Ruminations on the ABT

The Early Years

I was so happy when I found Lil Keep, waddling homeless in the countryside. Happy I was able to give him a home—and for the chance to test my parenting skills on a clean slate.

Little did I appreciate the potential of baggage to bring good things as well as bad.

Keeper’s high IQ was apparent right away. He sat, he spoke, he stayed. He nailed housebreaking without a crate. He shook hands, he rolled over, and was just really great company on car rides, hiking trips, and everywhere else I took him.

Once, when he was tiny, he scampered away from me on a walk. While I was frantically running around the apartment buildings looking for him, he was already two flights up, sitting outside the right door, wondering what was taking me so long.

As for nippiness, he did growl at strangers who knocked at the door, and he did nip my nephew’s friend when they were wrestling, but that’s just a loyal dog protecting his turf and pack, right?

The Bitey Years

When Keeper was about three, I came home and found that he had mauled the hamper, but good, pulling most of the clothes through the slots and pulverizing them into piles of mushy fabrics.

He never destroyed things as a puppy, so, not thinking too clearly, I guess I just started yelling at him, scaring him right under the bed. When I reached in to pull him out, that sweet bearded face became an industrial-strength meat grinder, turning my hands into piles of ground round.

I’m talking bloody, bruised, battered stumps.

Instead of just fleeing the scene, I kept trying to get a grip on him, not to hurt him, but to establish dominance, to gain control. But in a matter of seconds the whole scene became a chaotic frenzy of fangs and spit and fur and growls and confusion and cries (mine).

When the dust settled, he slinked out from under the bed and I locked him in the bathroom overnight (another lame tip from the dog training “experts” of the day). Then I spent the evening Kübler-Rossing over the whole episode.

1. Oh no he didn’t.
2. That little bastard!
3. I’ll never scare you like that again (and you’ll never bite me again, right?)
4. Where did I go wrong?
5. OK, we can deal with this.

But it was too late. Something changed forever that night and we just set the stage for a lifetime of dysfunctional mayhem.

You Don’t Know Jack

When people hear about these episodes they usually subscribe to one of two opinions:

1) He seems so sweet that I must be exaggerating about the severity of these attacks.
2) They’d never let a dog do that to them.

1) You’re wrong.
2) Oh really? Would you fight back? Because, believe me, I’ve tried.

I’m all about discipline. If I had kids, I’d be the parent rationing television and banning Coke. If purely out of self-defense and panic, I know there have been times when I’ve hurt Keeper during an altercation. But you know what? Terriers on a rampage do not respond to pain.

Terrier tenacity is truly legendary. Some of them will battle prey until their noses are chewed off and go right back down the rat hole for more. Because they are unstoppable in the face of a physical challenge. Of all the dogs I’ve fostered, the only one who bit me was a Jack Russell terrier. (Don’t worry, he was adopted by another foster mom from the rescue group.)

And as far as “winning,” as it relates to physical dominance or dog psychology, there are times when I can slip a finger in his collar during an attack, yank him to the ground, and instantly break the spell. It’s magical, really. The second his jaws are immobilized, he snaps out of it, looking at me like he doesn’t know where he is, what’s happening, and why I’m not throwing the toy for him or something. So since I’ve stopped his crazed behavior (half a dozen times or so), doesn’t that mean I “won?” Aren’t I “dominant?” Yeah right. Until the next time the demon is provoked, which, thank god, is only a few times a year.

I did identify most “triggers” long ago, and have been avoiding them ever since:

The most important thing is keeping a clutter-free house. As a neat freak, that’s easy to do. Nothing to steal. Nothing to guard.

But should a visitor leave a purse on the floor, for instance, and should Keeper decide to steal a tube of lipstick and drag it into his lair–FORGET IT. It’s not worth losing a finger just to demonstrate your dominion over beasts.

Also, you must only pick him up when he wants to be picked up. How can you tell? You can’t. Only I can, and it comes from years of studying every minuscule nuance of his body language on the scale of Jane Goodall and her barrel of wild chimps.

Spraying his hot spots with medication is also grounds for dismemberment, so I spray a paper towel and disguise it as part of our grooming routine.

The Most Valuable Item at Dollar Tree

One tool that renders him powerless is a spray bottle full of plain old tap water. It stops him like a stun gun. But short of wearing it in a holster, it’s often out of reach in a moment of crisis. Nevertheless, it’s minimized a serious injury or ten, and for that, H20, I am forever grateful.

