Color Me Discouraged

Just about the dog, God bless her and you know I love her to death. Everything else is fine.

All right. We tried the halty. It was awesome. Until it wasn't. I did as the trainer had recommended and introduced the halty gradually, with plenty of treats. Sophie got treats for looking at it, treats for smelling it, treats for letting me drape it over her nose, and so many treats for letting me put it on over her head that it's a miracle she retained her girlish figure.

Sophie wasn't a big fan of actually wearing the halty, though, and was not shy about letting me know it. She showed her disinclination to wear it by lowering her head and then by walking away. As much as she loves going for walks, she would lie down rather than let me put the halty on. Unlike Sophie, I thought the halty was a great thing, once I had it strapped on her and we'd gone on a few walks.

I thought the halty partly because of what it wasn't. That is, I'd used the prong collar in the past (trainer recommendation, not my idea, and the trainer had convinced me that the collar didn't cause pain, which belief was laid to rest when Sophie began wheeling around as if to give me a nip to make me stop when I tried to keep her from murdering mail carriers). The halty was no prong collar.

I also liked the halty because I'd begun to worry that restraining Sophie from murdering mail carriers would damage her esophagus. Even though I was only using a martingale collar, it seemed to me that such force applied to the throat (the tension between her lunging and my holding the line) could not possibly be beneficial.

But the standout wonderful trait of the halty was that it didn't require all my strength to hold the line when a mail carrier passed. 

However and unfortunately, Sophie developed an aversion to the halty. I don't know if this aversion is what led to the agitation that last week led her to wheel around and actually bite me (which she has never done before) or if there is some other reason.

The wound is almost healed. If you've ever been bitten by a 75-pound dog, you know the appearance of the wound was much more impressive than the wound itself. There was a puncture wound (which burned like hell the first day) surrounded by vividly colored bruising. The bruising was about the size of a large handprint. It was on my left calf. I wore jeans all week to spare anyone the sight. Now the puncture site has healed over, and there's some mottled purple skin.

No bit of knowledge is ever useless. I learned what to do in case of a dog bite. I cleaned the wound by irrigating it with water for a few minutes, and then dabbing it with hydrogen peroxide. For the first couple of days, I applied antibiotic ointment.

The pain of the bite was nothing to its psychological effects. On me, not Sophie. I'm actually a little afraid to walk her. Even before we started using the halty, she'd been crankier and crankier. She'd lunge and leap at things that had never bothered her in the past: garbage trucks, school buses, an elderly woman in sunglasses, a passing boy on a bicycle. City buses--and there are many on the streets where we walk. She was becoming wildly unpredictable. I used to know what her triggers were; now, I don't. It seems as if anything can set her off.

Yesterday when I took her out, she lunged at a passing car before we'd taken ten steps out of our driveway. The car wasn't any of the things on her list of Things She Hates: not a mail carrier truck, UPS truck, FedEx truck, meter reader, police officer, nor person in uniform. It was just a blue car. So I turned around and we went back inside. She hasn't been walked in two days, which I know is bad for her. I'm going to muster up my Inner Resources and walk her tonight, after dark, when no one is about.

Do I have to put a muzzle on her? I don't want to. If she hates the halty this much, can you imagine how much she will hate a muzzle? And yet, we must walk in the outside world, a place that is full of Things She Hates and also full of Things That She Never Hated Before But Now Hates. I have what I think are justifiable concerns: what if the leash breaks or if I lose my grip? She could attack some poor innocent person--and I say "attack," not "bite." She bit me and then realized her mistake. I'm certain Sophie wouldn't think it was a mistake if she bit a stranger. She could run into the path of a mail truck or garbage truck or FedEx truck or city bus.

My plan is to take Sophie to the vet and ask, "What the?" Is it possible there is some kind of health problem that is exacerbating her crankiness? If not, then off to the trainer we go. 

The Dismal Situation

The dismal Situation waste and wilde,
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round 
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd onely to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed
With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd:
Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd
For those rebellious, here thir Prison ordain'd
In utter darkness, and thir portion set
As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.

Thus spaketh Milton in Paradise Lost.

My Bad Dog--I don't even know how to talk about her. I may be projecting, but sometimes I feel as if at least a few of my friends think about My Bad Dog as they would were I living with an abusive spouse. I respond as I imagine an abused woman might: by making excuses for My Bad Dog. It's humiliating.

Maybe it is just me judging myself, as I well might have judged a Not-Me someone in the same circumstance. The pragmatic voice in my nature tells me that there is a slim likelihood that I will succeed in reforming My Bad Dog. And yet, I love this dog and so I have to try.

Life with My Bad Dog is never dull. Completing an ordinary walk in an uneventful fashion floods my soul with joy and goodwill to all. For people who smile at us and pet My Bad Dog, who treat her as if she is My Good Dog, I feel an upwelling of tender affection.

Such walks, as the one we had yesterday, lure me into complacency.

And then there is a walk like the one we had the day before yesterday, during which My Bad Dog unexpectedly bolted. My daughter had been holding the leash loosely, as My Bad Dog seemed to be behaving well, but she dropped it for a second. What happened next was shocking: My Bad Dog ran into the four-lane street in pursuit of a transit bus. Three cars had to stop to avoid hitting her as she zigzagged in traffic. We ran after her, then I told my daughter to stay put, and I ran across the street and called My Bad Dog. The dog stopped, and then turned around and ran straight back to me.

On that same walk, we encountered three different mail carriers. My Bad Dog reacts to mail carriers (and their trucks) in three ways:

1. Through some miracle, she doesn't quite register their evil presence and we keep walking. This is unusual enough that when it happens, we speak about it as divine intervention.

2. There is just a momentary lunge and a growl before we get My Bad Dog's attention back. This is not quite as rare as #1, but is much rarer than #3.

