For dogs as well as for humans, the process of aging seems to involve a series of trade-offs: We lose acuity in vision and hearing but gain a more stable emotional equilibrium. We lose a certain amount of physical robustness but gain insight into ourselves and others. Our memory isn’t what it used to be, and yet at the same time our memory isn’t what it used to be.
This is especially true for the owner and the dog he or she has been raising for a longer period of time. You both may suffer a certain loss of physical vitality, but the relationship between you will have strengthened, matured, and grown. Lessons the dog once had to be taught (or reminded of) with painstaking patience have long since been learned. Commands that formerly required lengthy rhetorical or sarcastic questions now need only a word or two.
In fact, every aspect of the owner-dog relationship that we’ve discussed in the preceding chapters will, by seven or eight years into the relationship, have changed in subtle but noticeable ways. We’ll review them now so you’ll know what to anticipate in the future.
The inevitable changes that accompany aging can be seen in a comparison of two of the Inner Monologues belonging to “Jeff,” an owner raising a Jewish dog. The first was recorded when he was thirty-three years old and had just acquired Flash, a one-year-old wheaten terrier. The second was recorded after sharing a relationship with the dog lasting a dozen years.
EVOLUTION OF INNER MONOLOGUES: “JEFF” (OWNER, MALE)
Phase I: Age 33
WHOA!—THIS DOG IS NUTS! WHAT—HEY! HE’S PEEING ON THE FL——! OH, WELL. HE’S A PUPPY. HOW DO I GET HIM TO SIT STILL SO I CAN PUT THE LEASH ON. DOES HE KNOW WHAT “SIT” MEANS? . . . OBVIOUSLY NOT. OKAY, FINE, JUMP AROUND LIKE A MANIAC. GOOD THING DEBBIE LIKES YOU, PAL. YEAH, OKAY, KISSES, KISSES . . . GOTCHA! OKAY, OUTSIDE! OW! PULLING MY ARM OFF . . .
Phase II: Age 45
OH, GREAT. THE MAIL . . . GODDAMN IT. WHAT THE HELL AM I PAYING A THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH FOR HEALTH INSURANCE IF IT DOESN’T COVER ANYTHING? OKAY, FINE. JUST—ALL RIGHT, LOOK, WHERE’S DEBBIE? HOW COME I’M ALWAYS THE ONE WHO HAS TO WALK THE DOG? AND WHERE ARE THE KIDS? THIS IS THEIR JOB, GODDAMN IT. OW! GODDAMN IT . . . NOW WHAT? ARE WE GOING OUTSIDE OR WHAT? JESUS, DON’T DO ME ANY FAVORS . . .
Of course, it’s not just the owner who benefits from the maturing of the relationship over the years. Here are the Inner Monologues of Flash.
EVOLUTION OF INNER MONOLOGUES: FLASH (WHEATEN TERRIER, MALE)
Phase I: Age 1
FUN! YAY! JUMP JUMP JUMP! WHAZZAT!? IT’S THE LEASH! YAY! JUMP JUMP JUMP! WHAT? “SIT”? WHAZZAT? FUN! SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN! YAY! OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE! YA-A-A-A-A-YYY YAY! JUMP . . . JUMP . . . “SIT”? YAY! SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT! OUTSIDE! FUN! OW! OH, “SIT”! OKAY. LEASH. HERE WE GO!
Phase II: Age 13
WHAT? OUTSIDE? WHATEVER. LEASH? FINE. LIKE I’M RUNNING AWAY SOMEWHERE. SIT? THAT I CAN DO. BELIEVE ME, SITTING IS NO PROBLEM. THERE. SURE, LET’S GO. YOU’RE THE BOSS. OY. I NEED A REST.
This parallel evolution of the Inner Monologues of both owner and dog is characteristic of our Program for raising a Jewish dog. You age, the dog ages, and the relationship ages. Eventually nobody remembers who is who.
It’s a sad truth about getting older that we—and when we say “we” we always mean, we humans and our dogs—become less able to remember things. We lose the ability to remember names, events, the location of objects we held in our hands not two minutes ago, the spelling of certain words, the authors of books, the titles of books, and whether we’ve actually read the books.
