Like any sport, it looks easy when the pro’s do it, but in reality the sheep want to go right, then left, then right… my lines look more like big zig-zaggy zippers than straight lines, which is why I need to practice so much.)

The small group we split out to work on included a lamb who’s mother was in the other field. The draw to mom was much stronger than the pull to the rest of the flock, and lamb-boy kept Willie on his toes, repeatedly trying to dash away and run off to mom. Willie had to turn on the speed to stop him over and over, and yet he never lost his temper and threatened to bust in. Good boy Willie. This morning he had another test: Lady Godiva was not interested in moving where I wanted her, and continually took her two lambs away from the flock and attempted to dash back to the barn through the woods. She wanted to go right, and the rest of the flock wanted to bolt left.  I needed them somewhere in between. When Willie ran around to stop Lady G, he risked losing the rest on the other side. He did a great job of alternating between both sides, good boy again. And now it’s time to get the heck out of the indoors, and go outside with Willie again.

Here’s Willie an hour after I wrote the above, working another group I’ve split off from the bunch. This time it’s a ewe, Butterfinger who wants back to the main flock. In this first photo I’ve sent him around to stop her and bring her back to the group.

Notice how in the photo below she is already shifting her weight back away from Willie? Notice her head, her left foreleg position and her weight shifted backward instead of forward.

Now she’s headed back to the right group. Immediately after I took this Willie turned in toward her. He sometimes stops short, so I was pleased he “covered” her.

And below is the final photo, Butterfinger grudgingly going back to the small group for us to work awhile. Willie is moving faster than I normally would like, but in this case I let him take charge. This exercise puts a lot of pressure on a dog, and I wanted to take the pressure off for a second. Never fear, all the sheep got back together again soon after. As a matter of fact, they’re bawling at me right now… time to give the lambs their handful of grain and the ewes a tiny bit alfalfa hay just to spoil them.

I was recently reminded that my first national book, The Other End of the Leash, was published in June of 2002, ten years ago (thank you Lisa). Wow. Ten years. It feels like a long time, and it feels like the years have flown by. Time is like that.

There’s something about big blocks of time and anniversaries–10 years, 25 years–that helps us to step out of our busy lives and look at the big picture. This feels especially relevant to me now as I work on a memoir. I find myself asking what parts of the book still resonate most for me, and what aspects of the book most relate to what I want to say in the memoir. At the moment there are two things that stand out the most: how understanding the world as best we can from a dog’s perspective enriches our relationship, and how dogs are such a vital, essential connection to the natural world for so many of us. Here’s how I described that connection in The Other End of the Leash:

“We humans are in such a strange position–we are still animals whose behavior reflects that of our ancestors, yet we are unique–unlike any other animal on earth. Our distinctiveness separates us and makes it easy to forget where we come from. Perhaps dogs help us remember the depth of our roots, reminding us–the animals at the other end of the leash–that we may be special, but we are not alone. No wonder we call them our best friends.”

It’s true that our differences from dogs causes no end of problems, from people mindlessly hugging dogs who perceive it as a threat, from running toward a dog to get him to come to us when in reality it causes him to stop. One of the most gratifying consequences of the publication of The Other End of the Leash is the receipt of notes and emails from all around the world that thank me for helping them to better understand their dog, or to save a run away dog from being hit by a car. (The book, I say sheepishly but unable to stop myself, is now published in 14 languages–or is it 15?–a fact that continues to delight and amaze me.) I still love playing the “contrast and compare” game between dogs and people, asking what is the same and what is different as a way of enriching our relationship, and I being one voice, in a chorus of many, asking dog owners to respect and understand their dogs, rather than dominate and treat them like small, furry  people trying to take over the household if you drop your guard for just a minute.

I also appreciate, even more now I think, the importance of a dog’s ability to link us to rest of the natural world. It’s a tragedy, in a way, that we speak about ourselves and “nature” as different things, as if we moved isolated and above all the rest of creation. We don’t. We still need air and water and food to eat and a place to poop like other mammals. Almost as much as that, our spirits need to see leaves fluttering in the breeze and the sun shine off the water. We need to marvel at the intricacies of a daisy and the jazz riff of a house wren as she sings beside her nest. There is a growing body of evidence that being outside, in the “natural” world is good for you. See, for example, The Children and Nature Network. And what do dogs do? Besides cuddling beside us and licking our faces and acting as if we hung the moon, they get us outside, on the grass, under the trees and in the rain. Bear with me while I repeat myself: No wonder they are our best friends.

