Before I brought Caleb home, in typical Julie fashion, I prepared. I bought books to read, then once I finished those, I bought the ones that the books recommended for further reading. One of those books was The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. It is, by far, the best and most useful book I have read about dogs and dog training. The first premise of the book is that Dogs are not people. Revolutionary, I know, but judging from the epiphany this book brought me, and the fantastic reviews by just about everyone who has read the book, it clearly needed to be said...and repeated for good measure. I could dedicate and entire blog to the lessons I learned from that book, however for the purposes of this blog, I going to focus on one:
Dogs live in the present
The enormity of that lesson did not hit me immediately, or even shortly thereafter. In fact, I had enough time to read the book once, then go back and scan the particularly good bits, sleep on it a couple a months, file it away in the: "Useful things I now know" file in my brain, and thoroughly enjoy getting to know Caleb for a month or so.
Donaldson's words came stampeding back through the squishy inner bits of my brain when Caleb met my mother and my brother's dog, Scout, for the first time. It was a meeting that, frankly, nobody in my family ever thought would happen. To say that the relationship between me and their dog was strained would be to gloss over 10 plus years of resentment and animosity that, until digesting Donaldson's pearls of wisdom, I thought were appropriately placed at the paws of that dog.
Scout was a knee jerk reaction to the death of my beloved Cody. The neighbor across the street's dog had puppies shortly after we put her down, and they offered the genetic mutation of the litter (I'm not being mean this time, it looked like the mother had 5 boxers and a mastiff - and my mother and brother both affectionately refer to him as such) to our family. The family was split down the middle, my mother and brother wanted him, my father and I did not. It was anything personal at first, I just did not want to replace Cody yet. But I was also a teenager, therefore everything was personal, and my mother choosing my brother's wishes over mine, when I felt it was obvious he certainly was not going to be the one to take care of the dog, was very hurtful. The end result was that nobody in particular took responsibility for him. I refused to have anything to do with him. My dad was busy working on being gone, ultimately for good. My mom and brother took care of the basics; he was fed, let outside to do his business, walked, and I'm sure they played with him sometimes, but that was it. He learned real fast to stay out of my room, but there as no formal training of any kind. He destroyed the furniture, bit the neighbor, and killed my kitten.
Eventually, Scout sort of blended into the background for me. I graduated from high school, college, and grad school. I walked around him, stepped over him, and ignored him. I moved out and got Caleb. I was determined to do this the right way; the memories of Cody, whom my Dad raised, compared to Scout, whom nobody in particular raised, made me determined to raise a well behaved and obedient dog. So I bought books, and I learned all about the needs of a dog: physical and emotional; exercise, discipline, affection; you name it, I read about it. I signed Caleb up for doggy daycare, Saturday small dog socials, and obedience training. I bought the best dog toys to keep his jaws occupied and away from my furniture. I was determined.
One weekend, I was at my Mom's house when the topic of bringing Caleb over for a visit came up. I don't know why I decided to do it, there was nothing in our past to suggest I should trust this dog, especially with Caleb, whom I love more than almost anything, but we kept talking about it and the more we talked about it, the more I felt like I really should bring him over. We agreed Scout and Caleb should meet on neutral territory outside the house first, then if all went well we would bring Caleb in through the backyard and go from there.
When Caleb and Scout first met, I would like to imagine they both thought something along the lines of, 'Whoa...what is that?'. Caleb is a 24 pound slim little corgi. Scout is a 120 something pound beast of a dog. At first, Caleb wanted to hide, Scout wanted to sniff. Eventually Caleb must have figured out Scout was a dog and not a bear, and he too began the sniffing ritual. There was no barking, growling, gnashing of teeth; just a couple of dogs...being dogs.
The day went very well; I think everyone was surprised. Scout and Caleb sniffed and peed on things in the backyard together, followed each other around, and stood guard whilst the barbecue was working it's magic. After dinner, Scout and Caleb really started to play: running and jumping about, the play bow, barking; all things I had read about in my various books on dog behavior. My brother nearly had a heart attack in the backyard when they really got going. I explained what they were doing, and that they were just playing with each other. I remember the look on his face when he said, 'I've just never seen Scout play before'.
I stood there for a moment and as I let that sink in, I looked back at Scout and Caleb playing, and I too saw something I'd never seen before: Scout the dog. Not the dog I thought he was, not the dog he used to be, Scout the dog as he was right now. Scout the dog who was never socialized, never got to interact or play with other dogs, who is arthritic and overweight, with more years behind him than in front of him. Scout the dog, enjoying being a dog.
No comments:
Post a Comment