The dog, too, is subject to this deterioration of memory. An older dog will, for example, gaze blankly at a bedroom slipper, rag doll, or other formerly beloved object, as though trying to remember why it looks familiar.
To assist both owner and dog with this problem, we have developed what we call the Pictorial/Informational Cueing System, or PICS. We began with the informal folk remedy of posting sticky notes on mirrors, computer screens, refrigerator doors, and so on, to remind people of phone numbers, errands, and the like. Then we thought, Well, why not go “all the way” and develop a system of posting the names of appliances, furniture, et cetera, to help people remember what they are?
But then we ran into a problem. Yes, labels around the house would help the owner remember what was what—but how to help the dog? Dogs, for all their miraculous abilities, can’t read, after all.
But they can see, and they recognize items by sight. So PICS calls for the owner to take snapshots of the most important items in the dog’s daily line of vision and affix them to those items as a way of reminding the dog what they are.
The accompanying photograph shows how simple—but also how helpful—PICS can be for both dog and owner.
In chapter 3 we introduced you to our Basic “Training” Procedure. It consisted of a Five-Stage Cycle that included the following steps:
Elderly dog, afflicted with failing eyesight, uses PICS system of object identification. Looking at photograph of window on window, he confirms that window is window.
1. Unconditional Love: You pampered and adored the dog without limit or preconditions.
2. The Great Betrayal: When you issued a command to the dog, and she failed to obey, you reacted as though she were deliberately defying you and displaying ingratitude for all you had done for her.
3. Conditional Unconditional Love: You “guilted” the dog, openly wondering why you bothered to show her all this love if “this” was how she was going to repay you. You collapsed, sobbing, openly moaned to strangers.
4. Comfort and Reconciliation: The dog, thus guilted, displayed concern for you. Duly comforted, you realized that you knew better than to act like this, that your feeling victimized was crazy, and so on. You apologized to the dog and to any remaining bystanders.
5. Enlightened Acceptance: You withdrew the original command and, with the dog, you worked together to solve the problem.
This cycle will be relevant in training situations for most of the dog’s life. But by the time the dog is eight or nine (for large dogs) or eleven or twelve (for medium-sized and smaller dogs), the Basic “Training” Procedure will have become moot, and another procedure will take its place.
This diagram outlines the next five-step cycle.
1. Established Routine: You and the dog go about your daily routine: walking, feeding, cuddling, talking. As part of this routine, you give some command to the dog.
2. Automatic Disobedience: The dog fails to obey the command because she always has (and always will). It’s part of the routine.
3. Exhausted Surrender: You perceive that the dog has been disobedient. Rather than feel betrayed (as you used to), by now you just don’t care. You’re “too tired to deal with this.” Or you’re “too old for this kind of thing.” In any case, you “give up.” You say, out loud, “Look, never mind. I give up.”
Rabbi Alan, having just issued command for ten thousandth time, and elderly dog, having again disobeyed it, reach final stage of cycle and no longer remember what they were talking about, what the issue was, or who the other is.
4. Habitual Concern: The dog, after years of exposure to your giving up, knows that you are unhappy. By sheer force of habit, she comes to you, or at least looks over at you. It might mean she is apologizing for being disobedient. It might mean she is waiting for you to give the command again. Or it might mean that the dog is trying to remember who you are. Any of these establishes the conditions for the final stage.
5. Complete Forgetting: You no longer remember what the command was or why you gave it. And neither does the dog. The entire incident has been completely forgotten and everyone starts over with a clean slate.
This, you will not be surprised to learn, marks the final stage in the “training.”
Just as the Basic “Training” Procedure has to be revised to take into account the characteristics of the older dog (and her owner), so must the Basic Commands.
For most of the dog’s life, the commands “Sit!,” “Down!,” and “Stay!” are the most essential and are used the most frequently.
The older dog, however, requires a different vocabulary of commands.
And we do mean different. For one thing, these are not actually “commands.” We call them “requests.” And, while the Basic Commands are to be delivered in one or more of the Five Modes with increasing emotional intensity and urgency (as explained in chapter 3), the Requests are delivered with one of Three Moods of decreasing emotion.
