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The Promise
In a fractured world of broken relationships dogs can teach us the meaning of devotion and fidelity.
—Dogs & Devotion
There is an art to living with a dog that combines grace and elegance with understanding and realism, that fosters compassion and a spiritual connection without doting and pampering. Such an art is based on respect for the true nature of the dog and the vital role we have in helping the dog to fulfill its highest potential. What’s even more remarkable is that, as we nurture this relationship, we become increasingly sensitive to the wondrous interconnectedness of life and, for the lucky ones who believe, more connected to a universal spirit.
Unfortunately, too many dog owners today don’t experience the gifts that this type of relationship offers. Instead, they carry dogs in purses and lavish them with outrageous gifts like Gucci collars and mink booties. They place demands on their dogs for comfort and emotional support, forcing the dogs to become agents of therapy rather than recognizing them as sovereign beings with needs of their own. They spend less and less time with their dogs. The leisure time today’s dog owners have is often devoted to events and activities deemed more important than creating a healthy relationship with their pets. Owners feel forced to isolate and marginalize dogs that can’t be trusted around other dogs or people. There is no relief in sight. Puppy mills churn out dogs by the tens of thousands, shelters fill with dogs that are victims of not only physical neglect but also ineffective training methods that have hoodwinked a swath of the dog world. Too many of today’s basic obedience classes are dumbed down and truncated, more concerned with being politically correct than with offering dog owners effective solutions.
Something needs to be done, and that’s why we’ve written this book.
Let Dogs Be Dogs is a bit of a departure from the Monks of New Skete’s previous training volumes, How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy. It is also different in the way it is presented. Throughout this volume, you will occasionally hear from both Marc and Brother Christopher in their own voices. These vignettes are intended to make the experience of reading this book as personal as possible, as if you were sitting across from us as we share anecdotes from our decades of experience in both working and living with dogs.
MARC GOLDBERG I grew up with dogs, and my first was a sheltie pup that I raised named Gus. In some sense, Gus also raised me from the age of eleven to twenty-nine. During those eighteen years, Gus taught me so much. He taught me to value the relationship first.
Perhaps the first serious lesson Gus taught me was that merely being your dog’s pal is not enough to qualify you as a “best friend.” To be your dog’s best friend, the first thing you must do is teach him how to be safe. Gus, untrained, ran into the street and was hit by a car in his fifth month of life. Luckily, it wasn’t his last. When Gus’s broken bone healed, my mother enrolled us both in a local dog-training class, and within a few short weeks I was hooked on training—and so was Gus.
We went on to learn and train at the highest levels of obedience, winning a few prizes along the way. Decades later, I still cherish the silver trays and bowls Gus and I won in the obedience ring.
What shines brightest in my memory, however, is the recollection of the day when, as a young teenager, I ran home from school, eager to practice a dog-training routine with Gus in preparation for a dog show that weekend. Since we had already won some ribbons, and I had developed a taste for the winner’s circle, I wanted a repeat performance. So when I arrived home, I snapped a leash on Gus and took him outside for a quick training session.
But Gus behaved oddly. I was telling him to heel in order to practice the heeling pattern common at obedience trials. This was a routine that Gus knew well and excelled at, yet on this day, he wouldn’t do it. My dog refused to obey the simple heel command that I knew for sure he completely understood. So I corrected Gus for disobeying. And he took that leash correction, in the form of a pop toward me, without protest. Yet Gus still did not obey. Shamefacedly, I admit that I corrected Gus again, and that again he refused.
This was very unusual, and for a long moment it confounded me. Thankfully, I stopped bullying Gus and began to reflect.
“What’s different? Every day I come home from school, I play with my dog, and then I train him.” That’s when it hit me square in the face. I was so eager to practice that when I got home I snapped a leash on Gus without actually acknowledging him, and then I began to make demands, demands that Gus was usually happy to comply with out of friendship. But this time I hadn’t greeted or played with Gus. I had simply ordered him around, and he communicated his displeasure with passive resistance.
