Trials and Jubilations

Iz and me on a Rally course. She's "dropped" on cue at a distance from me. 
 

Izzy and I competed in a Rally-O trial last Sunday, and it ended up being a really important one for us—not because we won any championship titles or blue ribbons—but because we really learned about teamwork.

It's OK if you don't what Rally is. All you need to know is that Izzy and I are supposed to heel up to various signs placed around the ring in a specific order, perform whatever obdience exercise is required at each station (on which we are scored for accuracy), and then heel on to the next station. Yeah, I know, I know, that doesn't sound like much fun—but trust me, it's a great sport, and I'll write more about it soon.

The first time we went in to compete, we were fine, but let's just say we weren't really on our game. The second time we entered the ring, our performance devolved gloriously. I walked from one station to the next as Izzy sat patiently, glued to the spot watching me go instead of walking along with me. As I weaved through four cones in a lovely serpentine pattern, Iz  took it upon herself to investigate something enticing in the corner. At another station,  I went one way around a pole, she went the other  and  the two of us circled around it as though we were rehearsing a scene from a Three Stooges episode. When we left the ring, Izzy looked so unhappy that I thought the ASPCA would be showing up any moment to read me the riot act.

An insightful and thoughtful trainer watching in the wings suggested I try hand targeting as I heeled with Izzy. That means when I offer my hand and say "touch" she bumps it with her nose. (It's like a knuckle bump, only colder and wetter.) We have this game down, but I never thought of using it in the ring. Well, whaddya know? When we went into the ring again, I dropped down my hand and asked her to touch it. She bopped my hand with gusto and we were off to the races. My little dog kept up with  me, wagging her tail and looking HAPPY!

Huh. After all this time, it had not occurred to me that Izzy hadn't figured out that when we get in the ring and I begin to move forward she's supposed to move with me. It's so obvious to me. But it turns out my understanding of the game isn't important ( insert a big fat hairy "duh" here), it's the way my dog perceives what's going on that matters.

I understand what happens when I walk briskly around the ring from one station to another. But Izzy doesn't. She just knows I'm walking AWAY from her. But as soon as my hand is offered, the mystery is solved for her and she knows we are connected. She may not understand the wheres and the whys of it, but still, she is right there, touching my hand and saying, "Yeah, I get it; wherever we go, we're together."

So this morning when I sat down with my cup of coffee (OK, my third cup of coffee) I realized I've been moping around my laptop lately, s-l-o-w to finish projects, finding it frustrating to get a satisfying toehold on others. So, maybe I need to stop thinking about what I ought to be able to do and figure out what I need  to do to get it going. Now that I've showed Izzy that it's not that scary  moving from one place to another, maybe I'll start to move forward, too. At least to the next sign. And with my little dog right by my side.

Thank You, Newton

For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction force.
—Isaac Newton (1642/3–1727)

Izzy has been reactive to dogs since the day she came home. Yes, it's way, way, way better now than it was. And we've progressed to the point that we can go to classes and dog shows and Izzy can keep it together and be happy and relaxed in the ring.

But still, if a dog gets too close, or surprises her, or tries to sniff her, or moves too fast, or —horrors of horrors—wants to play, and I'm not paying attention, Izzy will go off. She will bark, lunge, and make a snarly face that morphs my sweet google-eyed mutt into Cujette. Luckily (for all involved) she's a little dog and isn't a physical threat to most. And mercifully, most dogs seem to know she's completely cuckoo. They just roll their eyes, sigh, and mutter, "Freaky, freaky bitch." But still. I wish she'd chill out.

We began training in agility as a way to build up her confidence and tolerance of being around other dogs, and Izzy really loves it. We've also trained and competed in other dog sports, which she seems to enjoy with equal gusto. I've read everything I could about dog behavior and psychology. I've participated in behavioral and training workshops where I learned invaluable techniques and approaches to problem behavior.

And perhaps most importantly, I have learned to notice her threshold and I work with it. Basically, that means I am aware of how close Izzy can get to another dog (or any trigger) before she loses it. A dog down the street isn't a problem. A dog two feet away is. So I know how much time I have to give her something to do with her nervous energy before that (very scary two-pound) yorkie gets too close. Or I can choose to avoid the situation and turn to walk in another direction.

