All of the information I was getting from my dogs was powerful. But this to me was the most explosive knowledge of all. It made me completely re-evaluate my thinking. And it was then that the penny began to drop. I thought: ‘Hold on, what if I am looking at this the wrong way around? What if I am imposing a rather arrogant, presumptuous – and typically human – framework on this? What if, instead, I imagine it from a dog’s point of view and rather than thinking it is dependent on us, the dog thinks the exact opposite, that it is responsible for us? What if it believes it is the leader of a pack in which we too are subordinates? What if it believes it is its job to safeguard our welfare rather than the other way around?’ As I thought about it, so much suddenly locked into place.
I thought of separation anxiety. Instead of looking at a dog that was worrying ‘Where’s my mum or dad?’ we had a dog worrying ‘Where’s my damned kids?’ If you had a two-year-old and realised you didn’t know where it was, wouldn’t you be going insane with worry? Dogs were not destroying the house through boredom: it was through sheer panic. When your dog jumps up at you when you come in, it is not because it wants to play with you, it is because it is welcoming you back to the pack that it believes it is in charge of.
In many ways I felt a fool. I had made the mistake we humans make all too often in our dealings with animals. I had assumed my dogs did not have their own language, how could they – they lived with us? I had assumed that they understood they were living with me in a domestic situation. It had not occurred to me to think the rules they were playing by had been dictated to them in the wild. In short, I had imposed human constraints on them: I had allowed familiarity to breed contempt. I can’t say the idea came to me in one blinding flash, there was no apple falling from a tree or a bolt of lightning in the sky, but from that moment my entire philosophy changed.
Chapter 4
In a few short months I had gained a greater insight than I would have imagined possible. By taking time to watch my dogs interacting with each other, by listening to what they were telling me, I had picked up on some powerful knowledge. Behaviour I had seen in the wild was being repeated on a daily basis in my own home by my own dogs. I had begun to see how they enforced their will on others, how they showed supremacy, how they showed dominance. And there was no shouting because dogs don’t shout, no smacking because dogs don’t hit.
From my dogs, I had isolated three clear occasions when interaction was going on between them: at times of perceived danger, when they were going for a walk and when they were reuniting. At each of these times, I saw certain dogs being put in their place, the leader asserting its authority and the subordinates accepting that authority. What I wanted to know now was, how could I take this a step further?
To my mind, the most inspirational aspect of Monty Roberts’ work was the way he was able to replicate the behaviour of a horse even though he was a human. I knew that I had to try to follow his example and reproduce the behaviour of my dogs. I wanted to see how much difference it would make if I took charge in the way that a leader would do in the wild. I also, crucially, wanted to find out if it was something that should be done. Would there be any side effects, how would it impinge on the dogs’ wellbeing and quality of life? With this in mind, I knew the most important challenge was to develop a way of leading the dogs to decisions they were making of their own free will. As Monty puts it, I wanted a situation where if there was a meeting, I would be elected chairman. It was a daunting task.
Before I started, I knew two elements were of paramount importance. I was soon calling them ‘the two Cs’. I had to be consistent and I also had to be calm. For generations we have been taught to instil obedience in our dogs by barking orders at them. Words like ‘sit, stay, beg, come’, we have all used them. I use them myself. Dogs do recognise them, but not because they understand the meaning of the words. They merely learn to make associations with the sounds if they are used repeatedly. As far as I am concerned, their effectiveness proves only the value of being consistent in providing information to your dog. In every other respect, shouting at the top of your voice is a surefire way of creating a neurotic dog.
As I got ready to take the next step, this feeling was reinforced all around me. In the park where I used to exercise my dogs, I remember a man who used to exercise his Doberman. Any dog approaching the Doberman was greeted with the owner shouting and shaking a walking stick. Almost as soon as he started doing this, his dog would start growling and snapping too. I noticed that, in contrast, people who were relaxed and happy with their dogs tended to be in charge of animals who were relaxed and happy at play. This got me thinking about the nature of the leadership I should be providing, and I quickly saw that calmness seemed to be a fundamental requirement for all sorts of reasons.
In both the human and the dog world, the greatest form of leadership is the silent, inspirational type. Think of the great men of history: Gandhi, Sitting Bull, Mandela – all hugely charismatic but quiet men. That famous phrase from Kipling’s poem ‘If always comes to mind when I think of the qualities of leadership:
‘If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs …’
It is obvious when you think about it. A leader that is upset or agitated is a leader that does not instil confidence, a leader that is less likely to be believed in. It is certainly a principle that is recognised within wolf packs where the Alpha wolves display a serenity that borders on the dismissive at times.
I knew if I was going to begin communicating in my dogs’ language and, more importantly, if I was going to be elected leader, I had to start behaving in a manner the dogs would associate with leadership. I am not by nature the strong, silent type, so it was necessary for me to adopt a slight change of personality in the dogs’ company. Compared to the transformation I was soon seeing, the change was minor.
My first attempts began on a wet weekday morning. I remember it was raining really hard, and thinking how easy it would be to wait for a sunny day to start this bright new beginning. But by now I was impatient to get on. And I had gone to bed the night before, determined to try something the next day. I must admit I was full of self-doubt. I had no idea if it was going to work. Part of me felt a bit silly. I thought to myself: ‘I hope no one comes around this morning.’ But as I came down the stairs I knew that I had nothing to lose.
People imagine that I have always had my dogs behaving exactly as I wanted. They couldn’t be further from the truth. At that time, my pack was quite a handful, and even worse, they had no manners. When I came home, they bounded around and jumped up just like any other dogs; it could be incredibly irritating. Sometimes I would have my arms full of shopping or I would be wearing a nice outfit and they would come careering at me. For this reason, the first situation I decided to tackle was the re-formation of the pack.
Planning it all in my mind the night before I began, I had decided to imitate the behaviour of the Alpha by ignoring them. This was not, of course, the easiest thing in the world to do. But I soon realised that I had more tools available than I had thought. Because we are verbal creatures, we use words too much. We forget that we know an awful lot of body language as well. If somebody turns away from you, for instance, you know what they mean. Equally if you walk into a crowded room and someone averts their eyes, you are getting a clear message straight away. Dogs use this same language too, eye contact in particular. I soon realised I could use this effectively. So when I came downstairs that morning and let the dogs into the kitchen, I started behaving differently. When they jumped up at me I didn’t say get down, when they misbehaved I didn’t tell them to go to their beds. For the first few minutes that day I made sure I didn’t even make any eye contact with them. I just ignored them.
It was, I confess, an unnatural feeling at first. I was cutting against an ingrained attitude that wanted to interact with dogs whenever possible. I’m not sure how long I would have