I sat down on the ground. I invited Gus up into my lap, and then I played with him for a few minutes. I collected myself, stood up, and began the training session again. It went beautifully. That weekend we brought home more silver, which I still have. But the real prize was what I learned.
In these pages, we promise to unveil for you a pathway to a life with your dog that might once have seemed unimaginable. We will explain how to use the time you already spend training—or simply living with your dog—more wisely, and provide specific goals to meet your dog’s needs. Much more than a training manual, this book will show you how to have a life with your canine companion in an intentional, purposeful, and satisfying way. Most dog-training books focus on the one hour a day the average dog owner should spend training and exercising her dog. Here, we’ll show you not only how to get the most out of that hour but also how to build and strengthen the relationship during the other twenty-three hours.
We identified the central concept of this book as “the art of living with your dog” for good reason. Ask any good artist and he’ll tell you his work is drawn not only from inspiration but also from years of education and application. Violinists such as Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, for example, demonstrate a remarkable technical proficiency honed by many years of dedicated practice but also a creative, intuitive sense of expression that transcends pure technique. It is what makes listening to them such a delight. They’ve reached a point at which technique becomes an avenue of freedom and personal expression—an art. A similar dynamic can take place in a relationship with a dog: Technique can become art, where the various movements and commands between human and dog seem to flow effortlessly, in a relaxed rhythm of attention and respect. How different an ordinary walk looks under those circumstances from the more familiar daily drama of dog pulling owner down the street. To witness the harmony and connection between a well-behaved dog and its owner is a thing of beauty, and deeply inspiring.
But there is an important caveat to note here. In a healthy relationship with a dog, training technique needs to be balanced with a sound understanding of the nature of the dog. Too great an emphasis on technique alone can make the relationship seem artificial and stilted, inserting a level of pressure on both dog and owner that causes it to fall short of reaching the level of art. In our technology-driven world it is easy to see how this can happen. Good technique is never an end in itself, but needs to serve the broader relationship, and when that happens you observe the relaxed give-and-take between owner and dog. Ultimately, this involves putting time, understanding, and practice into a well-thought-out plan for daily life with your dog. That is where the magic happens.
At least, that is where it happens in our relationship with our dogs. Admittedly, there are many dog-training books that reflect a number of training methods. Some of these books are quite good. We’d like to think that we’ve written a few. But there remains the challenge of writing a book that grounds the reader’s understanding of the nature of the dog in reality, providing a sure foundation that can then support and complement any particular training method one chooses to follow. The more you understand how you influence your dog’s behavior and thinking, the easier it will be for you to move toward an artful relationship with your own dog.
With this book, we seek to help just about every dog owner, from those whose relationship with their dogs is healthy and who want to keep it that way, to the once conscientious owners whose commitment to their canines has begun to lapse, to those owners whose relationship with their dogs is in need of critical care. This book is written especially for those who suspect that there is something missing in the relationship they have with their dog. Here’s our promise: When you master the art of living with your dog in an intentional and purposeful way, you can have a beautiful and easy relationship where training occurs organically and the need for psychotropic drugs or quick obedience fixes is rare or nonexistent. What is even more remarkable is this: In the process, you will become more aware of the critical role you play in your dog’s life and behavior, and how the quality of your guidance affects his happiness and helps him be a better dog.
Simply put, by considering and prioritizing his needs, you’ll become more human. But first, a bit of a reality check. For this ideal to be realized, we need to set out in a clear and orderly way, laying a solid foundation from which to live the dream. Dreams are essential if we are to become fully alive, but unless you have a road map to follow, you risk not fulfilling them. This applies to your relationship with your dog. For your relationship to flourish and grow into something artful, there are certain elements that absolutely need to be present and that go beyond the nonnegotiables any healthy relationship presumes: good exercise, good diet, and conscientious socialization. These are givens. You also need to understand that dogs read your body language in the subtlest of ways, and that you can positively capitalize on this by being transparent with your dog, quietly praising her with genuine warmth and appreciation, for example, when she follows your lead. Or being patient when you are teaching her how to respond to a particular command. Your dog will perceive the sincerity present when it comes from your heart. By being attentive to how your dog is responding to you, you’ll become more conscious of yourself and more in control of your emotions, putting yourself in a better position to communicate clearly with her. She will literally help you be a better companion.
