Flynn

I just added links to the side bar, and I’m sure the list will grow….

I want to talk about Flynnie and how miraculous she is. Her story is written elsewhere (not on this blog), but how she has chosen to relate to Maudie from the very beginning has really astonished me.

That very first time we all went down to KV with the papillons to meet Maude, I was mostly worried about Flynn. She has not had a lot of experience with large dogs except in class, whereas Sonny and Gus both grew up with a Golden and a sheltie mix.

So she was not fond of them. In fact when we would go visit the Bairds, and one of the big dogs was out on the stoop, she wouldn’t even go past her. I’d have to pick her up. The times she would go by, she ‘d go with her best “big dog what big dog?” face. They frightened and puzzled her.

So her reaction to this full-grown collie was key. Flynnie would tell me if she was safe or not, if I listened carefully.

And damn if she didn’t surprise me once again. Flynn was the least worried of the 3 papillons. At one point, I was sitting on the floor and Maude was lying next to me and Flynnie just marched right up next to her head to remind me not to forget her. She was not at all frightened, not even concerned. She didn’t appreciate Maudie’s lack of manners…trailing along with her needle nose up Flynn’s butt…but otherwise she was OK.

Now Flynn is no dummy. IN fact I’m still not convinced Flynn is even a dog, but an alien who hopped into a silky cute suit and came on down to earth to find me. She had to know that this giant hairy girl dog had claimed a piece of my heart, and she stood the very real proposition of having to share a little more of the house with her. Besides I had talked about it with her. So its not like she didn’t know what was going on.

Flynn is my first papillon, my familiar; she is my magic dog, the one who chose me, and claimed me for her own. Our devotion to each other is unwavering. But she has never, not once, showed the slightest resentment, jealousy or peevishness about Maudie. In fact, she’s the only papillon who tries to play with her. (Wisely, she will only interact in any active way at all with her when she is on a chair that puts her at Maudie’s head level.)

And frankly she’s always been like that. She is the unquestioned queen of the household, and she rules with such benevolence and generosity. She is always the first to warm up to visiting dogs…I believe she just has excellent hostess skills. This is her house after all.

The only part she does not like at all…is the part where she has to share me in training. At Ellie’s she pitches a monkey fit when she’s in her crate and I’m working with Sonny or Maudie. And I think it unnerves her to point of distraction.

As a result, I’m changing my schedule so that I take only Maudie one week and Flynn and Sonny the next. I WANT to only take one at a time…but then each has to wait so long to go next.
They all are in the midst of an important process too. Maudie and I are learning to communicate;
Sonny has another leg to earn for his CD and
Flynn just got a new set of articles…really cute tiny articles….Her first, my first.

It’s a full life…and it is just galloping by…

The Papillons

Soon...I need to talk about the papillons...my delicious French pastries, my silky aliens, my tiny Iditarod team, my half cat half collie models, my friends...

Cesar Millan

Last night I watched the first 8 episodes of Cesar Millan’s show, The Dog Whisperer. He has caused quite a storm in the dog world and as a public figure I’d say he is the American version of Barbara Woodhouse. In other words, he is influencing an entire generation of dog owners with his training ideology. There is furious debate about whether or not that ideology is sound, particularly in terms of its stress on dominance and submission.

I had to see for myself. And this is what I have to say about him….

1. At core he is working from a deep understanding of dog/human relations and it is the SAME one that ALL good trainers understand... Primary: dogs are not furry people* and many people are more focused on projections of their own needs for affection than the dog’s needs for a secure and happy life. They need constructive stimulation and trust in their owner’s leadership skills. In a dog’s world SOMEBODY has to be in charge. They want leadership more than they want “freedom.”

*Patricia McConnell talks about it this way in both of her excellent books**: People behave like monkeys and dogs behave like dogs. Communication is not a given, as we operate from different readings of body language. IE: We see hugs as signs of affection, and direct approach as respectful: they experience hugs as strangeness to be tolerated and direct approach as aggression.
**The Other End of the Leash
**For Love of a Dog

2. His approach to that understanding is very male. It is direct, get the job done with no f***ing around. He doesn’t care that the dog he just taught how to walk respectfully on a leash is frightened and stressed. Signs: tail between legs, drooling, licking of lips. I think he figures they’ll get over it. Where he barrels through a dog’s stress and discomfort, others might slow down, be more sensitive to what the dog is saying and offer more encouragement and positive reinforcement. It is a matter of leadership styles, positive vs. negative reinforcement, “male” and female” styles. (Not men vs. woman…plenty of women lead in a “male way”)

3. It also relies heavily on a vocabulary that needs examination. Dominance and Submission are very tainted words in our culture…we tend to see the submissive as OPPRESSED by the dominant. Master/Slave. Majority/Minority. Men/Women.

If we were to substitute the words Leadership for Dominance and Trust for Submission… we might see his work more clearly.