We even have a game, "Look at that" we play thanks to trainer Leslie McDevitt's work with reactive dogs. On cue, she will look at the scary thing coming down the street. She gets a treat for being a brave little soldier and noticing the oncoming dog without reacting. It wasn't long before she started initiating the game herself. She makes a point to turn her gaze to all sorts of dogs she sees and then to whip around back to me. "Hey! Hey! Did you see that? It's a DOG. Hellooooo, I said A DOG. RIGHT THERE. Are you blind, woman? Gimme a treat. NOW."

But even now, every once in a while, there are days like yesterday.

Lovely neighbors in our building recently adopted the sweetest (and most gi-normous) German shepherd in the world. Jack couldn't be gentler, and his doggie body language is clear and appropriate. He's never pushy, never snarky, never overbearing. He is what is known as a true gentleman. He currently shares his new digs with Amy, a little white toy poodle. Amy is staying until her owner is well enough to take care of her again. Both dogs are a delight. Izzy and I have taken long walks with them. Each time, after a brief introduction period, Izzy is fine with them. She doesn't interact, but she isn't worried about them. She takes on a live-and-let-live attitude, which is fine with me. And we can all walk together on the sidewalks and in the woods together without issue.

Yesterday, we were standing on a corner with two other dogs and their owner on the sidewalk. Izzy tolerates these dogs, and maybe even likes them. Thankfully, there are some exceptions to the rule. The other dogs saw my neighbor with Jack and Amy approaching and started barking and lunging. Izzy joined in, but I quickly moved her out of the way, so I could wait for my neighbor and enjoy her company on the walk home. Iz quieted down, but I should have known that she was still revved up.

When my neighbor caught up with us around the corner, Izzy lurched into overdrive. She lunged and barked and made her famous ugly face. I saw concern and shock flash across my neighbor's face as she pulled her dog back to her. And there it was. I was embarrassed and ashamed. My dog was acting so, so, so badly that my neighbor was worried about her seventy-pound dog around my seventeen-pound lunatic.

So, what did I do? After all this time working with her, you'd think I could keep myself together when this kind of thing hits the fan. But I didn't. I yelled. I jerked her leash. I yanked and pulled. She was so worked up that she didn't even notice the corrections on the leash (Duh.) And I felt sick because I knew I had put Izzy in a bad position by not giving her enough space to calm down from the first round of barking.

Eventually, we were all able to walk together and I could reward Izzy for calmly looking at Jack and Amy. By the time we came home, she was wagging her tail and paying no mind to the other dogs. We all rode up the elevator in our building without a problem. Thank goodness Izzy bounces back.

I apologized to my neighbor for our bad behavior. And she graciously said, "Everyone has a bad day, and Izzy had one today."

But here it is, a day later, and I still haven't bounced back. I am going over the "incident" again and again in my head, scolding myself that I shouldn't have made such a boneheaded mistake. And plus, I didn't present well. How could anyone think I was trainer after that sidewalk debacle?

Yes, Izzy has a tendency to react inappropriately to relatively benign things, but damn if she isn't willing to bounce back and try again.

So, taking a cue from my dog, I am going to take us out for a walk. I am armed with treats and a promise to pay more attention to Izzy and less attention to my ego. I am ready for my dog to teach me about bouncing back. With gusto.

Izzy Loses Us

OK, so last time I was freaking out over Izzy eating a discarded hamburger. Turns out that little escapade was only a warm up for the freak out that happened yesterday at my mother-in-law’s.

Bruce, Izzy, and I were visiting my mother-in-law and hanging out in the backyard enjoying the grass, the birds, the sun, and her next door neighbor making a ton of noise doing construction on his house over Labor Day weekend. We rigged the yard with makeshift barriers at the sides of the house to keep Izzy from leaving the backyard. And I was keeping an eye on her from the patio. Or at least I thought I was. Mostly I was commenting on how lovely it was for Izzy to be able to have the freedom to explore on her own without being attached to a leash or without me having to hover over her. And then—I swear—no sooner did I make that stupid comment, than I realized that my dog was NOWHERE in sight.

My worst nightmare became a reality. My dog was gone.

I ran out to the front of the house and called her.

