From the Dog's Mouth. Wavecrest Imprint
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couldn’t get the words out. Dada just knew; he intuited what they needed. I hear him say to his clients all the time, “I hear what you say but I know what you really mean.” Thus, he began to vibe me and I sent him messages as well. Moving outside the box of communication will enhance how a dog and his keeper connect.
Rules and Deregulations
From the very beginning there was a clash of wills between Mr. In-Charge and me. He always wanted me to poo and pee on command. (Let him try telling that to his fellow human beings.) And there’s the eating thing, too.
“Eat, eat, eat,” he’d bark at me the minute he put my food out. Of course, I rarely chowed-down when he wanted me to eat. I guess a lot of his ignorance comes from never having had a dog.
Dada could be mean. Oh, not boxcar murderer mean, but nasty enough. The maddest he ever got was when I wouldn’t eat on his schedule.
For example: “Gobble your vittles. Eat, you rotten little terrier. This is my house and you will do as I say do or you’re going back where you came from — and you can pay your own way back too.” (He would push my face in the food, and of course I resisted by running from him. I’m faster.)
He barked some more. “I said eat and I mean eat or you will not get another bite of food for three days. I’ll show you who’s boss.”
But then two minutes later he’d pick me up, trying to assure me that he loved me. His guilt overwhelmed his right to be the Alpha in our house. If I hadn’t been able to read him, I would be a bit daffy.
Dada was most impatient about how I avoided my breakfast in the morning. More than a dozen times he turned beet red and raged at me if I had not cleaned my bowl by 7:30 a.m. Now, we are up at 5:00 a.m. so he can beat the rest of the world to first base, but I like to eat at 9 o’clock. Sure, there were times I ate right away when he put it in my bowl, but not because he was blowing a gasket. We did come to a meeting of the minds, but not because I suddenly started to eat when he commanded. I do like that he started dusting my dog food with liver and chicken and beef sausage bits. Yummy yum yum!
Putting Cesar Millan in His Place and Other Myth Busters
I will tell you exactly how Mister G started letting me chow down when I was hungry instead of just when he wanted me to. All the fancy dog trainers told him to pick my food bowl up after a few minutes if I didn’t eat it, kind of with the attitude, “You’ll show the dog who is alpha boss!”
Then, lo and behold Dada read an article in Time Magazine, “Dog Training and the Myth of Alpha-Male Dominance” in which the American Veterinary Association bashed Cesar Millan, that big britches from Hispaniola, the supposed high and mighty, king of king and lord of lords Dog Whisperer. According to AVA President Bonnie Beaver, know-it-all Cesar pins a dog on its back and holds it by the throat, which she said was downright cruel. (Dada was never under a swoon to the charlatan, thanks to the first time Dada saw him stroll through lover’s lane with his pack of robotic mongrels). As a matter of fact Daddy and I think that when most people get famous they are on their way to Elvis’ Heartbreak Hotel.
We are supposedly in the wolf pack line of evolution, but the founder of the Minnesota-based International Wolf Center, says, “Dog trainers have the wolf story all wrong, too.” He further says, “Wolves in the wild actually live in nuclear families, not randomly assembled units, in which the mother and father are the pack leaders and their offspring’s status is based on birth order.” Don’t you just love it when how we have been thinking for centuries gets turned on its ear?
This changed everything about how Dada I got along. This expert on canine behavior was like Dada’s therapist friend Peggy who counsels her clients with patient-centered therapy. Letting a patient unravel his own crazy mixed-up life from childhood forward makes sense to me. Just like in nuclear families, canines must fight to make ourselves understood by our keepers.
Thank God for Time Magazine. Mon père stopped listening to all the so-called authorities and big pieces of stuff dogcrats (as he calls Dog Whisperers, trainers, vets, et al.) and started listening to me.
One fine day—almost like a Puccini moment in one of his grand operas—Daddy’s 911-sized meltdowns about me not eating came to a screeching halt. (Can you hear the cymbals?) Amidst a colossal tirade a miracle happened. Humans talk about miracles all the time, but we dogs consider every minute of every day a miracle. Frustrated and filled to the brim with rage my keeper hit a wall. At the high note of his outburst he simply fell mute in mid-cry. He took a few deep breaths. Then he exhaled. His Napoleonic hunched shoulders relaxed. He went into the great room and lay down on the snowy white carpet and cried. He did not boo-hoo like one of Mrs. Hornblow’s crybabies. But he cried out of frustration that he could not make me eat. I went over and licked his face and stretched out beside him. He turned his head and, nose-to-nose, toes-to-paws, looked into my eyes.
Here is what I said:
Coming to Terms with Him and Me
“Mister G, I know you are frustrated because I won’t eat on your schedule. Well guess what? You know I have a Sagittarius Moon. I do things my way. How many times have you told a client that a Sagittarian is like a free range chicken, plucking and clucking anywhere and anytime they please? Well, sir, you have been describing me all this time and yet you never applied it to my eating habits.
“I know that you are trying hard to love me and you want me to love you. I do love you, but we dogs do not express affection like you humans. Humans seem to want something back in exchange for their love. You imply, ‘If you love me Mr. Darby eat when I want you to eat.’ It doesn’t work like that in the animal kingdom. If you love me, you would let me eat when I am hungry, not when it is convenient for you. I know you better than you think I do. You want me to eat when you want me to eat to show me you’re in charge. Which has nothing to do with unconditional love.
“Remember when you used to ask me why my eyes were wet? I was crying for you because I felt your sadness. I wept because I wanted you to be happy. But I am also frustrated because of how mad you get at me.
“Here’s a compromise I think you can sign on for. Leave my food where I can get to it when I’m hungry. You were a lot smarter than all those smarty-pants dog trainers who told you to put the food away if I didn’t eat within fifteen minutes. Instead you always left it near my water bowl. Good for you and me. Have a little patience with me. Living with you has tested my serenity, Mr. Drill Sergeant.”
Dada stayed on the floor holding me close to him, me the little rascal, me the tougher-than-nails Wire Fox Terrier. He laughed until he cried and cried until he laughed out loud. We were this way for more than half an hour. He could sense what I was saying to him. You could tell without a shadow of a doubt (as Nancy Grace says as she hounds a murder suspect into the gas chamber) that he and I will never have another conversation about when I eat my food. (My poo is another story, and we’ll get to that recurring theme before long.)
In sobriety circles, drunks talk about not quitting one minute before the miracle. Thank God Dada did not quit before I taught him patience and tolerance.
Poo and the Dog Park
In the beginning, Dada became most upset when dogs in the Dog Park would growl and chase me. He thought these ill-mannered rescues were vicious predators. He said as much to a few of the dog owners. One afternoon some big fat chick, who used to show her prissy Chihuahuas in dog shows, laughed out loud at Dada when he said, “Mr. Darby, stop sniffing that dog’s rear end. That’s filthy.” She roared, “Oh my God, what’s a dog to do? Sniff that area code, Mr. D.” All the other two-legs let him know that dogs were just doing what dogs do — socializing and establishing who is Top Dog in the park.
He would have a meltdown if anyone put water in the kiddie pool because all of us dogs love to get wet and roll in the dirt. It would make il mio papà nuts because I was usually the ring leader. Water and dirt — yummy, yum, yum! Things have changed a little. Today he goes to the Dog Park with me and my only complaint is that he wants