4. There was only one out of nine episodes where I saw him adapt and soften in regards to the dog’s needs. That was the visit with the Shih Tzu who refused to walk on a leash. He was firm, gentle and upbeat…and I heard him praise the dog. Praise is RARELY heard on the episodes I saw…He uses negative reinforcement to achieve balance…”When you submit, I will stop doing this uncomfortable thing.”

5. I am grateful. Yes, GRATEFUL, that he is so popular. I have never been able to walk my own dogs as comfortably, because I think a lot of people are taking his advice and controlling their own dogs out in the world. (Well…a lot MORE people).

6. More dogs are given up and destroyed from a lack of leadership, guidance and stimulation than from “cruelty” or “lack of freedom.” The dog relegated to the backyard and ignored is the dog who was not taught how to behave properly in the house, with the family. These are the cases we see him confront. I believe he has probably saved many many lives.

It is a mixed response. I think he does more good than harm. Still, I prefer the conversation that trainer Suzanne Clothier initiates with dogs...I wish SHE had a TV show! For now, her book, Bones will Rain From the Sky, will have to suffice.
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I love that in the title sequence of his show Millan says he wants to "share the knowledge he was born with." Maybe he was. Born with it. I'm still learning how to be that leader my dogs need. It is one of my life goals....

The Pre-Education of a Therapy Dog

Several experienced people have suggested that in order to raise the odds of getting a dog who will qualify for therapy work, I’d do best to get a dog….that is…not get a puppy.
With a dog, the temperament is more evident, and there are fewer surprises. Puppies grow and change; even the most outgoing youngster can develop quirks that you may or may not be able to work with. And if your heart, like mine, is set on doing this work, why NOT increase your odds?

Maudie is 2. I sometimes wish---with a powerful yen---that I had gotten her as a puppy. Watching a collie grow up is a wonder; they go through so many physical stages…weedy, fuzzy, and then they bloom into big gorgeous peonies. And of course, I would have loved to have known and grown WITH her. Dogs are with us for so short a time…it is a little pang that 2 years of her passed without me….

Nevertheless. I chose her---and she was chosen FOR me---because her solid confidence and gentle loving spirit are large, and had developed enough for us to able call those qualities dependable.

Her early life is somewhat of a mystery, but I know L & E did many things very right. Genetically, she is sound, and knock wood, healthy; the dogs behind her have good temperaments. She was exposed to enough stimulation and variety so that I have encountered very little that daunts her…she glides over metal grates, doesn’t flinch when something in the kitchen crashes, is eager to meet people, allows herself to be touched all over, tolerates the most uncanine-like human hugs, and has a foundation of listening to human speech enough to make around-the-house communication easy. (Go in; Go out, Wait, etc.)

So what have I been doing these 6 months while we waited to have the interview that will hopefully begin the process with Dove Lewis? Well, I take her to as many different places as I can, work in obedience (which is really just learning to communicate back and forth at a deeper level), ask her to meet and greet as many people as are willing. When someone admires her on a walk, I ask them if they’d like to meet her and facilitate a little exchange. (Her stunning good looks and collie aura at such times make me feel like the manager of a movie star…hee hee…Lassie legacy.)

I discourage her from jumping and climbing on people, and try to help her become more aware of where her body is in space.

But mostly, all this adds up to a simple preparation: we are learning to be a team, partners who go out into the world together to work, who can count on each other to keep them safe, who can speak clearly to one another. We are learning how to read each other’s moods and limits, how to cheer each other up, or calm each other down. She is mine. I am hers. We walk out together.

What I Know So Far

The days rise and fall, folding into each other and flying away like leaves off my car on the highway.*

(*It’s kind of funny actually…you can tell we don’t have a garage because my car looks like Pigpen from Peanuts …trailing great swaths of dead leaves as they dry and blow off at 60 mph)

The benefit of keeping up with a journal---or a blog—is that it somehow defines time enough to hold to. What WERE those first months with Maud like? What stories do I want to keep? Which ones will become fascinating little clues to who she is; which will show me how she has changed and grown?

This is what I know so far:

She came to us with impeccable manners, sitting to greet people, sitting to have her lead put on, walking very calmly right at our sides when we go out. On the grooming table she is a dream. She lies down to eat. She thoroughly enjoys the library of beds she has to lie on; she prefers stuffed toys or plastic bottles to play with; she doesn’t much like vegetables. She is a happy girl. She is, indeed, verbally gifted and will run outside just to bark her serious big bark. She paces when she is bored, and she paces on walks because we can’t go fast enough to keep her at a trot. When she lies down she heaves a great leonine sigh, like an old lady or an enormous male lion. She floats on her feet.

Sometimes when I’m getting ready for bed, the lights are off and everyone else is asleep, she’ll get up onto the couch in the living room just to see herself up there. Like trying on a hat.