"Izzy! Izzy! Izzy, come! Izzy!"

My little dog, yes the one with really good recall, the one with titles and ribbons, the one known for swift responses to commands and cues was not responding to her name. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Where could she have gone? She couldn't be far, right? I had just seen her, for crying out loud. As I looked up and down my mother-in-law's street, I realized that here on suburban Long Island there were a million places Izzy could be. If she ran into someone's back yard, and then suddenly another yard, and another, she could quickly be blocks away. Or she could be trapped in a yard with an unfriendly dog. Or she could have run into a street and gotten hit by a car. Or some child could have seen the cute little doggy with the waggly tail and picked her up and brought her inside. Or she could be following her nose and chasing a squirrel or a cat into some wooded area. . . Suddenly Glen Cove turned into an impenetrable maze of houses, yards, and streets. Where to start looking first? My stomach dropped. And then clenched. And then rose up to my mouth, and I had to work really hard to keep from throwing up.

Bruce took one direction and I took another. We ran, yelling her name at the top of our lungs (Important note: Name your dog something easy to yell constantly and loudly. "Izzy," it turns out, happens to be a great name to scream out every second on the second.).

Gloria, Bruce's mom, stayed in the backyard. After my run down the street, I returned to the backyard to check in. No dog. As I headed out again, to take a different path around the neighborhood a million thoughts flooded in. The very real possibility of having to leave without Izzy started to sink in. I might be going home without her. I was imagining the long drive back to the city with her, the first night being home, knowing that she was lost on Long Island, not knowing if she was OK. . . How could I have let this happen?

After what felt like hours of running up and down Glen Cove streets (although Bruce swears this whole thing took less than ten minutes), I turned the corner to head back to the house. And down at the end of the block, I saw Bruce out in the middle of the street, waving his arms.

"I found her!"

I ran inside and smothered Izzy with hugs and kisses. She responded by bounding around the living room and leaping in the air. At one point she took an incredibly high, spirited leap off the stairs and just missed slamming her head into the wall by millimeters. Great. I was worried that my lost dog was lying somewhere dead, and here Bruce finds her, and she’s so worked up she ends up killing herself. She must have been picking up on the general atmosphere of what I can only describe as aggressive relief, and was running around to try to shake off the nervous energy around her.

"Where was she?" I asked him, "Where did you find her?"

"She was at the back door," Bruce said. “She was just standing on the stoop, looking inside. It was like she was wondering where the hell we all went."

And then he said, wait for it—wait for it—

"Jess, I don't think she ever left the backyard."

OH. MY. GOD. Maybe we didn't lose the dog after all. The dog lost us!

Who knows if Izzy went on a little sightseeing trip by herself, or if she never left the property, either way, we were lucky; the three of us all went home together. Izzy has tags, and a microchip, so hopefully if she did ever become separated from us, some kind soul would contact us. But meanwhile, all’s well that end’s well, and we three are very lucky. And we know it. Oh, yeah. And Izzy will NEVER be off leash again.

Izzy Found a Hamburger

Little dog, little mouth, no big deal—right?

Ummm, nope.

My little dog has a ridiculous amount of pressure per inch in her mouth. How do I know this, you may ask? Well, a few evenings ago Izzy and I left our training facility after a really good class. I mean it was really good. Izzy was on, I was on. We worked together like a couple on a ballroom dance floor (or so I like to think). I was so proud of both of us and was kvelling in our success as I was walking Iz around the perimeters of the parking lot before we buckled in for the ride home. And then I saw it: an open Styrofoam hamburger container. Unfortunately, while I noticed only the container, Izzy noticed the HAMBURGER lying nearby and grabbed it.

I panicked. A dog had been poisoned in the parking lot a couple of weeks earlier; an open container of green liquid was left on the premises and a dog had gotten into it. (A fast-thinking instructor had given hydrogen peroxide to the dog to make it vomit, and sent the owner to an emergency vet. The dog is fine now.) I was sure that somehow this soggy disgusting hamburger in my dog's mouth had been poisoned and left for an unsuspecting bottomless-pit greedy chow-hound like mine. I told Izzy to drop it, but no fool, she. No way she was going to let go of that prize of a soggy burger. So I bent down and pulled away the sections of bun and burger that were outside her long little snout. Then in a frenzy, I stuck my hand in her mouth to try to scoop out the rest.