3. My Bad Dog becomes fixated on the evil presence of the mail carrier (or the mail carrier's truck) and her crazy comes upon her. Truly, it can be terrifying to see the lunging and leaping, the raised hackles and bared teeth.

On that walk, we experienced all three reactions.

This morning, we experienced all three reactions in this sequence:

1. A mail carrier drove toward us as we walked on the sidewalk. My Bad Dog growled and lunged, but once the truck passed, I got her focused back on walking forward.

2. Wouldn't you know it, that mail carrier had gone up and made a U turn. So when My Bad Dog and I were walking home, I saw the mail carrier's truck a block ahead. I employed a diversionary tactic, allowing My Bad Dog free sniffing time in the shrubbery in front of a convalescent hospital, and proceeding only when the mail carrier was safe in her truck and once again driving toward us. My Bad Dog barely noticed the truck as it passed.

3. Before I had time to congratulate myself on our escape, I saw a different mail carrier driving toward us and then he parked. Right in front of us. My Bad Dog gave vent to fury that you would have to see to believe, fury so vigorously expressed that an elderly woman in whom curiosity overrode prudence, wandered onto the sidewalk in her housecoat and slippers to watch the show. (I understand how curiosity may override not just common sense, but good manners--and yet, it is so horrible to be on the receiving end of that nakedly avid interest, especially when one is working with all one's might to avert bloodshed.) The mail carrier waved to me with both hands, gesturing that I should keep walking past him. I don't understand how he could have thought that was a good idea. My Bad Dog barked and growled and leaped and lunged with all her strength. I even had a quick stumble and fall in the tussle. It seemed like an eternity in hell, but it was probably less than a minute before I got her turned around and we went home another way.

We moved to this neighborhood in November. In our last neighborhood, there was one mail carrier, and we knew what time to stay off the street to avoid encounters. But here--the mail carriers are legion, their routines unpredictable. There's an army of mail carriers. It's like being in a horror movie of psychotic mail carriers, or a nightmare in which a malevolently grinning mail carrier pops up at every corner.

At home, we're making significant progress: I'm allowing My Bad Dog to do what she perceives is her sworn duty to protect and serve by giving warning barks about passing strangers on the street, odd noises, or dogs barking in the distance. I ask her to stop once she's alerted me to the potential for danger.

With the mail carrier, I try to be alert enough to escort My Bad Dog into my room before her crazy comes upon her, and then I stay with her until the mail carrier has long since disappeared.

But with mail carriers in public, I still don't quite know what to do. In this, what seems to be the natural habitat of a diverse and thriving population of mail carriers, the only way to avoid them is to walk in utter darkness--that is, stay off the street 8-5 Monday through Saturday. It may come to that.

Like a Normal Dog

We finally took My Bad Dog to the dog park near our house. We've taken her to the other dog park, where she always gets along famously with her brethren. That dog park is like Dog Disneyland; there are so many dogs of every breed, size, and shape. There are mutts. There is a group of owners of Rhodesian ridgebacks that travel in a pack. There is a statuesque older lady whom I've only ever seen swathed in voluminous cloaks (yes, plural) who, walking slowly with the aid of a cane, presides over a pack of rescued dogs that includes a bulldog and a Chihuahua. Once she scolded me roundly for giving the bulldog a biscuit (I misunderstood her answer when I asked permission) because he was on a raw-food diet. If you're lucky, you might see Murphy, a black mastiff universally acknowledged as the alpha of all alphas, break up a fight.

But we (our collective household, minus My Bad Dog) had a bad memory of this dog park from when we had first brought My Bad Dog home from the rescue organization whence she came. We thought we'd take her to the park to tire her out. No sooner had we closed the chain-link gate behind us than a boisterous young poodle (a giant of a standard, not a toy) loped over and exuberantly mounted Sophie, who immediately registered her disapproval. About a thousand little flopsy and mopsy dogs scampered over to see what was happening, yipping all the while. In the mayhem, I shouted at the poodle's owner to get her dog (undeterred by Sophie's protest, the poodle was still leaping and pawing at her). The owner chided me ("He's just a puppy!") before dragging the poodle away.

In retrospect, I see my mistakes (plural). Still, we'd never gone back.

This morning was beautiful, with golden light streaming across the green grass. Behind the fence, the ground was covered with orange leaves. There were only two owners and two dogs: a funny-looking grayish terrier mix belonging to a pleasant guy about my age and a gorgeous fawn and white pitbull belonging to an older woman whose manner might be described as completely neutral. The terrier was friendly, the pitbull shy. We threw a tennis ball for the dogs, and except for a brief raise of the hackles at the pitbull ("It's all right," the pleasant guy said, "they're fine"), all was harmony. On the way home, we encountered an elderly basset hound named Cecil. Cecil growled at My Bad Dog, who reacted, as she always does when small dogs growl at her, with a calm wag, which reassured Cecil, whose owner complimented us on our good, sweet dog.

Which she was, until we saw a mail carrier drive by, and she became the hound of hell, the dog people are so afraid of. In fact, so many people seem so afraid of her, even those who have never seen the hound of hell display, that whenever anybody--the pleasant guy at the dog park, Cecil's smiling owner--treats My Bad Dog like a normal dog, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude.

What's going on with the mind-regulating training? It's dogged as does it, I keep telling myself. As anyone who's ever raised a child or trained a dog knows, the effort is probably 90% training myself in order to act in such a way that encourages the desired behavior and discourages what is unwanted.

I got myself to understand that it's not possible (nor do I want to) train her out of barking completely. She is a dog; it's in her nature to bark, joyfully, playfully, in welcome or in warning. What I want to do is eliminate the crazy so that her barking might be constructive, rather than compulsive.