Not so long ago, the great majority of American dogs were reasonably secure. Dog and man both knew where they stood—with each other and with their own kind. This was, to be sure, before the advent of dog psychiatrists, and it is possible that some dogs were going around even then with anxieties they simply didn’t know they had. But it can no longer be denied that today, after the cataclysms and upheavals of the last two decades, the dog’s basic concept of himself has been seriously undermined, his fundamental ethos threatened. Let us face facts: The American dog has clearly lost his way.
Evidence of the breakdown is all around us. Since 1940, mental illness in dogs has increased 31 percent across the country (47 percent in California). Young dogs and puppies, victims of an overly permissive environment, are flunking out of obedience schools in fantastic numbers. Among mature dogs, there is a marked tendency to revert to such infantile symptoms as slipper-chewing, tail-biting, and the persistent door-scratching that typifies the indoor-outdoor syndrome. Confused and uncertain, seeking firm standards in a world of collapsing social values, the American dog looks for guidance to the natural leaders of his race, but usually he looks in vain. Popular entertainment often provides a key to socio-economic changes, and we have only to turn on television to see the dog’s problem in miniature.
Consider, for example, the dilemma recently faced by Lassie, the great dog star, in her television series. 1 The death, a year or two ago, of a supporting player (human) and the growing up of the actor playing Lassie’s young master, Jeff, made production changes in the show imperative. The producers’ solution was to have Jeff go away to school, after first giving Lassie to a new family. Followers of traditional dog dramaturgy knew what searing scenes they could expect from this farewell. Everything pointed to two harrowing half-hour episodes in which Lassie, spurning the comfort and affection of her new home, would chew the rope that held her, and strike out into the night. Pelted by sleet and snow, reviled by farmers, pursued by yelling street gangs and dogcatchers, she would pause only to capture an escaped convict and save a child from drowning before she arrived, bedraggled but happy, in time to dissuade Jeff from accepting a gambler’s bribe to throw the hockey game with Groton. Jeff would then return to the farm, but would share Lassie with the new little boy (who would, of course, be on crutches).
Those who watch the program know this is not what happened at all. Jeff and his mother went away, Lassie waved goodbye, and that was that. The only hint of the emotional cost involved has been a tendency, probably unnoticed by younger viewers, for Lassie to scratch herself behind the ear when she thinks the camera is pointed elsewhere. (A nervous tic?) We may well ask what has happened to the ancient code of canine loyalty when Lassie can change masters without a whimper of protest. Dr. Ernst Engelbrecht, of Leopoldville, whose Dogs in Transition: 1900–1950 is the classic study in this field (unhappily, out of print at the moment), has recently devoted a series of lectures to this very problem. “Lassie’s decision,” writes Dr. Engelbrecht, “must either be rejected or assimilated by every dog over three years of age. It cannot be ignored.”
Fears of incipient disloyalty, however rationalized, are probably at the root of most canine neuroses. As the old individualistic standards of conduct disappear and the ancient virtues of speed, agility, and resourcefulness give way to the modern suburban dog’s obsession with security and “acceptance,” a vicious circle of tensions is built up. The dog who doubts his own dogness pretends not to see his master throw the tennis ball—and then suffers unimaginable pangs when the master withholds love in return. One watchdog in Lake Forest developed such anxieties about his supposed inability to bark at intruders that he took to barking at his own master and succeeded, finally, in driving him away from the house for good. Evidence exists that these tragic confusions are not confined to American dogs. What, for example, are we to make of Laika, the Soviet rocket dog, who was so clearly willing to sacrifice her own life for the wrong side?
Adding to the dog’s basic insecurity is the gnawing question of status. Where do dogs stand in our society today? If we must ask the question ourselves, we may be sure the dogs have been asking it for some time. And it is difficult to escape the conclusion that in several important respects the American dog has been slipping badly.
Modern dogs seem to shrink from the demands of high public office. Consider, for example, President Eisenhower’s Weimaraner. Passing over the fact that a non-American dog must almost certainly suffer tensions in such a very American milieu, it remains to be said that the dog has left no imprint whatever on the White House. He does not travel with the President, nor does he sit at Ike’s feet during telecasts. His personal habits, his food preferences, even his name and age, are unknown. In the past, the electorate could watch Fala taking an active part in the day-to-day life of President Roosevelt, but today we are in some doubt as to whether Mr. Eisenhower’s Weimaraner is even admitted to meetings of the National Security Council. Similarly, one wonders about Checkers. The Vice-President’s cocker sprang to fame in a dramatic broadcast some years ago, but since then he has sunk into limbo. Mr. Nixon himself took a commanding role in last autumn’s election campaign, when his name appeared almost daily on the front pages of all the newspapers, but if Checkers gave him any assistance, or even stood loyally by in case of need, we are unaware of it. Surely this indicates a serious failure of leadership on the part of our top dogs, at a time when this can least be afforded.