I was able to get my fingers inside her mouth, but the second they were there, Izzy clamped down hard. And I mean HARD. My left index finger was lodged in the back of her mouth, between her jaws. I tried putting one hand over her nose, hoping that I could make it so difficult for her to breathe through her nose, she'd have to open her mouth; it didn't work. I don't know how I got my finger out of there, but I did. I tried again to open her mouth, but failed this time. I yelled, "Drop it" again, tried covering her nose again, and again was met without results. If I was reading Izzy's expression correctly (and I think I was), she was saying, "Drop dead, sister, this burger is MINE, and I mean it." Then I had the teeniest moment of clarity and thought to myself that I was probably being hysterical and the burger was most likely someone's left-overs and not some evil item of dog destruction.

So I sat back on my heels, and watched Izzy gulp down the remaining hamburger. The second she was done, she looked at me with soft happy eyes and pranced over to the car. Sure, she was in good spirits--she just topped off an hour of working for treats with a burger, but I was still so wound up my legs were shaking. When I tried to start the car, I discovered my right pointer finger hurt so badly that I couldn't put any pressure on it at all. I had to cross my left hand over the steering wheel to actually turn the key. I was shocked that I was in that amount of pain from my own little dog.

As we were driving home, I started to worry that maybe I had hurt Izzy's jaw by all the yanking and pulling on it. So I threw her a treat to see if she would eat. She did. Iz was bright eyed, and seemed fine. And every time I looked over at her, she was looking right back.

Then she did something she's never done before in the car. She crawled into my lap. (Yes, I know she should have been secured in the car, and she usually is buckled in.) She leaned back against me, and put her head right under my chin and sighed. My heart, just like the Grinch's, grew three times its size right then and there. Seriously, I felt it. She stayed like that for a couple of minutes until I came to a stop and had her go back to her seat.

A behaviorist would most likely disagree, but that gesture, that little bit of contact she initiated, felt to me like a true-blue apology. And maybe it wasn't the "I'm so sorry. I ate that hamburger and I know I was stupid and dangerous and I'll never do it again, never, ever, ever." kind of apology. But she was definitely checking in, making sure all was right with me, with us, with the world. And at that moment, it really was.

The Shelter

Izzy on one of her first walks with us on the Upper West Side of NYC.

I was asked how I came to "choose" Izzy. Thinking back on it, I can’t believe this is how she came into my life, and that Bruce and I made the decision to bring her home based on so little. But thank doG we did.

Our friend Debora, was volunteering for Bobbi and the Strays, a shelter in Queens. She knew I had been jonesing for a dog for a long time, and had heard me go on and on and on about the dogs I grew up. ( A yellow lab named Maxine and a Chihuahua named Bambi. And for the record, I had nothing to do with naming either dog.) Deb also generously let me accompany her frequently on long walks with her two dogs. I would walk one and she the other as we ambled for hours all over Morningside Heights.

She called me at work one afternoon. “Hey, Jessica, no pressure, but . . . the shelter called me and said that a little dog, no bigger than a whisper has just come in. He’s a Chihuahua-Miniature Pinscher mix. They say he loves to be held and he’ll let anyone pick him up.”

I called my husband, Bruce, to see if he was up for a ride to Queens. I had wanted a dog for years, but Bruce had been resistant. He works at home and thought having a dog would be distracting and a nuisance. To my surprise, when he heard the dog was tiny and a Chihuahua mix, he said, “Well, let’s go see.” (Is there anyone in the world who has said “Let’s go see” regarding a dog and NOT come home with a four-legged companion?)

So Bruce, Debora, and myself piled into our car that evening and headed out to the Vetport at Kennedy Airport, where the shelter rented some extra space. The vetport itself was a little shocking. It’s not a pretty place—it’s a small no-frills structure out in the middle of the airport. (Think bombshelter.) There’s no green anywhere, no real place to go for walks, and there is the constant constant deafening sound of planes zooming in and out.

