Life Is Short
Human lives are short, meaning anything from the death of a child who never really got started to an eighty-year-old woman who swears she was seventeen just yesterday. Dog lives are even shorter. We tend to outlive our wet-nosed loves by a wide margin. Whenever possible, then, let’s seize the day. If a sunny Saturday’s chores can just as well be done on Sunday when rain is in the forecast, let’s take our dogs to the beach. Let’s never imagine we’re so hungry that we can’t share our French fries, be too busy for a belly rub, and so on. Every moment holds an eternity.
The Dogs of Our Dreams
People often have specific expectations about what life will be like with a dog: the dog will excel in agility, or be friendly towards children, or protect their property, etc. Despite the owner’s best efforts, however, it often turns out the agility dog is a couch potato, the friendly dog displays aggression, and the guard dog welcomes everyone with wags and licks.
I train dogs for a living and take it seriously as can be. Nevertheless, I think dogs have better lives when we learn to accept them fundamentally as they are. It can be perilous to live with an aggressive dog, for example, but it also can be profoundly rewarding to share that dog’s life, safeguarding him from ever doing harm.
Likewise, to watch a splendid dog die too young from a rare disease can be, in its way, a precious gift … albeit one that bears devastating heartbreak. I know both these things from personal experience.
Sometimes, the dogs we dream of are little more than narcissistic projections. Let’s instead feel them burrow deep to make their dens inside our hearts. Perhaps this is what life with a dog really is all about: cherishing who they are, often as not despite ourselves.
The Truth about Training
Dogs and their owners are frequently ill-served by trainers and other professionals. Self-proclaimed “dog whisperers” say we must above all else be calm, assertive pack leaders; in other words, we’re supposed to be like them, not our wimpy selves. Puppy gurus preach from on high, saying we must attend only their very own state-of-the-art classes (which are somehow better than other state-of-the-art classes), and preferably quit our jobs to get the pup started right in life. Furthermore, we must feed our dogs organic ostrich meat, purchase a long list of indispensable items including squeaky toys that play Mozart, and have psychic readings on a regular basis.
Here’s my advice: Take a deep breath, give your beloved dog a smooch, and relax. Basic training is fun, pure and simple. Roughly a century of behavioral science makes clear it’s best accomplished with treats and praise. If anyone tells you otherwise, invite them to slip a cinching metal collar on a grizzly bear, give the leash a yank, and see what happens. Or how about a knee to the ribs or a finger poke to the head? Using such “techniques,” it’s easy to brutalize a dog into appeasement, but that proves little to nothing about training.
When our dogs get bright eyed and wiggly while we train and the experience is one of happy partnership between our species – despite occasional mis-steps – we’ve gotten training right. When our dogs cower while we train, or when we feel serious and unquestionably superior, it isn’t training at all.
To give is to receive
The world is ever in a state of emergency. It always has been and likely always will be. Given this, it’s best to learn how to live in a way that helps rather than hurts. As you doubtless know, there are virtually limitless means to that end.
Dogs suffer a great deal in this country and around the world. We can help by breeding fewer of them; euthanizing them in less horrific numbers; giving what money, supplies, and volunteer time we can to shelter and rescue efforts; and getting involved in political lobbying for their humane treatment. We can educate children about them, introduce them to all sorts of folks in need of the love of a dog, and start addressing the cultural schizophrenia that bars dogs from most public venues yet expects them to be perfectly socialized.
The Mystery of It All
I have long been fascinated by the physics of cosmology: how the universe got started, where it’s headed, and all that jazz. Today there is worldwide scientific consensus on two points: ninety percent of absolutely everything in the universe (you, me, the paper you’re holding, entire galaxies, etc.) is composed of unmeasurable matter and energy, and it is likely to remain unmeasurable for some hundreds of years longer. It’s definitely there, but no one knows what “it” is.
Last year, after the first of our two dogs died, my wife and I began lighting a candle on the kitchen windowsill each evening, gazing west toward the bay, and taking a moment to remember the happy days we’d had romping together along the waterside. Generally speaking, I’m fascinated by hard science and far from touchy-feely. Still, I feel an abiding sense of awe about our infinitesimally small existence in the grand scheme of things. This is among the reasons I like dogs. They constantly remind me of the mystery of it all.
Let’s all raise a toast this New Year’s Eve, and every night for that matter, to our canine loves present and past. Okay, you’ve done enough reading for one day. Please return now to smooching your dog or – better yet – go to the beach!
Paul Klein trains group classes in the East Bay for Bravo Puppy and Dog Training and provides one-on-one training all around the Bay Area. Otherwise, he spends his days with his dog, Sweep, sharing French fries and giving belly rubs. Correspondence is welcome: dogofyourdreams@gmail.com.
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