It was quite easy to turn her opinion of the car around. At first it made her queasy and uncomfortable, but I took Flynnie, a handful of chicken and Maudie out into the driveway to sit in it for a few days in a row. And on the third day we drove to Burgerville and shared a burger and ever since…well...she loves the car. She rides quietly in the back in her crate and looks forward to our next adventure.


She is easy to take places, calm, unflappable, confident, and nice. She’s truly a nice person….friendly to MOST everyone. (It’s funny, if she meets someone I’m ambivalent about, she will often ignore them utterly.) She works the room and doesn’t get attached anywhere, although she has her favorites.

Thus, her loyalty is very touching to me. When she comes back to find me and check in, she is coming back to check on her partner. Yesterday, when we were visiting some smoothie cousins, at one point she lay down between H and me and laid her head on my sneaker. It was a gesture of ownership in the finest sense of the word….in the sense of belonging.

She is lots of fun to train, being very very bright and willing, forgiving and up beat. Best of all she has a sense of humor and I get her jokes. More and more we become a team, the lines of communication opening up wider. On our walks, she will sometimes put herself into heel position, like she’s asking me to dance.

One area of some consternation is that although she has the gentlest of souls, she is a bit clumsy and she seems not to understand the difference between her 60lbs and the papillons 8… indeed I think she thinks she might BE a papillon.* It requires some vigilance on our parts: we would never leave them all alone in the house, and when we go into the backyard, the papillons go first and get to arrange themselves before she goes barreling through the door.
(* think The Ugly Dachshund)

Another is my own adoration of her name. Maudie. I say it far too often in far too many situations so that she has begun to tune it out. (Like that cartoon….”blah blah blah blah Maudie blah blah blah”) It’s just that I LIKE it so.
But I need to work on that.

And so. Six months after her arrival we are preparing to go on our first interview at Dove Lewis to assess her temperament and our suitability as a team to do therapy work. I have high hopes…yes I allow myself to have them…as well as faith, that more useful and cogent of psychic states….that we will do well and start a new life together making the world a little calmer, a little more optimistic, a little more beautiful. She is a collie after all…she goes trailing beauty after her….

a s l o w summer for writing

I’ve dropped the ball, or the pen, as far as keeping up with the essays and blog this summer. Sometimes I wonder if when “one’s” heart’s desires are fulfilled, making dog collars becomes enough... But no worries. The summer is for making things and hanging out wordlessly with the dogs. In the studio. Training. Taking photographs. But here’s a small update:

Maudie was spayed in June and had was a remarkably FAST recovery.
She has been many places with me. Crowded openings, fabric stores, my classroom on finals day, visiting, city streets. She does not disappoint. She likes everyone she meets and conducts herself with dignity. Although she has developed a yen for meeting the dogs we encounter on our evening walks and that can make her a wild girl. We’re working on it.
She is learning to heel...I think the most difficult of all the obedience exercises....and her work with the dumbbell is rapid.
She has a depth of intelligence that surprises me; she is both eager to please and an independent thinker, as well as a sophisticated and hilarious comedienne.
I find working with her very comfortable...her steady good nature rubs off on me.
Meanwhile, the papillons, my little flutterbugs, also do well. Flynn amazes me with her generosity and intelligence. she is my fairy princess, my wise alien, my heart.

It is 6 months now since Maudie has been here, so it is time to get back to Dove Lewis and start prepping for the therapy work.
I'm not quite sure what KIND of work she'll most enjoy...Probably visiting a whole gaggle of people....wihtout llingering.
ALthough when I took her with me to school for the final day, she immedieatly stretched out on the floor for a nap...so maybe she'll be a good READ dog after all!

Why I Do Obedience

This tribute has been floating around the dog net for years now...but I still love to read it. It inspires me everytime. I would love to change, however, the pronoun "it" to either he or she...depending upon which dog the author had formost in her mind as she wrote....

I recently dug it out as Maudie and I have started training.

What is an Obedience Title, Really
by Sandy Mowery of Highland, Wis.

Not just a brag, not just a stepping-stone to a higher title, not just an adjunct to competitive scores, a title is a tribute to the dog that bears it, a way to honor the dog, an ultimate memorial. It will remain, in record and in memory, for about as long as anything in this world can remain. Few humans will do as well or better.

And though the dog itself doesn't know or care that its achievements have been noted, a title says many things in the world of humans, where such things count. A title says your dog was intelligent and adaptable and good-natured. It says that your dog loved you enough to do the things that pleased you however crazy they may have sometimes seemed.

And a title says that you loved your dog, that you loved to spend time with it because it was a good dog, that you believed in it enough to give it yet another chance when it failed, and that, in the end, your faith was justified. A title proves your dog inspired you to that special relationship enjoyed by so few; that in a world of disposable creatures, this dog with a title was greatly loved and loved greatly in return.

And when that dear, short life is over, the title remains as a memorial of the finest kind, the best you can give to a deserving friend, volumes of praise in one small set of initials after the name. An obedience title is nothing less than love and respect given and received and permanently recorded.