Teaching An Old Human New Dog Tricks

I was looking at my boxer Winnie earlier today, wondering if she was underweight for her type of breed, so I launched into some spontaneous Internet research.

I love researching using the Internet, because one can find inordinate amounts of information using just a few search terms in mere seconds. This is one of the greatest abilities humans have in our world today, in my opinion. When I was a youngster, I remember having to physically visit a library – yes, I could spend hours walking up and down the aisles of books, scanning the titles on the spines; if the title was clever or interesting enough to catch my attention for longer than a millisecond, I might pull the book off of the shelf and open it up to read the jacket, giving me a synopsis of the content. But the Internet! Once you hit the “search” button, it miraculously retrieves literally thousands of “virtual books” if you will – and with one more click on any address, I now have access to pages upon pages of data. Sometimes, if I am completely engrossed in learning about some new topic, I will look at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of my computer screen and realize, “Oh my god, I’ve been at this for three hours!” So, yes, it is important to also have solid filtering skills when surfing the ‘net. And know how to swim or risk drowning.

So, worried about Winnie’s health, I searched “boxer weight chart” and found a website which had information on boxers: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/. I clicked on the link, and I looked at the pictures of boxers on the site to see how they compared to how Winnie looked (the reason I suspect she might be underweight is because I can see her ribcage and her hindquarters and legs seem to be “thinner” in proportion to the rest of her body). The pictures showed dogs with muscular torsos, tapering off to slender hindquarters similar to Winnie, but she still looks like she could do to add maybe five to eight more pounds of meat on her, in my opinion. Although I do take her to the vet regularly for her shots, and the vet has never indicated that she isn’t eating enough. Hmmm. I will have to make it a point to ask the vet next time we visit.

So I read a little about the boxer breed – temperament, life expectancy, origin – and then I noticed some additional links to the right of the page. I clicked on one entitled, “Successfully Adopting A Rescue Dog” – all of my animals are rescued, including Eezma (the cat). This one was literally a gold mine of information, and the more I read the more I realized I was doing quite a few things wrong in establishing a secure, stable environment for my dogs. Sharon Maguire, the author of this particular article, starts off by saying that shelters are full of great, misunderstood animals – because human beings don’t speak “dog” and subsequently, because of this inability to understand what a dog is attempting to communicate in terms of its needs, blames the dog when the human owner is the one creating the problems. According to Sharon, the two primary reasons dogs are returned to shelters are: a) lack of exercise and b) lack of leadership. Since I make it a point to walk my dogs every day, I decided that I was more of a “lack of leadership” offender. In a household which includes dogs, it is critical to establish that the humans are the leaders of the pack; the “alpha” who must be followed and obeyed. This is a natural canine expectation… and when the human doesn’t act like the alpha, the dog assumes that means that he or she is the alpha. That’s when you start to see all the “bad” behaviors – excessive barking (for attention, like Canela likes to do), aggression – this contributes to an environment in which the dog doesn’t feel secure. “Dogs who are not given clear structure and rules are not secure happy dogs. In order for a dog to be secure they must clearly know who is running the show. It is either going to be you or them.” Sharon goes on to say that while this might sound harsh, it is important to remember that when dealing with canine animals, the human must think like THEM.. not to have the expectation that it’s going to work the other way around.

I realized, after reading this article, that I have been enabling Canela’s bad behavior – I adopted Canela ( a whippet Jack Russell mix) a little over a year or so ago from Liz’s younger sister Katie. My neighbor Erin likes to say that when Canela showed up, she taught Winnie all her bad habits – which is true for the most part; Winnie has always been the greatest dog – the Bunny and I were extremely lucky to find her. At the time that I brought Canela home, I had decided that Winnie needed a friend as she would frequently whine for no apparent reason. I assumed she wanted attention and interaction from me, but I was – and am – too busy with my never-ending to do list.

Now, Canela is part of the family. She can be very sweet, yes, but she can just as often be very annoying. Now I realize that the annoying times are when Canela is trying to assert herself as the alpha of the pack. No wonder she is insecure! And all this time I have been frustrated with her behavior, it’s been me enabling it the entire time. The light bulb has suddenly lit up the dark tunnel.

It’s going to take a little effort on my part, but I am going to try to be a bit better about communicating my alpha status to my pack. And I think the reward is that we are all going to be much happier -and me a lot less frustrated.

I look at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of my computer screen. Only 9:17pm. Not too bad. Time to get off this computer though – I hear a glass of wine calling my name. And I know when I sign off and get up from my chair, Canela – who has been sleeping at my feet under the desk – will spring up and follow me out of my office, through the kitchen, into the living room – I’m not going to be annoyed anymore that she shadows me everywhere; she is following my lead; I’m her alpha. She is doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing.

Who knew I could learn to speak dog? But I guess that should be expected of a Communications expert like I profess to be. Ha.