Respect of the Dog

I am not a dog expert.  I am not a qualified trainer.  I am not a registered breeder.  I am not a vet, a dog therapist or behaviourist and I have never published one word giving my learned opinions on how to raise and care for a dog.  My claim to fame is that I have owned some dogs over my life time (and now realize that I made more mistakes with them than I care to admit).  That I have read extensively about rearing and training dogs and have managed to collect quite a few books on the subject – some of which were a waste of money and some of which I wish I could have written myself.  And I have been somewhat successful in encouraging my dogs to sit, stay, come and crouch, but never had the courage, the time or the endurance to attempt anything more complicated than that. My dogs do not fear me, I am not anything near to being Cesar Millan’s clone (neither do I wish to be), and all of my dogs are fairly spoiled and frequently demonstrate the correct way to NOT be like Lassie. If money spent on animals could have made me an expert, I would be the Queen of Dog Experts, as it would seem that every time I look around there is another medical emergency requiring yet another visit to the vet (who has offered to give me the equivalent of a Frequent Flyer discount card).  I have the vet’s number on speed dial on my phone.  I am on first name basis with every vet tech who ever worked in the clinic. Even the vet’s patients know me by sight!  In fact, you could say that I have single-handedly added a great deal of financial security to my vet’s bottom line.

Based on all of this, you can see that the bar is not terribly high in finding somebody more knowledgeable than I am about what to do with a sick dog, how to get my dogs to stop alternatively embarrassing and driving me crazy, or even having information about current trends and norms in the dog world.  And I was sure I would find dozens of people ready and willing to share their expertise in the name of improving the lives of dogs in this country if I searched the web. So I did, and then I joined a local site on Face Book because it seemed to me that the people on the page were all into rearing Pit Bulls and I was certain that they would (a) be kind to animals; (b) know about dogs in general, but Pit Bulls in particular and (c) want to improve every aspect of dog rearing.  Wrong.  So I went to other pages – wrong, wrong and wrong.  Instead, this is what I found out:

1. Most Pit Bull owners (at least the ones on the sites I have frequented) own dogs that are in perfect health and have never gotten sick.  I base this assumption on the fact that whenever I've asked for help with a medical issue the silence is broken by one, maybe two lone voices.  Or maybe they just don’t want to share their experiences.  Either way I end up in the vet’s office again.
2. Most Pit Bull owners on these sites are devotees of the Cesar Millan school of dog training and have never heard of operant conditioning or positive reinforcement.  With them domination theories and pack leadership reign supreme. Methods like clicker training, Easy Walk harnesses or Martindale collars elicit a virtual blank stare, a steups and a shrugging off of such foolishness when a stout choke collar would do the job.
3. Most Pit Bull owners on these sites SAY that they want people to know what a gentle, loving dog the breed is – and then they dress the dog in large spiked collars and promote logos of evil looking devil dogs that would scare the bejeezus out of anybody on a dark night.  They concentrate on training their dogs to attack and this is THE big attraction at local dog shows. When walking their dogs, they use harnesses that should only be used when a dog is pulling some heavy object (as the harness itself encourages pulling), but perhaps they do so because it makes the dog appear powerful to be straining at the end of their lead. And they do very little to show their dog in the light of a peaceful, family oriented animal, instead they post pictures of the animal looking as ferocious and unfriendly as possible and use words like "beast" and "monster" to describe it.
4. The majority of Pit Bull owners on these sites are deeply interested in show dogs and know a frightening amount about mysterious things like blood lines and conformation.  They post pictures showing their dogs mating, and in some pictures the female is strapped into what can only be called a Rape Rack. Of course, breeders who use these devices call them Breeding Stands and say that they are used to protect the dogs from damage as dogs sometimes fight during mating (especially if you have a female that refuses to mate with the male). They say that dogs have not concept of rape, so it is okay to use them. You have to assume they are expert breeders because they can tell from looking at a 2 month old puppy if it is mixed or pure - although they won't tell how they can tell - and they can trace the lineage of any dog when they hear who its parents are.  They argue exhaustively about the history of the breed in the country, and defend their own beliefs with a passion that inevitably leads to an outburst of colloquilistic obscenities - especially directed to any women who might be on the board, as this is generally a young, male-dominated scene.