The place wasn’t a decorator’s dream inside either. But it was clean and the volunteers working for the shelter were incredibly happy and loving and thrilled to see us. Debora told one woman that we were there to see the little dog that had just come in. The woman walked over to a plastic carrier that sat on top of a large crate and pulled out a black, tan, and white dog that surprised us all by being much larger than a whisper. At about seventeen pounds, it wasn’t a large dog, but it certainly wasn’t the tiny dog we had all been imagining. This creature looked more like Homer Simpson’s “Santa’s Little Helper” than my childhood Chihuahua. She had floppy ears, big dark bug eyes, a graceful neck, and long delicate legs. Plus, the dog wasn’t male—she was a female, with a line of stitches on her belly attesting that she had been recently spayed. The second she was placed on the ground before us she stood up again, balancing on her hind legs. She kept her front legs folded in close to her chest like a meerkat. She stood like that for a remarkably long time checking out the place, the other dogs, and us.

And yes, she still meerkats!

When she had satisfied her curiosity, she gently lowered herself so all fours were on the ground. Bruce, summoning up everything he knew about dogs said, “Sit.” And this dog did. Immediately. He was thrilled.

The volunteer suggested we take the dog out to a run in the back and play with her there. Out in one of the rectangular cement runs, the dog just raced around with her nose to the ground. She didn’t really mind us being there, but she wasn’t interested in us either. The smells of the run were much more interesting than we could ever be. She ran back and forth following her nose as her tail bounced back and forth. Bruce and I watched the dog and then looked at each other. Then we watched the dog some more and looked each other again.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

It’s crazy to think back on this now, considering how much my heart swells every time I look at Izzy, but I didn’t fall in love with her right away. Bruce seemed to really like her, though and here was my chance to have a dog. So if the dog was one he really liked, rather than one I really wanted, I thought it would bode well for domestic harmony. And then there was the thought of saying no to this dog. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her, putting her back in her little plastic carrier and walking away.

On the way back inside we walked by a large, foxhound-looking dog who was being walked by a volunteer. The little black-and-tan dog went right up to it and wiggled her whole body with glee. The big dog rolled over on its back and the two began to play.

We all laughed watching the two roughhouse. Then I thought of Tillie, our sweet twelve-year old little tortoiseshell cat. How would the dog act around cats? Debora led us to the cat room at the shelter. It was a closet-sized room lined with twenty or so metal cages, each with a cat. We brought the dog as close as possible to a cat who was about eye level. The dog never seemed to notice, let alone care about the cat. Great, the dog was indifferent to cats. Tillie would be fine.

As Bruce and I stood there trying to make a final decision, the shelter workers and Debora assured us that we could bring the dog back if we decided it wasn’t going to work out. Debora said that little dogs have much better odds than big dogs to be adopted and at the very least we would be socializing this dog and helping her move on. Whatever. I knew we wouldn’t bring her back. If we took her home that night, she was ours.

It was funny, even though I was the one who had been pushing and pushing for a dog, suddenly when faced with one, I wasn’t sure I wanted one. We had a nice rhythm, Bruce, Tillie, and I. Bringing this dog home would change her life. What if this was a huge mistake?

We walked out to the car as the dog, oblivious to the fact that she was on a lead, careened and jerked around desperate to explore ever little piece of gravel in the parking lot. As we piled into the car, I suddenly felt guilty. I felt as if I was about to ruin our lives and couldn’t bring myself to hold the dog on my lap.

So the little dog sat happily with Debora in the back seat. She perched on Deb’s lap and looked out the window.

Bruce and I babbled a little bit about names (I kept my “buyer’s remorse" to myself) and we bounced some around. Bruce wanted to call her Spike. For some reason—I still have no idea why— “Izzy” popped into my head. Bruce still lobbied for “Spike.” And to prove his point, he called her, “Here, Spike!” She didn’t respond. “Izzy,” I corrected him and the little dog jumped into the front seat. And that was that.

(You can see pictures of the room at the vetport and read more about Bobbi and the Strays, the shelter Izzy came from here )

Scents and Sensibility

Competition Obedience Scent Articles

I have been training with Izzy since she came home from the shelter. At first it was basic stuff: sit, stay, come, down, leave it, drop it. Then as I learned how much fun it was to work with her, we started doing more and more. Getting our Canine Good Citizens Certificate from the AKC was our first major accomplishment. And then we began competing in Rally-O, Obedience, and Agility.

