I have a good friend who called me the other night to check up on me, she is a wise and experienced teacher, and she sometimes calls me to see how I am doing with some of the complex issues in my life.
After she talked to me about my life, I asked her about her life and we talked about her dogs. Every morning, she says, she takes them out for an hour or so to walk in some nearby woods, there are never any people there.
One of her dogs runs off into the woods sometimes, but always comes back The same dog sometimes gives her fits, barking, chewing on things, rampaging through the house. Her dogs can get wild together, and she doesn’t often get the peace and quiet she craves.
She said she loves to walk in the woods, but sometimes she does it primarily because this wild dog loves to run outside. The dog is a handful, and like many people, she spoke of him as she might a loveable but somewhat out-of-control adolescent.
She felt she owed him long walks in the woods, even if there were times she didn’t feel like it. She ascribed the restless nature of her dogs to spirit and restlessness.
My friend is a wise and knowledge person, a teacher, and she cautioned me to not think I am responsible for the lives of other people. This was good advice, and then it was my turn to give her some.
I told her my theory of dogs, my philosophy. I said I thought otherwise savvy people often confused what they needed from what the dog needed. My idea of having a dog involves stewardship on the one hand, service on the other.
I believe we drive our dogs mad when we fail to let them serve us and protect us.
My job is to care for the dog lovingly and responsibly and with compassion. To feed them, give them shelter, medical care, love and attention, to train them to live safely in our world. My job is be positive and knowledgeable about the many human foibles we bring to the relationship.
My job is to be self-aware. When my training fails, I know this is a failing in me, not the dog.
In exchange for this care, I believe in permitting my dogs to serve me, I believe dogs are happiest when they are serving people, that is their way of showing love, and it has been for 14,000 years, when they started helping humans protect their homes and hunt for food.
It is literally in their blood. We are supposed to care for them, they are supposed to serve us and our emotions. My friend said that is opposite what she had been taught and what she felt. Yes, I said, that is the opposite of what most dog lovers are taught.
If you let them, dogs will become the dogs you need, not needy creatures that force us to be out of ourselves.
I do not believe that dogs love us independently or unconditionally. Dogs are not our equals or our children, they are animals and alien spirits totally dependent on us for their very lives, every day. They can’t travel without us, eat without us, be warm or cool without us, go outside without us.
That is not a relationship of equality but of hopefully loving dependence and mutual support. Training is not about obedience, it is about showing our dogs how to live with us in a safe and loving way.
But I think my dog really needs to run in the wood for an hour each day, my friend said.
That, I said, is something she needs to do for them, not necessarily something they need.
My friend lost someone in her life recently, I said, the dogs would have sensed her troubled spirit, if she permitted it and wanted it and felt it, it would happen. Go and try it, I said. I don’t know if or when she will come back to tell me. She may have forgotten the conversation by now, she has a lot of things to think about.
Perhaps they your dogs do need to run in the woods, I said, especially if you love taking them. But you have a big fenced in yard, and if the dog needs to run, he can run there. It makes little difference to him. They adapt. It’s fine if it’s what you want to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s something you need to do.
When dogs with hunting stock – she had a part Rottweiler – run in the woods, they are not playing. They are hunting, and when they run to hunt, they are building their prey drive and become wilder, when what you need is for them to be quieter and calmer.
Too little exercise makes a dog sluggish. Too much makes them crazy and aroused. So many people believe they need to exercise and amuse their dogs all day, every day. That is not a way to get the dog you need.
Dogs do not, I believe, need special experiences every day. That is about us, not them. They just need love and some activity and exercise. In their natural state, they would sleep for most of the day, like male lions.
I meet my dogs needs, but I also want to meet mine.
I also ask “what is it that I need?” And I let them help me. It might be a head on the knee, a look in the eye, a wag of the tail. It might be quiet. It might be the healing balm of true love. Or walking along with me.
I need them to stay away from the road. To be absolutely quiet when I am working. This is not something I trained them to do, it is something every dog I have had comes to understand on his or her own. I imagine the outcome I want.
I need for them to see my study as a cathedral, a place of work and silence. They do.
I believe if I permit them to understand what it is I really need from them, as opposed to my thinking I know what they need, they will come to understand my needs and serve me.
If you give them the chance to serve, they will become the dog you need right before your very eyes, and that is the historic and literal wonder of the human-dog bond. The farmers know this, they have no interest in training, but their dogs are the best trained dogs I have ever seen.
You cannot be a friend of a person whose life you are trying to save, you can only be a friend to a person who is saving their own life. You cannot have a dog who serves, if you are so busy serving the dog.
When I am feel poorly my dogs lie at my feet. When I take a ride, they want to sit by me. When I have a fever, they lie beside me.
My philosophy is to live them the faith and trust and space to do what dogs have always done: serve us. When we believe our primary role is to serve them, the relationship is out of balance.
And a meaningful life with a dog, as with a human being, is a life in balance.
My study is quiet place for me and for dogs, no sounds, no toys, no treats, no playing. They can go outside and be loud and crazy any time they want. But not inside my house, or my place of work.
That is my sanctum. I need them to be still. As I write this, three dogs – Red, Fate, Bud – are lying in different corners of my study, quiet and still. The only sound I hear is Bud snorting while he sleeps. He sounds like a drunken frog.
They will not move an inch until they hear the click if me turning off my desk lamp.
How do they come to know this? I never tried to teach them or manipulate them.
They came to know it because it is what I need, and it is their nature to please and serve, given the chance. You get the dogs you need, because if you permit them, they will become the dog you need. That is what they do.I’m not sure my friend was convinced, but she did listen. I’m eager to see if the remembers our talk, or if she took anything much from it.
Some day I’ll write a book just about my philosophy of dogs.