Of course, this means that I will have to continue to fork out my  money for vet fees and books on training, and that I continue to feel alienated from the support that I would like because I live in a country that is not Pit Bull friendly, as it is clear that my views on breeding and caring for dogs will never mesh with theirs.

But, although disappointing, the foregoing is not disturbing to me.  What is, however, extremely disturbing is the fact that the majority of people who frequent the sites do not seem to have an ounce of compassion or respect for animals, including the Pit Bull which all of them profess to love.  They talk about Pit Bulls that don’t meet certain standards like they are garbage – and say these dogs should be “culled” when born. Yet they breed indiscriminately, with the sole objective of making money from the sale of the pups which they let go to people that they know nothing about.  I would say that at least half of the posts are from people who have dogs to sell. It is like an on-line Classified Ad page.

And there are those who believe that ownership of a dog is nothing less than slavery – I own him, so I can do what I want with him, even onto killing him, and nobody should interfere.  I’ve seen a post from one guy who said that “a man could do what he wants with his own dog.”  There are those who promote dog fighting and there are those who condone it – even if only by not speaking out against it. Providing simple niceties for their dogs also seems to be beyond them - you see posts from people wanting to know how to treat pressure sores – duhhh – give your dog something soft to sleep on – it’s hard surfaces like concrete that cause the pressure sores.  There was a classic the other day from a guy who thought his female might be pregnant and wanted to know what he should do (Take her to the vet? Buy a book? Google the subject on line?)

 You hear all the time people saying that they love the breed, that they adore the breed, that they would do anything for the breed.  But apparently you can love something and not respect it. Their dogs are not respected as animals that have talents and skills way beyond human comprehension and ability.  The dogs are not respected for what they are.  The dog is only respected for what a human has decided it should be – it should look a certain way (cropped ears, muscular body, unfriendly stare), it should react a certain way (walk to heel, never retaliate against humans, fight or attack on command, stay in one spot for as long as the owner tells it even if the owner drops down dead and can’t release it). 

Then there is the golden grail of Pit Bull attributes called “gameness”. I have read several thousand words written in breathless praise of the Pit Bull’s ability to stick to the task at hand, regardless of personal cost.  It is a prized attribute that every Pit Bull owner seems to want their dog to have which (they say) is natural to the breed.  Especially owners who fight their dogs.

 Another thing you hear all the time are the terms “natural to the breed”, or “specific to the breed”, or “an attribute of the breed”.  What that really means is that a dog is lined with other dogs with certain physical or emotional tendencies, and this is repeated over and over and over with her off spring for a long period of time, until the pups eventually start to exhibit the required tendencies.  Then, if the tendency is emotional, they are “trained up” to enhance it.  The tendency is seldom natural to being a dog.  It is a man-made intervention – a case of man playing God, if you will. Take gameness, for instance. In its really natural state, any animal that would continue to heedlessly engage in an activity that could probably end in its death would soon be an extinct species.  No dog would fight to the death if it could possibly avoid it.  But probably what happened was that some human, who was into dog fighting, decided one day, ‘won’t it be nice if…’ and started to train dogs to become game and then to breed those trained dogs to each other – re-writing history along the way by continuously telling everyone, with all the confidence and assurance of an “expert”, that Pit Bulls have always been this way. 

