Dog Talk: Lessons Learned from a Life with Dogs - Hardcover

Introduction

 

I’m going to start this book with a confession: I’m a hypocrite. For fourteen years now I’ve been telling listeners to my radio show, Pet Talk, not to buy a puppy from a retail store, not to buy a puppy on impulse, not to buy a puppy at Christmastime, and not to buy a puppy if you have children under the age of four. But when the only girl born in your family in fifty- nine years looks up at you with her baby blue begging eyes and says, “Daddy, can I have this little puppy? Please, I want her sooooo bad,” all logic and fortitude melt away as you turn to daddy putty and you hear a voice that sounds like yours saying, “Okay, baby.” Then your heart seizes up and you think, “I can’t believe I just did that!” But it’s too late. “Do as I say, not as I do.” Isn’t that the mantra of hypocrites?

 

Oh yes . . . and the puppy was a seven- week- old shih tzu with a lazy eye. Because I also always tell my listeners not to get a puppy that young and not to take one with health problems. While I’m at it, I might as well be a big hypocrite.

 

I’ve built my reputation as a dog trainer by working with some of the world’s toughest police and protection dogs, finding ways to deal with dogs who were very difficult to handle. Most of those dogs lived in my kennel—although some of them came in and out of the house and eventually became beloved members of our family.

 

While I’ve also worked with many of the little guys, I’ve never been especially fond of owning small, yappy dogs. It was a different story with my wife, Jill, though. She grew up with a small dog and always wanted another one for our kids. She astutely figured out that I’d never get one just because she asked, so she successfully passed the torch of that want and need to our four- year- old daughter, Alexandra Jane. Jill saw to it that the flame of that desire never went out, and the need for a smaller dog, a house dog, a dog who would be Ally Jane’s little pet, had been a theme in our house for some time.

 

I finally promised them we could get a small dog when all the kids were older than four, because I am the kind of guy who practices what I preach—most of the time. This meant another two years; Chandler, my youngest, was two at the time. But you know how patient little kids are.

 

A few months before Christmas, Ally Jane started hitting me pretty heavy with the requests. Every time we saw a puppy on television or passed one on the street, she wanted it. She climbed up in my lap one day with those very sad puppy dog eyes and the pouty lips and said, “I just want a puppy, Daddy. If that’s all I get for Christmas, that’s okay. All I want is a puppy.”

 

That’s when I took my first step down that slippery slope of hypocrisy. “We’re not going to get a puppy,” I said, “but we’ll find an adult dog.”

 

And I meant it. I started checking newspaper ads offering dogs for adoption, and went to see several of them. Just a week earlier, I’d talked to some people with an adult Yorkshire terrier. On the phone, he sounded like the ideal dog. But they didn’t live nearby, so we agreed to meet at a spot halfway between where they were and where I was. And I’m really glad we did, because the dog had never been away from home before and he was completely wound up and freaked out. If we’d met him in his home, he would have seemed just fine and I’d never have known there was a problem. With all the traveling we do, that dog would have been a disaster. Sure, I could have worked with him and helped him develop his confidence, but why start out with a nervous, unsocialized dog when you’ve got three little kids in the house? (I also have a son named Parker who is eight.)

 

When I saw that dog, I was reminded of one of those things I know all too well and always apply when I test dogs for police work: Dogs can react very differently when they’re outside their comfort zone. Things aren’t always as they appear, and a smart trainer knows that. The fact that I forgot about this and only ended up meeting the dog away from home by chance just tells you how far away from my good sense I’d already stepped.

 

The day I officially became a hypocrite was the Sunday before Christmas. We were in Memphis visiting my mother. By then I had seen so many different dogs that they were starting to run together. There was a place called The Puppy Corral that was twenty minutes from Mom’s house, and we ended up passing it on the way home. I wasn’t stuck on one particular breed, and I thought it would be useful to see several breeds at once so I could compare them. Not to get a puppy, mind you, but just to give me an idea of the kind of adult dog I wanted to look for. Everyone was in the car, and there just wasn’t any way for me not to take the kids into the store with me.

 

But it was only to look. Because this store is the epitome of the things I preach against. They’re supplied by commercial breeders, they’re overpriced, and the genetics of these dogs is questionable. Still, this particular place had been in business twenty- five years and had a pretty good reputation and a good health guarantee. They have little sitting areas where you can take the puppies out and play with them, so I decided while I did some breed research I could also teach the kids about temperament testing. It would be a learning experience for me and for them. That was all. I swear.

 

The showroom was huge—maybe 3,000 square feet. They had about 200 dogs in the place, but they just kept about two or three of each breed in display cages and kind of rotated them around. There were stand- alone stations with three or four puppies in playpens, and there were walls of cages with a pup in each, and attendants everywhere helping you look for what you wanted. There was also a bunch of people mopping up the concrete floor with disinfectant whenever a puppy peed, so the place was very clean. In concept I don’t like what they do, but I had to admit they did it well.

 

My kids went crazy because there were adorable puppies everywhere. And within five minutes I realized this was not going the way I had hoped. I started pointing out to the kids some behaviors I saw in the dogs that I didn’t like. They just wanted every puppy they picked up. Jill didn’t let Chandler sit on the floor, but she held him while he enthusiastically petted every dog we saw. At this point, I should have realized what was happening and herded them all to the exit.

 

But I didn’t. Somehow, I was still convinced this was a great opportunity to teach the kids, that we could walk out of there without a puppy. We were in a unique situation of being able to look at so many breeds at the same time. I always tell my radio listeners not to get stuck on a particular breed, but to look for a type of dog. Sometimes it’s really important to compare apples and oranges, and where else were we going to do it? At least, that’s what I told myself.

 

There was a brown and white Lhasa apso I liked, and he did really well on all the little things I use to gauge temperament. For example, when we put him down in a pen, he went toward the kids rather than away from them. When they rolled a tennis ball, I watched how long he was interested in the ball, and when his interest broke off I noted whether he went off by himself or...