The Elder Years

At 16, we’re long past trying to change behavior. Now our days are filled with short walks, sweet talk, massages, and efforts to ease Keeper’s range of gruesome skin irritations (rashes, warts, unidentifiable growths and tumors).

He still launches a full-blown assault on occasion, the last one leaving permanent numbness in my pinkie. Maybe he knows his days are numbered and he was thinking “souvenir.”

Nature v Nurture v Neither

Keeper entered my life long before Cesar and Victoria were on the circuit. I’m sure they’d say that virtually every single dog can be molded into something more agreeable.

Who knows?

What I have learned in recent years, is that dog training isn’t simply about correcting bad behaviors. It’s about constantly working to build the strongest bond possible between you and your dog, creating a relationship that shows him how much he actually relies on you for survival and fun. In other words, you use every opportunity to make a give-and-take game out of everyday situations. Want a treat? Roll over. Want to go for a walk? Sit there for a moment first. It’s logical and it certainly can’t hurt, but whether it would have prevented Keeper’s psychotic episodes we’ll never know.

Sometimes, people and animals are just plain bonkers. Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents seem halfway normal and his brother turned out just fine.

In retrospect, part of me secretly respects Keeper’s points of contention that are simply non-negotiable, how he could never be totally controlled. It’s dog-training blasphemy, I know, and an attitude that would be negligent if I had kids or Keeper were any bigger. But I don’t and he’s not.

All that power emanates from just 17 pounds. That’s fierce.

Interestingly, although he’s always been the alpha dog to our fosters, he’s never once harmed any of them. Dogs communicate in ways that are far beyond our comprehension. There’s no need for violence when one look tells you everything you need to know.

That’s more than I can say for the perceptive capabilities of people.

I do wonder sometimes why dogs don’t bite us more often than they do. Imagine if you didn’t speak the language and suddenly people in white coats are draining your blood or expressing your anal glands? If you had razor-sharp fangs at your disposal, wouldn’t you use them? I’m more amazed by abused foster dogs who let me haul them into the bathtub, tend to their wounds, pounce on them if they try to escape, and never ever try to bite me. That, to me, is more surprising than Keeper’s occasional outbursts. Don’t we all go ballistic from time to time, and say or do things that are completely out of character?

Years ago, after a really bad altercation, the vet said “You know…it wouldn’t be wrong of you to consider putting him to sleep.” She meant it in the most compassionate way, and, for a minute, I was actually relieved to hear it (I may have even considered it). I was changing Keeper’s bandages after surgery and just when I thought he understood I was trying to help him–face becomes food processor. So there we were again. Hands shredded, Keeper under the bed, snarling, with bloody bandages hanging off of his head, vet on the line trying to talk me down (or into euthanasia.)

As if I could have survived that without a lifetime of psychiatric care.

Special Needs. Special Rewards.

We got through those dressing changes with the vet’s help, and all of the other episodes without resorting to pentobarbital.

Now we’re in the golden years, I guess, enjoying slightly mellower times, and bonding in a whole new way. Sometimes, my knee pain will shorten our walks, sometimes it’s his hip. Sometimes, neither of us can take the cold for more than 15 minutes.

Yes, he’s a bastard, but he’s also hilarious and clever and entertaining. The wheels are always turning, and he’s always thinking ahead. He’s a late-night comedian, simultaneously offending, engrossing, shocking, and titillating audiences near and far. He’s totally independent and totally fearless. And I totally get him. I get him more than the fosters who let crappy people steal their spirit without a fight, who spend months with their heads hanging in defeat because some dirtbag dished out unwarranted punishments. Keeper might have more nerve than sense sometimes, but he has boundaries no mortal can cross.

In the wild, he would have been the stuff of legends. The Ironman Alpha Dog Homerun Slam Dunk Heavyweight Champion of the Jungle.

Yeah. That’s my boy.

A preeminent Harvard psychologist once said, “I have been dragged, kicking and screaming, by my data to acknowledge that temperament is more powerful than I thought and wish to believe.”

I think I’m a believer, doc. In many ways, we just are who we are and that’s all there is to it.

(Keeper says he agrees with the research, and added, as he left the room…“If you don’t like it, you can fuck off, too.”)