 This is similar to the declaration that Pit Bulls must not show any form of human aggression.  My theory is that this came about because humans had to be able to handle hurt and hyped up dogs in the fight ring so they decided that the only ones allowed would be the dogs who would never bite them, regardless of the circumstances.  Now it seems to have become an ‘accepted standard’ for the Pit Bull – although I have never seen it in any published breed description.  In dog shows, if a judge is bitten by a dog, ANY dog, the dog will be disqualified.  But who would argue that it would be preferable for dogs not to bite humans?  That’s a good thing, right? Well… maybe, but by making it a standard for the Pit Bull hems the dog in by removing any grey areas – the Pit Bull must never, under any circumstances, bite a human. The Doberman can bite, a Rottie can bite, but not the Pit Bull, because it is a standard! One person on the site said that any Pit Bull that bites a human should be instantly killed because it is showing aggression to a human in direct violation of their breed standard. Is this reasonable, or even desirable? What if the dog felt he was in danger, what if he felt his owner was in danger? Should we kill a scared or hurt animal because it violates a frigging breed standard? That’s like killing a baby because it was born with a harelip.

  Just a quick scan of the myriad of different dog types, all supposedly coming from the wolf who looks the same regardless of what country he lives in, will demonstrate how much human intervention there has been over the centuries.  Imagine some 17^th century farmer saying – ‘hmmm, I am really fed up with these pesky rats eating all my grain.  I need a dog that is quick enough to run after them, small enough to follow them down into small spaces, and tenacious enough to risk getting bitten to kill them.”  Presto – he starts breeding his smallest, fastest, bravest dogs and in short time he has some kind of terrier.  Great – problem solved. But some times we screw up – the Shar Pei was bred to have small, tight ears so that other animals could not hold onto to them in a fight – but now the Shar Pei is famous for getting ear infections because there is no air circulation within the ear canal.  But guess what, a small, tight, close set ear is still the standard of a Shar Pei. 

I totally get it that any creature that you bring to live in your home and among society as a whole has to trained to behave in a certain way.  And I have no problem with cross-breeding within a species to develop an animal that would benefit you. The problem that I have is with people who impose unreasonable standards which are harmful to a dog’s health or totally contrary to a dog’s basic nature and then punish or kill the dog for reverting to his nature.  

 To me it seems that most people lack an understanding of what a dog really is.  To most people a dog is an object – it is A Breed.  It is like a toy that you can switch on and off – and it must not have any desires of its own, instincts and drives of its own, unless they are pre-approved by humans.  The only thing it must live for is to please its owner.  Anything less is not a Good Dog.  And all this pleasing your owner nonsense – what is that about?  Sure a dog will try to please its owner – but it seems that humans can’t get enough pleasure.  It is not enough to say, ‘oh yes, my dog tries to make me happy.’  No, what a human owner would crave more than a dog lusts for liver cookies is to be able to say, ‘oh yes, my dog will instantly obey me every single time I give a command and, in fact, will lay down his life for me in a heartbeat.’ Apparently, if you don’t have this kind of canine martyr, then you dog isn’t worth the time and energy to keep it alive and you are a wimpy and ineffectual excuse of an owner.

 With my dogs, I am like I was with my children, both at home and at school.  I don’t want anybody to hurt them – in ANY way.  When my children were little, I am sure people said (behind my back) that I was over-protective, but nobody could have said that I spoiled my children because I didn’t.  My children had a more rigid set of rules to follow than any of their friends and family.  I was very strict about discipline and like to think that consequently I hardly ever had to shout at or punish them as much as I saw some people doing to their children. 

But above all, I tried to understand what made children act like they do.  And now I am trying to understand what makes my dogs sometimes apparently try to drive me to commit suicide.  I don’t expect I will ever fully get all the answers, but I am trying.  And that is more than I can say for almost all the Pit Bull owners I have met on line so far.  What I see them doing is trying to justify their actions when they are unkind to their dogs; trying to impress people around them with their knowledge about the breed and their ability to train and control their dogs; focussing on making money off of their dogs by using the policy of minimum output and maximum returns; and boasting about how much they love animals while not providing one iota of proof of it.  But none of them are trying to understand the animal on his or her own terms and appreciate them for what they are, not for what they want to make them into. 

 The more I see of humans, the more I prefer the company of dogs.  They don’t try to understand humans either, but at least they don’t post on Face Book about it.