Through A Different Lens

Lobo at 1 in 2005, with our grandson Simon

Amnesia works in strange ways. In the same way a mother forgets the agony of childbirth and signs up to do the same thing again, dog lovers forget what it’s really like to have a puppy.

“He’s going to be big,” our vet friend Sonny said, looking at the giant paddy paws. “He looks about six months now, so there’s a lot of growing ahead. I think he has some mastiff or hound in him.”

But we do not listen to the voice of a good advisor. Not when we are blinded by passion.

I was still having radiation treatments, so we thought the timing would be good. Lobo (we had immediately re-named him) would be company. As in companionship, encouragement, affection, loyalty.

I took him down with me to feed our two horses. Down the path, across the wash and over to the little barn and corral. His excitement grew. In the wash, I threw him a stick. Not only did he fetch it, he must have pegged me for a worthy playmate. From 100 feet away, he charged at me full speed and then took off a few feet in front of me, flying at my chest with those huge paws extended. I went down like a bowling pin.

“This is not good,” I tearfully explained to Jon. “I can’t have him knocking me down right now.”

“Or any time,” Jon agreed.

We started trying to train him. He was into the treats for sure, but rewards didn’t seem to have any effect on either long-term or short-term behavior. A leash was unthinkable. He lunged ahead, pulling the weak two-legged behind him, flailing about like a fish on a line.

We live in the country, on the border of a state and national park with hundreds of miles of trails. We wanted to be able to walk him off a leash. Without him running out in front of cars, which he must have thought were animals big enough to be worthy playmates. We didn’t want him to keep chasing the cattle who roamed the range we lived in. The littlest ones were about his size. We didn’t want him on our furniture. (Well, I didn’t—that’s another story….) We didn’t want him jumping up to get the food on our plates. (Well, I didn’t. Yet another story.)

After bingeing on episodes of the Dog Whisperer, it was clear to me that Lobo knew he was the alpha. Maybe he was here to give me an assertiveness training course. “I am alpha,” I would explain to him. And he would smile that silly dog smile they do with their long tongue hanging out and that panting that sounds like laughter.

Maybe he was just too much. Too big, too powerful, and already too accustomed to being in charge. Even though I can’t stand Chihuahuas, now I felt sorry for the one he had terrorized. Maybe, I said to Jon (tearfully, again) we would have to give him up.

Instead, we researched dog training techniques and local experts. Jon’s sister swore by a trainer who used an electric collar, which fell under the Torture category as far as I was concerned. But never say you’ll never do something until you’ve been truly desperate. After yet another flying lunge at my radiated chest, Lobo was loaded into the truck and taken to Torture dog training.

It’s painful for me to remember. Really. I mean, when I got teary watching die Fuhrer reduce Lobo from Alpha to Zeta, cringing as he yelled, “Place” and pointing to a tiny pad, the little smart guy explained to me that dogs don’t have emotions. That’s funny, because I could swear that Lobo now was feeling a love for us that was every bit as passionate as the kind of love a child feels when they see that someone else’s parent is worse than their own.

But, mercifully, Torture training did not take long. Just a few zaps were all Lobo needed to be convinced that the Collar was the source of all evil. Now, all we had to do was put it on him, push a button that produced a beep, and yell, “Place,” and point to a dog bed or an imagined tiny pad in front of the TV, and he would cringe and crawl into position. He would also resist chasing cows, which was the ultimate test. He would reluctantly heel, even in the presence of a tempting car. And lie down while we were eating. At least until Jon finished. (another one of those “other stories.”)

And so, he avoided the first and only threat to his new Good Life. Not only did he not have to go back to the Humane Society, he came out as one of the biggest winners in the doggie world. What other dog from the humane society lived on the edge of the wild high desert? Here in his own back yard, there were squirrels and rabbits and roadrunners to chase. Deer even came occasionally to seek water. A javelina or two ventured into the yard before the word got out. Lobo could live up to his name here. He would be allowed, despite the little Fuhrer’s efforts, to be a wolfy, wild dog.

How wild, we had only begun to discover.