This is a tough newsletter to write. My goal with this newsletter was to write regularly about what I have read or written lately. It was a gentle push to tally up the effort I was putting towards growing and expanding my world-view. Unfortunately the high-brow world-view stuff has taken a back seat.
My focus has shifted — using a camera metaphor — from a wide angle lens to a telephoto zoom. Our new dog, Ruby has pulled all our focus and energy towards her. She needs a lot of attention to learn to be a family dog. My wife and I are making up for the five years Ruby spent being the “yard dog” in someone else’s house. Ruby is having to catch up very late in her life on how to be a member of the family. It seems all she knew was how to be an accessory to someone’s carport.
Ruby seems to have missed critical socialization with people during her puppy years. Dogs will naturally respond to body language but to be a family member they must first learn the bond to people. Desperate for help, and not wanting to wait for our session with a local trainer, my wife and I spent two and a half hours on Zoom with Glenn Massie, a wonderful trainer from California. I found him on Youtube and his technique stood out among hundreds of other trainers. With Glenn’s advice, we started teaching Ruby to learn to look at our eyes and ask for permission. Ruby is smart and she is learning quickly. This is encouraging on one had but I can’t forget that we are teaching our five year old dog what she should have been taught when she was less than 12 weeks old.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said for optimal experience, to achieve a state of flow, one must find a challenge that is just a little higher than one’s ability. If the challenge is too high or too low then it leads to poor experience. I know reading books would lead to a state of flow for me — I would gradually learn more, then improve my skill, then pick up a harder book and so on. But dog training is the opposite, especially for a neglected dog like Ruby. The challenge is far too high and my skill is far too low. Worst of all, unlike a difficult book, I can’t just put Ruby away and wait for my skills to get better.
The best way I know how to learn is to read a book. I have bought several so far. Dog Vinci Code by John Rogerson seem to be the best book of the lot. But it does not cover our special case. I tried a leash-walking exercise the other day and left entirely frustrated. Sights and smells are so much more enticing to Ruby than wanting to please me. I just finished reading Simone Mueller’s Hunting Together. It uses a dog’s natural desire to be a predator to train them to stalk and retrieve treats. The concepts seem well suited to Ruby who is an American Foxhound. Perhaps an experienced trainer can help us with this modality.
At the end of the day what we want for Ruby is to be a happy dog who gets to have a family, preferably us, and gets to do a lot of dog things that her American Foxhound ancestry is naturally predisposed to do. We want her to be happy and comfortable in our home, sleep in all our comfy beds and couches and go for long walks and stop for lots of smells. We don’t want her to chew on furniture or electrical cords (which she does), and therefore have to live in a crate when we can’t supervise her closely.
I’d be lying if I said my normal has not been disrupted yet. I miss my mornings from 6 am to 7:30 am when I would sit quietly in my reading chair with my coffee and read or write. My morning is now replaced by being pulled around the neighborhood through the Florida summer’s humidity by an overly excited dog who it also appears is a morning person. In spite of this I have to imagine Ruby’s normal was also completely disrupted. From what she knew as a home albeit a neglected kennel under a carport, to a loud and impersonal animal shelter to a less loud but still impersonal kennel at the humane society, then in the back of a car for a long drive to a place indoors where all the smells are new and unfamiliar.
I can find perspective, empathy and compassion for Ruby when it is the afternoon and Ruby is sleeping. But I lose my patience after the first five minutes of incessant leash pulling at 6:30 AM which I am surprised has not yet popped my shoulder out of its socket. She can be a sweet girl. She is playful and often flops down and presents her belly to us for pets and scratches. We give her lots of praises when she is being very good. In little ways Ruby is starting to see our home as her own.
What’s next? Training for us and for her. Hopefully lots of it for us. We attended a webinar by Susanne Clothier and it was all about building a relationship with your dog. I have already read several books. Now I have to give my mind the free rein to blend it all together and make mental connections.
Because my days start and end with managing our new dog which is work, and the middle parts of the day are actual work in my office, I am often left with little mental energy to think and learn. I am still unable to find quiet time during the day to let my mind wander, to write for the joy of writing or read for the joy of reading. I would like to finish editing the podcast and record another one. So I started raking the backyard. I filled up seventeen bags with dry oak leaves from the two live-oak trees in our small backyard. Then I dug up old bricks that lined a long-gone flower bed and made neat rectangular holes. I bought some topsoil to fill those up. I bought a thatching rake to dethatch the yard. I am going to scatter grass seeds and water them. The manual work is a good outlet for frustration. I am a little less complaining and more patient on days when Ruby has been especially difficult while I have deadlines piling up in the office.
While Ruby settles into her new schedule, and she is settling down some during the daytime, I am hoping to settle into my own new schedule. Perhaps a morning walk followed by a shower. Then some coffee and reading or writing? Then dive into office work for the next 8 to 10 hours. Then some manual labor in the yard — leaves always need raking and shrubs always need pruning. Dinner and shower and bed. Let’s see if that works.