Below is a brief outline of the map we will be following.
Your intention. Any potential or current dog owners need to weigh whether they are truly committed to giving their dog the time and attention it needs to become a good companion. In these pages we will provide you with a brief “examination of conscience” to help you discern how serious you are about acquiring or caring for a dog.
Understanding the basic nature of the dog. Part of providing a dog what it needs to be a good companion involves understanding its basic nature, how it evolved, and what lessons you can learn from its historical development. We will touch on the basic drives present in the dog and explain why, being a highly social pack animal, it needs a benevolent leader in order to flourish. We will then show you practical ways to reinforce your dog’s perception of you as leader.
Common traps. Sometimes people’s expectations of what they hope to get from their dogs stem more from Hollywood’s depiction of dogs than from the real world. Further, people can allow the pressures and demands of modern life to curtail the amount of time they devote to cultivating the relationship. We will discuss these traps and provide you with a realistic picture of caring for your dog that respects her nature, builds the relationship, and then sets the stage for providing her the things she really cares about. The commitment to training is imperative, but there is much that isn’t covered by training—the critical teachable moments that you can use as they happen, rather than letting them pass.
Whether you take advantage of and benefit from teachable moments depends not only on your determination to do so but also on your awareness of what they are. If you don’t recognize opportunities when they knock, you will miss many or most of the critical chances you have to show your dog right from wrong. Even children are not born knowing right from wrong or how to fit the societal norms in which they will have to live. Of course, since we are human, it comes intuitively to us to remind a small child to say please when he surprises you by demanding something. You don’t have to prepare for or even think about that moment with a two-year-old. That’s because you just know it’s coming. When it does, you have the necessary guidance ready and dispense it as needed. Although a two-year-old may try parental patience from time to time, the child’s behavior is rarely a surprise. Simply put, it’s a big job to educate a child, whether she’s your own, a friend’s, or a relative’s. But you have serious advantages in that arena. First, you’re of the same species. And, second, we have all been children.
That’s not the case with dogs. When raising dogs, we unwittingly come to the job with one of three basic approaches:
1. The “he’ll figure it out” method, in which we don’t offer the dog a lot of information. Of course we love him, so we pet and play with him and care for him. And as he chews or potties on something inappropriate, we scold and hope he figures it out.
2. The “research it as we go” method, in which we try to respond intelligently, but only after encountering a problem. This usually involves turning to Google or YouTube, typing words in a box, and sifting through thousands of conflicting suggestions. Often this causes an owner to throw up her hands and revert back to approach number one: he’ll figure it out.
3. We plan ahead. We learn what challenges are coming from puppies and adult dogs either through untold years of experience, as the authors have done, or through well-thought-out plans, such as those we will explain in this book. We mentally prepare to partner up with a different species by studying its psychology and its needs. We give our dog what his species requires to function well within the societal norms we have set up for him. This method might be called the “do it right and the dog won’t know he’s being trained” method. And it’s important. The dog, left to his own devices, wouldn’t know it’s wrong to pee on the curtains and eat the woodwork, because that is exactly what he would do if not otherwise coached.
We remind the two-year-old child to say please when she demands the ice cream we’re dishing out. She says please and we hand over the bowl. (Of course, then we have the thank-you lesson to teach.) Ideally, we’ll only have to remind a few times, and the point is not only made but set. That’s because we intuitively understand how to motivate the child, using the treat as both motivator and reward. In other words, because we are people too, and because we were once children, we know what children care about and thus how to exploit a teachable moment.
But what do dogs care about… really care about on the deepest levels? What do they crave enough that they will sacrifice perfectly good dog behaviors such as eating whatever food they can reach? In this book we will go into great detail about multiple things dogs want and need on a deeply fundamental level. We call these things “resources.” In our childhood example, the resource was ice cream. With dogs, food is a resource, but there are many other things that dogs want: for example, affection, exercise, or rest.
