10
The Good Pack Leader: Emotion
Dogs are creatures of the heart. Their emotions are plainly before us, as if their bodies were transparent. Is it any wonder that we treasure our connection with them?
—Bless the Dogs
Allow us, if you will, to share a little history of humankind’s relationship with dogs.
There was a time when only the privileged few kept dogs as pets. We can see from hieroglyphics that as far back as ancient Egypt, members of the ruling class kept dogs for companionship. Ramses the Great (1303–1213 BC) is shown with his hunting dogs in wall paintings in his tomb. The well-to-do of the ancient world were often buried with their dogs to help guide them in the afterlife. Along with their owners, these dogs were sometimes mummified.
In the year 1000 or so, the king of the gold-rich Ghana Empire in Africa kept dogs that wore gold and silver collars. In the Middle Ages, the rich held their pet dogs in the highest regard. There is the story of the Duke of Berry, who during the Hundred Years’ War was so moved by the sight of a dog that would not leave his master’s grave that he arranged a lifetime pension to keep the dog well fed and cared for.
During the Renaissance, noblewomen were sometimes painted with their lapdogs. In many parts of the world then, from Europe to China, the wealthy and royalty kept dogs for a variety of recreational purposes, such as hunting and racing.
Throughout most of human history, however, dogs were not kept as pets or for companionship but rather as working helpers, in some cases more capable and always far cheaper than people. Even before the time of Jesus, dogs herded and guarded sheep. Survival for everyone meant hard work. There was game to be hunted and retrieved; livestock to be herded and brought in; fish that had floated free from nets to be retrieved. Food was difficult to come by and required backbreaking labor. So if you were going to give food scraps to a dog, you wanted a return on your investment. In other words, if your dog wanted to be part of the family, it had to work. We won’t tell you what happened to the dogs that wouldn’t work, but believe us, it wasn’t good.
The dogs that did show an aptitude for helping humans, however, became tremendously valuable assets. Those lucky dogs were fed, cared for, and encouraged to pass along their genes.
Then came the Industrial Revolution and a fundamental change in the relationship we all had with our dogs. As manufacturing sped the production of goods, a phenomenon called leisure time developed. Though there was, and still is, a set of working dogs—in farming and security, for instance—humans generally didn’t have to depend on dogs to work as much as they had in the past. This trend continued throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries until companionship became the primary role of our dogs.
Today, in a digital age in which people’s connection to one another is often electronic, when aging baby boomers increasingly find themselves alone, and when marriage rates are historically low, the dog has stepped into the breach and has become for millions even more than a companion. Dogs have become our children, our crying towels, our significant others.
In the appropriate measure, there is nothing wrong with sharing emotions with your dog. In fact, our emotional connection with our dogs contributes to both our mental and our physical health. An American Heart Association panel found that keeping dogs as pets lowers the risk of heart disease. Dr. Thomas Lee, co-editor of the Harvard Heart Letter, writes, “People who have dogs live longer than people who have cats, and the assumption has been that dogs naturally cause their owners to be more active. The emotional benefits of having an affectionate creature are also one of the theories for why dog-lovers live longer.” Dogs can allow us to feel connected to another living, breathing creature, one that doesn’t get too busy to see us, that doesn’t just send us the occasional text or email, and that really wants to be with us.
Yes, in the right proportion, and in concert with taking the pack leader role, our emotional relationship with our dogs can be a very good thing.
MARC Paulina had a young adult male collie named Bailey. Bailey was big and beautiful, rambunctious and filled with much more energy than Paulina could handle. A retired nurse, Paulina was seventy, very overweight, and suffering from diabetes and symptoms of early heart disease.
Paulina and Bailey’s relationship had a couple of problems, not the least of which was that Bailey would wait for Paulina to sit on her couch, then would go to the far end of the house, run at Paulina full speed, and hit her right in the chest with his front paws. He also wouldn’t let Paulina groom him. All Paulina had to do was hold the brush, and Bailey would begin to growl at her.
It wasn’t as if Paulina was a novice with dogs. “He’s the fifth collie I’ve had in my life,” Paulina told me. “All the other ones loved to be groomed. It was our special time, and I taught all of them to fetch me the brush. This one? He won’t get the brush, and when I’m holding it, he growls if I try to touch him!”