Controlling the Older Dog: Three Basic Requests in Three Moods
| Basic Request in Mildly Annoyed Mood | What It Calls For | When to Use It | Tired- of Talking-About- It Mood | Acknowledgment of- Futility Mood |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “Don’t start.” | Tells the dog not to engage in the bad behavior he always engages in | All the time | “Do you hear me?” | “Fine. Do what you want.” |
| “Oh, please.” | Tells the dog not to even bother wanting, let alone requesting, the thing at issue, the granting of which is impossible | Whenever necessary | “Out of the question.” | “Fine. Whatever.” |
| “I’m talking.” | Tells the dog to suppress his desire or intention and let the owner be the focus of whatever is going on | Constantly | “Hello!?” | “Never mind.” |
The Request is first issued in the Mildly Annoyed Mood; when it is ignored, it is reissued in the Tired-of-Talking-About-It Mood and, when that too doesn’t work, in the Acknowledgment-of-Futility Mood, in which the owner gives up.
Practice these Requests in all three of their Moods once your dog reaches his eighth (for large dogs) or eleventh (for smaller dogs) birthday. It may seem tedious to do so at first, but rest assured, you won’t have to do it for that long. The older the dog becomes, the less you will need to practice or even use these Requests, because the dog will increasingly ignore them and because you will increasingly just give up ahead of time.
Like the prisoners in the old story, who cue each other about their favorite jokes just by shouting out a number, you and the dog will, after many years, become so accustomed to each other’s needs, habits, commands, defiance of commands, and everything else that you’ll be able to convey them in a series of shorthand references based on a small group of familiar words you will have used literally thousands of times. Of course, unlike the prison jokes, these ideas can’t be presented via numbers. That would be absurd; the dog doesn’t know numbers.
He does, however, know the four Useful Words we discussed in chapter 3: “So,” “Nu,” “What,” and “Okay?” After eight or more years of living with the dog, you will have used these terms consistently and repeatedly in a limited and highly meaningful series of contexts. With this in mind, we’ve been able to devise a fairly comprehensive list of comments, questions, rebukes, and explanations using a “code” based on these four words alone.
The following table shows how to arrange the four words into a number of sentences that a typical owner might use in a common, everyday scenario. Of course, this will be a one-way conversation, since the dog will not be able to reply in actual words. But he’ll know what you’re saying and be able to respond accordingly.
Longtime Companions: The Four- Word Shorthand Code of Commands and Rebukes
| Coded Phrase | Actual Meaning of Phrase |
|---|---|
| So? | Jesus, what a day.Traffic was a bitch. Ooooh, how’s my good boy? How’s everything here? |
| What? | I’m sorry, I can’t play with you now. I have to take a shower and finish making dinner. Someone’s coming over. |
| Nu? | Get off the bed, I have to change the sheets. Never mind |
| Okay? | I don’t care if it’s raining. You have to pee outside, period. |
| So nu? | No, don’t shake until I dry you with the towel. NO, DON’T. SH—. Goddamn it, now look at the walls. |
| What, okay? | Here. Eat your dinner. Why are you staring? It’s the lamb you like. |
| So what — Okay? Nu? | I know why. It’s because you’re waiting for these pork ribs, isn’t it? |
| What so — nu? | Well, forget it. We’ve discussed this. They splinter and they’ll tear up your throat. Besides, it’s for company. |
| Nu, okay? So. | Stop sulking. Here’s another cookie, but no ribs. Now take it. I have to get the door. |
| Okay? Nu? What? | Down! Down! Be nice, okay? |
| So okay? What nu! | What did we say about company? You sniff once and then you find your spot! No humping and no sniffing crotches! I mean it! |
| Okay? So! | No begging in the dining room. How many times have we talked about this? |
| What nu, so okay? | He was not supposed to let you have one of those rib bones. Give it back. I’m serious. It is DANGEROUS. Give it back. |
| What okay? Nu so. | No! Don’t you dare growl at him! |
Other coded sentences are available on our Web site.