If a resource is something a dog needs to be healthy and psychologically well-tuned, then shouldn’t we just give it to the dog? Ultimately, yes, we should, and indeed we will. But the how, when, and where of that giving will determine whether our dog says please and thank you or snarls, “Gimme more.”
We will give you very specific advice on how to provide—not deprive but provide—resources.
Relationship. In an earlier book, we described the desired relationship to your dog as pack leader, and we’ll talk more about that soon. This is the deeply devoted relationship your dog craves from his best friend, and we will show you how to assume that role in a benevolent way. If you’re conscious of what you want the relationship to ultimately look like, you can shape it to that effect and then enjoy the outcome.
Food and treats. Will your dog say gimme? Or will he say please and thank you? That all depends on how you set the expectations—so we’ll analyze it. In the animal world, food is a primary motivator. Wild canines have to hunt for food, expending enormous energy to find sustenance. We make it easy for our domesticated pets, and so we should. But we do not think of nourishment in the same way our dog does. Learn to use food well and your dog will be not only physically nourished but also psychologically satisfied.
Holly encourages Charlie to sit for his treat. (Photo by Jim Darow)
Space. People don’t usually think about space until they’re hunting for a new home and they look for more (or less) space. Most people only think about space when someone stands too close to them at a party, or when another driver drifts into their lane… or steals their parking spot. But dogs think about space constantly, consciously and otherwise. We can use this to our advantage. An example of using space correctly is to teach a dog to respect a small child (and vice versa). Another is using space to teach dogs not to jump on guests or bolt out an open door.
Time. “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know… what do you want to do?” Such phrases bounce back and forth between childhood friends and adults alike. In human culture, it’s normal to negotiate activities. Negotiating also happens among dogs, as well as between dogs and people. Have you ever had a friend who never seemed to care about what you wanted? Who never took your ideas or needs into account? Who always insisted on his plan? In dog-human relationships this can happen in either direction. Some dogs are so insistent on playing ball that you hide the toys; then they claw up the floor looking for the one lost ball under the couch. On the other hand, some dogs just want a walk now and again, yet the owner can’t be bothered. If you parcel out the activities a dog needs, your dog will find it easy to give you the tranquility in the home that you need.
Toys. Many dogs love them. But just as children can learn the wrong lesson when you give and give and give, so too can dogs fail to understand that it’s “just love” when you stuff the box to overflowing. Some dogs become possessive and confrontational with “their” belongings and the toy store employees who clean and stock the place. (That’s you by the way!) But if you use toys as an educational resource, you can teach your dog to respect you and the rules that help you keep your dog safe.
Emotion and affection. These days the only reason anyone in Western culture lives with a dog—with the exception of working dogs, such as service dogs, gundogs, and sniffer dogs—is for emotion and affection. But working dogs are well loved too and are among the most contented, well-adjusted dogs you’ll ever meet. That’s because they have a job to do, and the relationships they enjoy with their handlers revolve around an enormous level of mutual respect for the rules of the game. Owners of guide dogs for the blind do not randomly pet their dogs and shower them with affection. Instead, they strategically and pointedly reward them on and off—usually in quite small ways—during the workday. When the dog is off duty, the owner removes the harness and the dog becomes a pet with normal hug privileges. Why are those dogs so much happier and less neurotic than dogs that receive a far, far greater amount of overt affection from their owners? We’ll talk about that and help you get it right.
Growing up with too many toys and not enough responsibilities can accidentally teach puppies an undesirable sense of entitlement.
At the end of the day, it’s not whether you will provide resources for your dog. You will. What makes the difference in your relationship will be the how, when, and where, and we will be extremely detailed in helping you understand that.
