Another of Patrick McDonnell's Mutts strips
Patricia McConnell's
book For the Love of a Dog is one part training manual and one part
love story. It is a study of the behaviour of our companion animals and
of ourselves, but mostly of our relationships with each other.
Much of the early part of the book is about dogs' body language and
what it tells us about their emotional state. McConnell concentrates on
four primal emotions: fear/anxiety, anger, joy and love. Here is a
summary of the signs (the book has photos that illustrate them):
- a closed mouth, 'frozen' (stiff) body or wide open 'whale' eyes (with the whites visible on the side) - anger or anxiety
- open mouth, loose body, or squinty eyes with crows' feet - friendly, relaxed
- a turning-to-face you with closed jaw - distress, warning
- looking away from you - submission, deference, desire to defuse tension
- a cocked head - curiosity
- a low growl or deep bark - anger or aggressiveness
- a shifted forward stance - alertness, confidence
- a shifted backward stance - defensive, fearful
- a frown or yawn - anxiety or fatigue
- a wrinkled nose or scowl - disgust
- corners of the mouth pushed forward - confident, aggressive
- corners of the mouth pulled back - fearful, defensive or submissive
- tongue flicks - anxious, seeking appeasement
Just as we need to be observant of dogs' body language, and careful to
note the signs rather than projecting how we would feel (or think we
would feel) in their circumstances, we also need to be aware of our own
body language and how it is being interpreted by, and influencing the
emotions of, our dogs. That means we should avoid wearing sunglasses or
large hats that can conceal or misrepresent our feelings, approach dogs
we don't know as they do (from the side without making direct eye
contact, walking loosely with mouth open and relaxed, breathing deeply and
evenly, and cocking our head). We can be sure that, though we may be
unobservant and inattentive of dogs' body language, they are very
attentive to ours.
We also need to avoid gestures and words that mean nothing, or
different things, to animals. Hugs, for example, are generally
distressing to dogs, since they block view and constrain movement and
hence are ambiguous in meaning to dogs. When our words say one thing
but our tone of voice or body language conveys something else, the dog
will respond to the latter, even when the words are those s/he has been
trained to recognize. McConnell has no use for the show-'em-who's-boss
school of training that has recently come back into vogue. There is no
substitute, she says, for positive reinforcement and gradual, patient
repetition of lessons, not to the point of intellectually exhausting
your dog.
As I read this book, it occurred to me that everything McConnell says
about how we signal to and relate wordlessly to our animal companions
applies very much to how we relate to other humans as well. "Accurate,
objective observation is a skill that requires practice, but it starts
with asking your mind to focus on what you see, not on what you think
it means", she writes. This is precisely the instruction we are given
in cultural (and customer) anthropology training, to learn to better
appreciate and understand our fellow human beings. And she goes on to
explain in Lakoffian terms how we can misinterpret our dogs by failing
to get outside our own 'frames of reference', describing a woman who
was convinced her dog's misbehaviour was an attempt to 'test' her, when
it was merely a reflection of the dog's ignorance that that behaviour
was not acceptable.
The latter part of the book explores the four primal emotions. The
chapters on fear explain the Darwinian advantage of shyness/fearfulness
(shades of my last post) but note that shyness combined with other traits
can lead to aggressiveness. Fear can be genetic, nurtured (deliberately
or accidentally), or the result of trauma. Genetic shyness can be
overcome with gentle, gradual, patient conditioning. McConnell explains
how to do this in the context of dealing with separation anxiety and
excessive barking when someone comes to the door.
The chapter on anger/hatred presents an interesting hypothesis that
fortunately doesn't extend to humans: Competition as puppies for
mother's milk and attention teaches a tolerance for frustration, and
puppies from a 'litter of one' tend to be intolerant of frustration and
prone to outbursts of anger/hatred as they grow older unless they are
carefully trained. A good test is to gently roll a relaxed puppy after
play over on his/her back and hold him/her in that position for a short
while -- puppies that become very aggressive in this situation will likely
be difficult to handle as they become full grown. Just like some
people, some dogs need to learn anger management, and this requires
considerable expertise (a series of progressive, positively-reinforced
'stay' exercises for impulse control is explained in an appendix to the
book to help with this). The danger here is that dogs will learn from
the model we show them -- if we show anger in our training and response
to them, it will reinforce the acceptability of such behaviour, no matter what we do to discourage it.
The chapter on joy/happiness lays out the conditions that make our dogs
happy: fresh water and good food, of course, but also companionship,
physical and mental exercise, consistency and clarity in our behaviour
toward them, respect for their individuality, physical contact (at the
right times, the right way in the right places), and a sense of
security. Our happiness and theirs is mutually contagious and
self-reinforcing, and, as with humans, sometimes the anticipation of
happy events is as joyful as the event itself (which is why the
'clicker' employed just before a reward is given, works so well as a
training tool).
The final chapters deal with dogs' capacity for love, jealousy, grief,
self-awareness and problem-solving. Of all the personal stories in the
book about McConnell's beloved dogs, the one I found most moving
(perhaps because it reminded me so much of my story and feelings about
Chelsea) is one of the last. Here's an extract:
About a week before [Luke,
suffering from debilitating kidney failure as a result of a lengthy
tick-borne bacterial illness] died, I began to feel that my efforts
were harassing rather than helping him. Accepting that I couldn't save
him, I switched to hospice rather than hospital care. I emptied my
calendar and spent my last week with him, soaking up the touch of his
nose, the smell of his fur, the pink of his tongue. I sat long hours
with him in the sun up in the pasture, full of the bittersweet emotions
that accompany love and grief. At the end, we slept together in a
makeshift bed on the living room floor. That's where the veterinarian
and I helped him pass on, peacefully snuggling up against me, nothing
but bones and a shockingly beautiful black-and-white coat.
After Luke died, I was dumbstruck with grief, stumbling through the
next months in a haze. I felt as if I'd been hit by a train, as though
I'd been physically as well as emotionally injured. None of my senses
seemed to function as they had before. The colors of the earth were
different, wrong somehow, although I couldn't quite say how. I coped
well enough, seeing clients, running my business, tending to my farm.
But a day didn't pass when I wasn't heartsick and hurt and angry, and
that I didn't agonize over whether there was something I'd missed,
something I could have done to save him.
McConnell goes on to relate evidence of the immense grief experienced
by Lassie, another of her dogs and Luke's best friend, in the months
after Luke's passing, laying to rest any doubt that animals feel the
same emotions, and in their own way at least as deeply, as humans.
This is a book for anyone who wants to understand our animal companions
better, either to solve behaviour 'problems' or just to begin to fathom
our own species and its relationship with the natural world. In
his books, Jeff
Vail talks about how the world is better represented by connections
than by the things connected, and McConnell's book is mostly about our
connections with dogs, and through them with nature, and our true
selves. Read it and discover how much we can learn from, and feel
mutually about, creatures who have no need for our strange and
imprecise tool of language. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
