The Dog Listener: Learning the Language of your Best Friend. Monty Roberts

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      Once more, I studied the wolf pack and once more I saw the same thing. In the wolves’ case this behaviour was occurring as the pack got ready to go on a hunt. There was a lot of running around and jostling for position, but ultimately it was the Alpha pair whose heads remained erect and their tail carriage high. And it was always they who led the pack away in search of the prey.

      I realised the wolves were re-establishing who was in charge here. The leader was reminding the rest that it was his role to lead and theirs to follow. This was the pecking order and they must abide by it to survive. Clearly my pack was doing the same. What really interested me at this point, however, was my inclusion in all this. From the way my dogs were reacting around me it was clear that I was somehow part of this process. And of all my dogs, none was so keen to involve me in the process as Sasha.

      If we were going out of the house, Sasha would invariably stand in front of me. She would place herself in a position, across my body, blocking me off. Although I could hold her back with my chain she always wanted to go ahead of me. She seemed to think it was natural for her to go forward first. Equally, if there was a loud noise or an unexpected event while we were out on a walk, such as another dog appearing in front of us, she would stand in front of me in a very protective stance. She would also bark more furiously than the others when someone went past the house in view or when the postman or milkman came to the door. And unlike the others, there seemed to be no calming her in these situations.

      If I am honest about it, part of me was worried about this behaviour. It reminded me a little of Purdey who also had this habit of running around in front of me. For a while part of me feared I might let my dog down again. Fortunately this time, however, I saw what was going on. Again, memories of Donna provided a first clue. I recalled how she had behaved years earlier when I had fostered a little baby boy, Shaun. Whenever he lay on his blanket on the floor, Donna would lie next to him with her leg over his leg. If he kicked it off she would move it back. She was clearly acting as his protector, guarding over him at all times. It was now that I realised that, just as Donna had felt the little baby was her responsibility, somehow Sasha must also be feeling she had a role to perform in looking after me. Why else would I be given such specific treatment when I came in through the door or when greeting visitors? Why else would she get so hyperactive about my leading her out on a walk?

      I realise now that so many of my mistakes were down to human conditioning. Like almost every other person on this planet, I had assumed that the world revolved around our particular species, and that every other species had somehow fitted into our grand scheme. I had assumed that because I owned the dogs, then I had to be their leader too. Now, for the first time, I began to wonder if that really was the case. I began to wonder whether Sasha was trying to take care of me.

      All of the information I was getting from my dogs was powerful. But this to me was the most explosive knowledge of all. It made me completely re-evaluate my thinking. And it was then that the penny began to drop. I thought: ‘Hold on, what if I am looking at this the wrong way around? What if I am imposing a rather arrogant, presumptuous – and typically human – framework on this? What if, instead, I imagine it from a dog’s point of view and rather than thinking it is dependent on us, the dog thinks the exact opposite, that it is responsible for us? What if it believes it is the leader of a pack in which we too are subordinates? What if it believes it is its job to safeguard our welfare rather than the other way around?’ As I thought about it, so much suddenly locked into place.

      I thought of separation anxiety. Instead of looking at a dog that was worrying ‘Where’s my mum or dad?’ we had a dog worrying ‘Where’s my damned kids?’ If you had a two-year-old and realised you didn’t know where it was, wouldn’t you be going insane with worry? Dogs were not destroying the house through boredom: it was through sheer panic. When your dog jumps up at you when you come in, it is not because it wants to play with you, it is because it is welcoming you back to the pack that it believes it is in charge of.

      In many ways I felt a fool. I had made the mistake we humans make all too often in our dealings with animals. I had assumed my dogs did not have their own language, how could they – they lived with us? I had assumed that they understood they were living with me in a domestic situation. It had not occurred to me to think the rules they were playing by had been dictated to them in the wild. In short, I had imposed human constraints on them: I had allowed familiarity to breed contempt. I can’t say the idea came to me in one blinding flash, there was no apple falling from a tree or a bolt of lightning in the sky, but from that moment my entire philosophy changed.

Chapter 4

       Taking the Lead

      In a few short months I had gained a greater insight than I would have imagined possible. By taking time to watch my dogs interacting with each other, by listening to what they were telling me, I had picked up on some powerful knowledge. Behaviour I had seen in the wild was being repeated on a daily basis in my own home by my own dogs. I had begun to see how they enforced their will on others, how they showed supremacy, how they showed dominance. And there was no shouting because dogs don’t shout, no smacking because dogs don’t hit.

      From my dogs, I had isolated three clear occasions when interaction was going on between them: at times of perceived danger, when they were going for a walk and when they were reuniting. At each of these times, I saw certain dogs being put in their place, the leader asserting its authority and the subordinates accepting that authority. What I wanted to know now was, how could I take this a step further?

      To my mind, the most inspirational aspect of Monty Roberts’ work was the way he was able to replicate the behaviour of a horse even though he was a human. I knew that I had to try to follow his example and reproduce the behaviour of my dogs. I wanted to see how much difference it would make if I took charge in the way that a leader would do in the wild. I also, crucially, wanted to find out if it was something that should be done. Would there be any side effects, how would it impinge on the dogs’ wellbeing and quality of life? With this in mind, I knew the most important challenge was to develop a way of leading the dogs to decisions they were making of their own free will. As Monty puts it, I wanted a situation where if there was a meeting, I would be elected chairman. It was a daunting task.

      Before I started, I knew two elements were of paramount importance. I was soon calling them ‘the two Cs’. I had to be consistent and I also had to be calm. For generations we have been taught to instil obedience in our dogs by barking orders at them. Words like ‘sit, stay, beg, come’, we have all used them. I use them myself. Dogs do recognise them, but not because they understand the meaning of the words. They merely learn to make associations with the sounds if they are used repeatedly. As far as I am concerned, their effectiveness proves only the value of being consistent in providing information to your dog. In every other respect, shouting at the top of your voice is a surefire way of creating a neurotic dog.

      As I got ready to take the next step, this feeling was reinforced all around me. In the park where I used to exercise my dogs, I remember a man who used to exercise his Doberman. Any dog approaching the Doberman was greeted with the owner shouting and shaking a walking stick. Almost as soon as he started doing this, his dog would start growling and snapping too. I noticed that, in contrast, people who were relaxed and happy with their dogs tended to be in charge of animals who were relaxed and happy at play. This got me thinking about the nature of the leadership I should be providing, and I quickly saw that calmness seemed to be a fundamental requirement for all sorts of reasons.

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