Here’s an excerpt, relevant to that point, from what I am writing now. Be forewarned, it will be years before this book comes to light, at least a year before I am done writing it. But here’s something I wrote this morning that feels relevant to the anniversary of the publication of The Other End of the Leash, about a pair of Barn Swallows that nested in my garage, and wreaked no small amount of havoc to my daily routine. It’s yet another example of the importance of a conscious and respectful connection to the natural world.

And then one day, one magical day that I will remember for the rest of my life, I came home to find all five baby birds straining so far out of the nest that I knew their first flight was inevitable. I stood in the garage and watched one bird after another take its first flight. Each bird dove out of the nest flapping crazily, it’s movement uncoordinated and seemingly inadequate to keep them airborne. At the last minute, as they zig-zagged toward the ground, their wings took hold and they managed to stay airborne. They’d fly for a few more seconds, seemingly at the edge of airborne disaster, and then slam into the nearby spruce tree, having as much to learn about landing as flying. But gradually, second by second, flap by flap, the movements of their wings became more coordinated, their paths through the air became straighter, more purposeful and they figured out how to land without smashing head first into a bough.

As the seconds stretched into minutes, they began to learn what was inside of them. They found what they had all along, an innate combination of ability and knowledge that lifted their bodies and directed their flights. They began to dip and turn, faster and faster now, until within just a few minutes I was watching five expert, tiny pilots, zooming right and buzzing left, streaking toward my face and veering off at the last minute. They looked overwhelmed with themselves and the joy of what they were capable of. I was overwhelmed too, with wonder and delight at their transformation from chubby, awkward babies into sleek, skilled flyers. I am still overwhelmed, just writing about it, at what me and five baby birds learned in just a few minutes inside my shabby old garage.

I am grateful for every day that I live on the farm, even when it’s 107 and it almost kills me to haul hoses to try to save the trees or 30 below and the water pipes in the barn are frozen and I’m carrying buckets down an icy hill to the barn cussing like a sailor. I write knowing that not everyone can live on a farm, and that I am a lucky woman. But I spent as many years of my adult life in tiny apartments with moldy showers and dank, stinky corridors as I have on the farm. I shared cans of Alpo with my Saint Bernard because that’s all we could afford, and bought my clothes from Goodwill. And I learned, that no matter where we live, we can all cherish a flower, put up a painting of a lake, sit under a tree in a park and listen to a robin sing to the sky. And if we are very, very lucky, have a dog with whom to share this amazing journey through time and space.

I don’t want this to be soliloquy, I’d love to hear your thoughts about your connection with the natural world, and perhaps your dog’s part in it. I look forward to reading your thoughts…

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie is a happy boy. It’s still hot but not as bad as before, and we’ve been able to work sheep for short periods of time. I’m working on my timing while driving (the sheep away from us), trying to react fast enough to keep them in a straight line instead of zig zagging around the field. Let’s just say I have miles to go before I sleep. Willie isn’t putting a paw wrong on this, this is all my challenge. He needs to work on driving at a distance and staying comfortable letting the sheep get farther and farther away from me (and trusting that he an maintain control), but we can’t practice that on my little, short pasture. Hoping to do that this weekend.

Willie also got a new toy yesterday. It’s one of the new ones for sale on our website in the section named “Toys and Fun Stuff.” The toy is “Ellie the Elephant” and we love her because she is one sturdy pachyderm. I suspect she’ll even stand up to Willie’s tough love for quite awhile. I’ll keep you posted.  I’ll let the photos tell you whether he likes it or not.

Here’s their first introduction. I asked Willie to lie down and stay while I snapped the first photo. Note the elevated hindquarters (that I didn’t notice while taking the picture!)

Willie decides to get acquainted.

Here’s Willie’s impersonation of a rat terrier, as he begins to attempt to shake Ellie back and forth. Good thing he doesn’t know she’s an elephant.

Yup, this is almost as fun as sheep herding!

And finally, after a long play and photo session, Ellie and Willie rest in the grass. Willie looked so contented I half expected him to ask for a cigarette.