March 3, 2011

Dear Leslie,

Our family had a Boston bull terrier named Butch. One day my mother took a roast out of the oven and set it on the table to cool before we left the house on an errand. When we returned the roast was gone and Butch was lying on his back on the floor, motionless, his belly protruding. He looked pregnant with roast beef.

Given their talent for soulful begging, you might think food is all dogs care about. Our dogs Dizzy and Lucy fit into that category. Their mouths clamp down on every proffered morsel of food so fast our fingers are in danger. But Dizzy's dad Buster approaches the same morsel like a spy offered an hors d'oeuvre by an enemy.

Dogs care about much more than food.

Given a choice, Buster would rather play with a ball than eat. Or play with a Frisbee. Or an empty plastic milk carton. In the backyard, that is fun to watch, but Buster wants to play in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bathroom -- wherever he is.

When heavy rains flooded our basement recently, DC and I got out the sump pump while Dizzy and Buster played in the water. Dogs teach us that problems can be looked at a different way.

Some days DC refers to our Jack Russell terriers as the Jack Russell terrors. Those might be the days Buster attacks the bamboo wastebasket in our kitchen. He isn't interested in the discarded food. The wastebasket is some kind of nemesis, maybe because sometimes we use it as a barricade to imprison the dogs in the kitchen.

Though he can't see her, Buster barks when our neighbor Robyn walks out on her front porch to drink coffee. Does he hear her door close? Does he smell the coffee? He is an alarm system no security company could match. But who needs that much security?

Sometimes we want them to stop doing something we've rewarded them for doing at other times. How are they to know what we want?

Every dog trainer says it's the owners who require the training, not the dogs.

We and some who love us realize our dogs are confused. DC's parents gave us a book by the TV dog trainer called the Dog Whisperer, who preaches calm assertiveness to dog owners and seems especially good at handling aggressive dogs. He says dogs have three basic needs: Exercise, to know someone is in charge and to receive affection. We probably have one and a half of those covered.

A friend gave us a book by a woman who was in Israeli intelligence and began training dogs after studying wolves. She has identified seven basic needs in dogs: security, companionship, understanding the hierarchy, excitement, food and exercise, mental stimulation, and love and connection. We might be providing enough of three and a half of those, maybe more.

The missing common denominator is this business about a hierarchy. DC and I grew up in the '60s, when it became obvious that the people in charge were untrustworthy. Authority figures make us uneasy, especially if we're supposed to act like one.

When we loosed the Jack Russells on our Oscar party Sunday night, those who have dogs had a good time being climbed on and licked. Those who prefer cats abided it. The dogs quickly determined who was who, though they gave everyone a chance.

Afterward, DC said she thought the dogs behaved well at the party. She enjoys their boisterousness. My review of their behavior was that most people don't go to a party expecting to get licked in the face and covered in dog hair.

While we're trying to figure the dogs out, our lack of consensus leaves them trying to figure us out.

Humans are the only animals who will follow unstable leaders, the Dog Whisperer says.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.