BROTHER CHRISTOPHER Often the most satisfying clients to work with are those who face a real challenge with their dog but don’t give up, who are willing to listen and apply themselves to realize their dream. Take Fred. The fact that Fred bought a puppy in the first place was somewhat surprising. In his sixties and single, Fred had worked for most of his adult life as an executive at a national company headquartered in Manhattan. Not one to make impulsive decisions, Fred was much more of a risk-versus-reward type of thinker. He had recently retired from his high-powered job, however, and for the first time since Fred could remember, there was a hole in his life. Then he walked into a pet store and fell in love.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Fred said to us.
The puppy, a Jack Russell terrier, was named Eddie. Although it’s understandable that Fred was smitten, Jack Russells aren’t exactly a couch potato breed and can be a handful, especially for someone uneducated about dogs, which Fred was.
Predictably, Fred encountered all sorts of preliminary problems with Eddie, from house soiling to obstreperous behavior to chewing furniture. Fred even had trouble controlling Eddie on leash during walks, enduring the frustration of Eddie pulling him down the sidewalk.
When Fred brought Eddie to the monastery, the puppy was seven and a half months old. Fred had found out about the Monks of New Skete through The Art of Raising a Puppy. In reading our book, Fred realized he hadn’t fully considered the change that the addition of a puppy would bring to his life, and he hadn’t thought through all that goes into the formative training of a puppy. He also hadn’t any idea how important the puppy’s background was—Eddie could’ve come from a puppy mill for all Fred knew.
Puppy mills are horrid places, where puppies are bred solely for profit and live in factory-like conditions. They receive minimal human contact during those first formative weeks, they aren’t vaccinated, they sleep in their own filth, and then they’re placed in a shipping crate or cage, sometimes for as long as a week. That’s the puppy you typically buy at a pet store, and that’s why we don’t recommend purchasing puppies from pet stores.
As challenging as Eddie was in those early months, Fred wasn’t about to quit on him. Whatever he saw in Eddie’s eyes that day in the pet store had lodged somewhere in Fred’s heart.
Eddie’s situation wasn’t hopeless by any stretch. By following the principles described in our puppy training book—especially putting Eddie on a regular routine of three good walks a day plus making a concerted effort at socializing him with both people and dogs—Fred had made some real progress with Eddie, and that made our job much easier. In no time, we had Eddie walking politely on leash down our road, as well as doing down-stays and recalls with little rebellion. We discovered that Eddie was very toy motivated, so we concluded our training sessions with a vigorous game of fetch that Eddie looked forward to and delighted in. When Fred came back to pick Eddie up and observed him working happily in the demonstration, he was thrilled with the results. During the outtake interview, we presented Fred with a blueprint that expanded on how he could incorporate Eddie more seamlessly into his life.
The list of suggestions we provided was centered foremost on a predictable daily structure that included exercise, simple training methods, and play sessions—all ordinary things but extremely important in stabilizing Eddie’s behavior once he returned home. Most important, we coached Fred on how to claim a leadership role in the relationship in order to help Eddie integrate what he’d learned with us. We showed Fred how to use his voice and body language to express confidence and encouragement in working with Eddie, and Fred did his best to follow our lead. He came to understand that real love isn’t just that initial spark of attraction; real love is what follows the chemistry. Real love comes from the attention that goes into a lasting and healthy relationship. We promised Fred that if he followed our suggestions, his relationship with Eddie would not only be manageable but also enrich his life.
Our tale of Eddie and Fred has a happy ending. The letter we received a month and a half later said it all: “It isn’t just that Eddie has maintained what he learned at New Skete. Far more importantly for me, he actually wants to be with me throughout the day and I’ve come to experience an entirely new dimension to the relationship than before. I’m spending more quality time with him and he’s far calmer now. He’s drawn a better part of myself out in the open and I’m so much the better for it. Thank you.”
Fred made the transition to retirement in no small measure because of the happy companionship he found with his Jack Russell terrier. Eddie filled something that was missing in Fred’s life. Yet it’s not only the lonely who can profit from a relationship with a dog. The type of relationship Fred and Eddie found can be experienced by anyone, whether you’re young or old, from a big family, or living on your own. Dogs have the power to change your life for the better, but only when they’re allowed to be who they truly are, and only when you take a leadership role.