The fuel that fed Bailey’s “mischief engine” comprised two parts: First, Paulina was overly emotional with him. As a breed, collies can respond well to a lot of emotional attention. Paulina’s other dogs had. But not all collies do, and Bailey didn’t. The second reason Bailey acted as he did was a buildup of energy with limited opportunity to work it off. With her physical ailments and a shaky leash technique, Paulina was not able to walk Bailey. She had, however, spent his entire puppyhood coddling, stroking, and chatting with him. Long story short, though Bailey was strongly bonded to his owner, he thought she was a pushover.
After training Bailey, I sent him home with instructions for Paulina to touch and praise him only when he had done something good that she had requested. I also suggested that she begin to walk Bailey. “I can only walk twenty feet before I start struggling for breath,” she said.
Twenty feet is a good start, I told her.
Paulina bought a cane that opened to a stool. She began walking Bailey in short increments at first, resting when her breathing became too heavy. Then a funny thing happened. Paulina started to gain stamina. Within a few months, her walks with Bailey were extended considerably. With the longer walks, Paulina’s health improved. With a healthier heart, she was able to have a procedure that helped her reduce her weight dramatically. A year later, Paulina called me and asked if I’d watch Bailey for her—she was taking a cruise with her family. When I inquired about Bailey’s progress, Paulina told me her relationship with him was as strong as any of the ones she’d had with her other collies.
“He gets me the brush,” she told me.
Because Paulina placed Bailey’s need for exercise and leadership over her own needs, Bailey no longer jumped on her to demand attention. Paulina took the leadership role in the relationship, and Bailey began to enjoy the bonding experience of grooming. Along with his owner, Bailey became healthier and happier thanks to the walks.
Paulina and Bailey’s story is inspirational and exemplifies what a good relationship with our dogs can produce. Yet for every dog owner who has seen the light like Paulina, there are far too many others who engage their dogs in an unhealthy emotional relationship.
Emotion as a Resource
Although some might call it anthropomorphism, we are not afraid to assert that both people and dogs are emotional creatures. Increasingly, scientific evidence backs up the concept that dogs experience emotions in ways similar to people’s experience. Dr. Stanley Coren, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, writes,
We have now come to understand that dogs possess all of the same brain structures that produce emotions in humans. Dogs have the same hormones and undergo the same chemical changes that humans do during emotional states. Dogs even have the hormone oxytocin, which, in humans, is involved with feeling love and affection for others. With the same neurology and chemistry that people have, it seems reasonable to suggest that dogs also have emotions that are similar to ours.*
It’s no wonder we’re so tempted to share our emotions with dogs. They not only respond in kind but also affect us in profoundly emotional ways.
This has good and bad aspects. Good because dogs enrich our lives, but bad because they are not equipped to handle the emotions we load onto them. Perhaps more than any of the other resources your dog covets, emotion should be given with the greatest of care. It is the caviar of resources, rich and satisfying. But, like caviar, it should be served in proper portions and only at the right moment. In fact, the emotional resource is so powerful that if your dog doesn’t earn it, you are sending the message that you are not the pack leader who is to be respected, but rather a sibling to be played with.
Fortunately, you can have both emotional sharing and the required respect. You just have to take the lead. Control your emotions, dole out words, touches, and caring glances as rewards for jobs well done, and there will be many more well-done jobs coming from your dog. Most important, you’re likely to see a lot less anxiety and disobedience.
The best way to show your dog you love her is by caring for her. Caring does not mean lavishing her with gifts and looks of love. Caring is seeing to her well-being, providing for her, and keeping her healthy and safe. Caring for your dog means giving her the resources she covets in moderation. It means educating her in manners that will keep her healthy and safe.
Here’s our promise: If you share your emotions with your dog only in the appropriate moments and proportions, you will have a healthy emotional relationship with him. Period.
Still, it’s important to remember that dogs and humans belong to different species. Although there is little doubt that dogs can love, they do not exercise that prized emotion the same way we do. A dog can love us only in the way in which he is equipped. To fully respect who dogs are, and what they need to be happy, we must understand this: Dogs are not human. Their needs are different from ours. Humans tend to express love with touch and words. So we pet our dogs constantly and talk to them throughout the day. Yet if you watch dogs that are relaxed and bonded with each other, you’ll certainly see that they sometimes touch each other, and might even wrestle and vocalize some. But their play is more likely to resemble mock combat, during which they’re actually working out who is stronger and who is more committed. What bonded dogs will do even more than wrestle and vocalize is spend significant time fully experiencing togetherness. They’re not watching TV or reading texts. They’re not fussing with each other. They are simply lying in close proximity, maybe even together, and are being together in a way from which we humans really can learn. There is an art to togetherness, and dogs are good at it. This is a high form of love: being close and needing no other distraction or entertainment as a diversion.