Our competition career has been very roller coaster-y. We started out strong in Rally, than hit a long stretch of ring nerves (won’t mention the soul searching and tears that accompanied this period) and then wandered out of the NQ (non qualifyng run) desert and won several titles including our first Competition Obedience title, and are on our way to our first Agility title. Two weeks ago we earned our first Rally Championship title: our ARCH.

Even with these successes, it’s still easy to feel like we’ll never get to the next challenge. Especially now, when we’re in the middle of a big training slump. OK, big is a bit of an understatement, it’s a gargantuan training slump. Ginormous, even. We have been practicing scent discrimination for months and are stuck, stuck, stuck. Did I mention we are stuck?? Quicksand stuck. Some days I think Izzy is really using her nose to find the correct scent article. Then there are the days that she just runs over to the articles and grabs the one closest to her. Those are the days that I feel like we’ll never get it.

It’s always the simplest things that stump us. Teaching Izzy “stand” was excruciating. It took FOREVER and when she finally learned it, it seemed she couldn’t believe that was what I wanted. She looked at me as if to say “Really, are you sure that’s what you want me to do? ‘Cause that’s so easy, it’s ridiculous. Are you sure?” And then she’d “sit pretty.” Because that was something she had to work hard to learn. And as a result, it always got applause and she was showered with treats.

And I think she’ll have the same “Are you kidding me?” thought once I figure out how to clearly explain to her what I want her to do with the scent articles. Dogs’ noses are so damn sensitive, it’s hard for us mere mortals to even understand how they experience the world with those things. And I know she uses her nose to ferret things out all the time. Damn, that dog can smell a discarded chicken bone (as well as other assorted and sundry things too disgusting to mention) in Inwood Hill Park from miles away.

Once I am able to figure out how to clearly communicate to her that all she has to do is find the one scent article that smells like me, she’ll look at me and think, “Fer cryin’ in my beer, that’s so easy, she can’t be serious. What does she think I am, an idiot?”

That’s the way, isn’t it? It’s the easy things that trip us up. We can’t believe that just doing what we’re good at is enough.

The First Morning

It’s almost six years now, and I still think about that first morning we woke up with our dog.

We made a lot of boneheaded mistakes in the beginning, and that first night was no exception. We had brought Izzy home from a Queens’ shelter on a Friday night without any preparation. We had a few hours to let her wander around the apartment, introduce her to our cat Tillie, and take her for a walk around the neighborhood before it was time to go to sleep. We decided that the dog would not sleep with us until her relationship with our cat was stable and everyone felt OK about everyone. So we took Tillie into the bedroom and closed the door leaving Izzy on the couch with an old yellow blanket we found balled up in the closet (See above re: boneheaded mistakes).

After a seemingly endless night of tossing and turning and worrying and listening very hard for any crying or whimpering—and hearing absolutely nothing, I finally gave up. At about five in the morning, I opened the bedroom door. What would I find? Had she chewed the sofa to pieces? Gone to the bathroom all over the floor? Found a way to open the kitchen cabinets and spread garbage everywhere? But there, on the floor was our little dog curled up on her blanket. She was so close that I almost tripped over her when I opened the door. Izzy looked up at me with big bright eyes and wagged her tail. Thump, thump, thump.

She had pulled the blanket off the couch and dragged it across the apartment. She didn’t scratch at the door, she didn’t whine, she didn’t bark. She just curled up and waited patiently by the bedroom door.

She wanted to be as close to us as she could possibly get. Sleeping on the couch fifteen feet away from the closed door wasn’t good enough. If the best she could do was to drag that crappy blanket across the room to end up on the wrong side of a closed door, well that was just fine, thank you.

Why didn’t she freak out her first night at our house, separated from the two new people who had brought her home from the shelter? Did she worry? Did she think this strange place three flights above Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was going to be awful? Did she wonder if that bedroom door would ever open again?

I will never know what she thought or felt that first night at our home. I will never know what made her first family leave her tied to a lamppost on a city street in the summer of 2002. I will never know why the tips of her ears are scarred, or why she was housetrained, but didn’t know how to walk on a leash. There are many mysteries that I will never unravel about my little dog. But maybe the biggest one for me is how from the first night at our house, she knew to believe in us.