It is in the home, though, that we find the most alarming symptoms of canine withdrawal. Few can deny that the dog’s home life is fraught with new anxieties. The trend to multi-dog families, far from encouraging individual initiative, as some sociologists had hoped, has had precisely the opposite effect. Conformity on the surface, fierce competition when the family is out—this seems to be the pattern. “The family hearth,” writes Engelbrecht, “has supplanted the dog pound as a source of canine traumatization.”
In determining a dog’s status at home, the question of breed has now assumed overwhelming (and highly destructive) importance. It used to be that the more popular breeds stayed in vogue for years at a time, and this led to the establishment of a relatively stable hierarchy, in which each dog could formulate his self-respect within certain agreed limits. During the reign of the Airedale, for example, there was some intermittent friction between Scotties (No. 4) and wire-haired fox terriers (No. 5), but none at all between collies (No. 2) and Lhasa Apsos (No. 47). Now, however, the wild and chaotic fluctuations in popular taste have caused great anguish up and down the line. As the No. 1 position passed from cocker to boxer to beagle, all semblance of class distinction crumbled. Matters have now reached a point where dachshunds and bulldogs scarcely know from one week to the next where they stand in relation to each other. The sporting breeds dread taking the field, for fear they will lose out in the frenzied behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the big kennel clubs. Their fears are not groundless. Last year, a well-connected English setter, a fine hunting dog who was also considered a leading candidate for Best in Show at the next Westminster Kennel Club show, returned from field trials in Maryland to find that all his papers had somehow been “lost.” This breed has since declined in the over-all standings. Today, rumors spread unchecked, and as more owners adopt the deplorable practice of changing breeds each year, the climate of insecurity grows steadily worse. The upshot of all this is clearly predictable: American dogs, in despair over their personal status, are beginning to lose all sense of self. Pomeranians try to jump like Dobermans, and have heart attacks. Whippets refuse to run, in the forlorn hope that they will be mistaken for basset hounds. And surely there is no sadder sound in nature than the sound of a once proud cocker baying the moon in a cracked, tone-deaf, but unmistakable imitation of a beagle.
In some extreme cases, the deranged animal, dimly aware that being a dog is no longer enough, goes over the brink and impersonates human reactions. How else are we to account for the fate of Rex, the Coast Guard’s celebrated lifesaving Labrador, who is said to have gone down in calm water off Newport while trying to swim the breast stroke? Poodles, of course, have always looked upon themselves as a “bridge species,” somewhere between men and dogs, and it is no coincidence that this is the breed most frequently in need of analysis. But perhaps the most disturbing example of this sort of tragic confusion was the case of Lalique, the lovely Afghan bitch who shot and killed Mendelsen Beatty III last winter. Controversy still rages over the circumstances of this disagreeable incident. Beatty, the millionaire sportsman, had taken Lalique everywhere for six years. She shared his stateroom on countless Atlantic crossings, welcomed the guests to his famous little dinner parties, and made her exquisite manners a byword from Montevideo to Biarritz. When Beatty announced his engagement to a tin-plate heiress in Buenos Aires, Lalique was prostrated. The gossip columns of three continents reported the details of the poor creature’s struggles to displace her rival—from her abject delivery of small gifts at the feet of her heartless master to a pathetic and patently insincere attempt at a relationship with Beatty’s best friend. It was all considered funny, but, alas, it was not. The night before the wedding, Beatty was cleaning his Mannlicher .30–06. The houseboy heard a shot, rushed upstairs, and found Beatty already dead, and Lalique, whimpering piteously, trying to extricate her slender paw from the trigger guard. Significantly, no action has ever been taken against the dog.
It must be clear to all that there is cause for concern in the modern dog’s rudderless, uprooted circumstances. But the prospects are by no means wholly discouraging. For the first time, American dogs are beginning to understand their problems and to face them squarely—a most encouraging sign. Any thinking dog knows there can be no return to the simple certainties of the past. But if the dog is to reach out for a new way of life and a new concept of himself qua dog, it is apparent that he cannot do it alone. Nor does he pretend he can. These days, when a dog jumps up on the couch, the chances are he isn’t looking for affection at all. He is trying to tell us that he needs help.
| 1959 |
1 Lassie is, of course, a female impersonator whom we refer to as “she” merely to avoid confusion. This kind of transvestitism has long been fairly common in the theatre, dating back to pre-Elizabethan times, and we must not give it undue stress.