It was around this time of the year two years ago that I was embarked on a journey of a lifetime. I was heading out to meet my mentor in the fjords of Norway. Turid Ragaas is a very interesting lady, with silver hair, who apparently had the magical ability to understand dogs. She is an author and international dog trainer who coined the term “Calming Signals,” the language dogs use to communicate with each other and with us. Being a canine behavior counselor I had devoured her books and DVDs and looked forward to all that I was going to learn and discuss. I was thrilled to meet and spend a month with Turid Rugaas, but on top of my list was the curious case of Hagan.
Hagan was a Rottweiler-Dane mix. It seems like he had grown up on the streets of India and not had much contact with people during his formative years. Chances are that other street dogs were intimidated by his size and stayed away from him as well giving him little opportunity to learn from other dogs. The net result of it all was that Hagan had no bite inhibition. So, there he was, a massive dog, larger than a Rottweiler now in a shelter and he needed to learn not to bite if he was to find a home.
At the first opportunity, I brought up his case with Ragaas. She heard me out and then told me that he needed to be socialized to the new world he was now in, but with no opportunity to bite. She and I discussed various ways we could achieve this. I left Norway with a special project on my hands—Hagan’s socialization.
The first thing I did on my return was to start volunteering at the shelter housing Hagan. The first day I went to see him, he started barking. I turned my side to him and stood by his kennel. I remembered Ragaas’ advice to me: “He needs to have lots of things to do and own.” I looked about his kennel. It was bare and depressing. I dug around in my handbag and found a notebook. I tore away the pages that had important notes and tossed the note book over the kennel door. He looked at me for a few seconds, took the book to the far end of the kennel, sat facing away from me, and proceeded to shred the book. I smiled. He finally had something to do and something to own.
I went back the next week, and I did not forget to take toys for him. Hagan seemed a bit more tolerant of having me around. I sat beside his kennel, with my side to him and read out all my emails to him. After the initial barking, all the dogs settled down and listened to my emails. As far as I could tell, they felt my emails were utterly boring and that I should not respond to them. A few barks occasionally told me to respond to a couple select emails, or at least that’s how I decided to interpret their barks.
Upon my return, a week later, I felt gutted to see that the toys I had given to Hagan had been taken away from him. The caretaker told me that it was just too hard to keep the toys clean. So when they were cleaning the kennel, they took the toys out. That night, I stayed up all night, thinking of solutions for him. I came up with a few. I bought a few ropes of organic natural fabrics like hemp and cotton. I got cardboard boxes. I got large green coconuts. I started taking a few of each item every time I went to see him so that even if the shelter staff cleared the “toys” he always had new ones. This made it easy on all of us. Hagan got his toys. It was easy on my pocket. And the shelter staff did not have to clean the toys. They could just throw it all out or burn it.
With all the objects and the reading, Hagan got to a point where I managed to get him out of the kennel, put him on a leash and walked him. At that point, Hagan was adopted and moved out of the shelter and into his forever home.
Often, people who want to volunteer at shelters are daunted by the kinds of tasks that are required of them. I heard of a great volunteering program in Pittsburg called Senior Snugglers, where senior citizens go to a shelter and volunteer time, reading to a dog. As Ragaas and I had discussed, shelter dogs have a severe dearth of quality company, objects, and things to do. Someone to read them a story, give them a few inexpensive toys and objects can go a long way in socializing even the toughest of dogs. This holiday season, how about giving gift packages to dogs in the local shelter and reading a story to them so they get to experience the joy of receiving a gift and being read to? Every dog deserves that, right?
Sindhoor is a canine behavior counselor from Bangalore, India. She studied dog training in Norway with Turid Ragaas and Anne Lill Kvam and is a member of Pet Dog Trainers of Europe. Her studies on free-ranging dogs combined with European training techniques and understanding of brain chemistry help her provide therapy for dogs. She writes extensively on the subject and her first book is due for publication soon. Read more at nishidiaries.wordpress.com.
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