Can An Old Dog Learn New Tricks?: The Power of Shared Power

 

Zorro is a 20lb, black-masked, fluffy, adorable dog. I adopted him several months ago. Despite how ready I had hoped I was to share my life with my first dog ever, in retrospect, I was unprepared. I have made mistakes– a lot of them, especially in the first few months. I still continue to learn and to work at my participation in the physical and emotional well-being of another. Ultimately, it is an amazing gift to have him in my life. But, I didn’t always feel that way.

 

I wanted to take Zorro to obedience classes. Filtering through piles of copious research, I discovered that dogexperts swear that the most important aspect of having a dog is to establish dominance over your dog, because the dog is happier when their owner is the pack leader. I was informed that dogs think differently from people: they aren’t persuaded by the kindness of their people, but by their place in the pack; dogs need to be spoken to in an authoritative voice. I did everything by the proverbial book. However, when I spoke to Zorro in a low pitched, tremendously confident tone, he looked at me with a deadpanned expression, then turned and walked in the other direction. My confidence shaken but not broken, my vigilant training began producing results. My objectives were being met, but Zorro seemed depressed. Zorro and I were not bonding. I was responsible for this being that seemingly neither respected nor liked me. I spent a couple of weeks terrified that I made an awful mistake.

 

Zorro is part Lhasa Apso. Known for their large barks despite their small size, Lhasas were bred thousands of years ago as guard dogs for Tibetan Monks and named after the sacred region Lhasa. They are known to be willful and independent. Zorro is also very sweet. He barks uncontrollably at the first sight of a stranger, but rolls over and gives his belly up for a rub if given attention. Zorro barks ferociously at the large part-wolf down the street that snarls at him as if he were prey, apparently unaware of his own small stature. This little guy has guts! He represents so much irony that I can barely contain myself from giggling. And I don’t. He bounces around the neighborhood, paying copious attention to most perpendicular structures, leisurely smelling and eventually adding his own scent to the many layered canine-urine coated objects. In trying to interpret “Dog World” and my new roommate from a human perspective, Zorro carefully sniffs, and then adds his own scent as his way of sussing out the other hounds in the hood and then announces his presence. Coupled with his gigantic bark, Zorro will not be dismissed in his new digs. Each day on our walks we walk past the house of the part wolf, who often sits on the porch tethered to a leash. As we approach the wolf’s house, Zorro attempts to pull me, while sending his growl up the leash. If the wolf is actually outside, Zorro barks his freakin’ head off. Either way, I peel Zorro away from the scene, his tail and head held high. Taking long walks with Zorro and noticing his ritual behaviors, I think of international politics.

 

How much of our ritual behaviors derive from instincts rather than choices from our supposed large brains? How much of what we do comes from an innate sense of not knowing how to do things any differently, and can you teach an old dog new tricks? Throughout history and obviously today, people spread their scent to other jurisdictions and are constantly barking all over neighborhoods—their own and often others too. From invading countries to spraying graffiti on buildings, there are demonstrations of attainment of power through territorializing.

 

I am called “a dog owner.” One day very early in our relationship, “My Dog” and I were walking to the park, still trying to figure each other out. Zorro was doing his usual stop-every-few-feet to smell things, a behavior our trainer frowns upon (a dog should stop when you stop because you are the pack leader. A dog should poop when you tell him to poop, because you are the pack leader). As the good pack leader I was determined to be, I forged ahead in my leadership role, snapping Zorro’s leash, which was attached to the prong collar around his neck. I heard a yelp. I turned around to see large, dark, pleading eyes and a squatting small furry body relieving himself. The poor guy had diarrhea. I felt like an ass. After apologizing profusely to my little friend, praising him and picking up his runny poop with a “biobag,” we continued our walk (with my would be tail between my legs). I thought of what “training” meant in the bigger picture. Is “training” a dog really kind to the dog? Is it hubris? Selfish? Responsible? Mean? Good? Bad? What does it mean to take a creature out of his natural environment and force him into one that isn’t innate to him? Why do we do that? As I pondered these larger questions, Zorro moved immediately on to the next thing to sniff, tail high, ears back, seemingly content.

 

Why IS it so important for people to feel like they control their own lives and the lives around them? Is it human instinct, an emotional byproduct, or our knowledge that we are mortal? I think of dog breeding, genetic engineering, forest fires, relationships, and war. I suppose that the quest to control is how we got on two legs, and out of the cave, but how do we choose what to control? To what degree should we control and at what cost? How do we sustain the control we assume?

 

I think of the justifications made for slavery:

 

 “Slavery was good for the slaves; the slave-owners took on the burden of caring for the interests of inferior beings, seeing that they would be fed, clothed and given religious instruction . . . .” ¹

 

…and the justifications for Apartheid:

 

"The way Afrikaners justified apartheid was to say it was God-ordained . . . .” ²

 

…the justification for not allowing women to vote:

 

“Politics are not women's business, and would distract them from their proper duties… Women do not desire the suffrage, but would rather be without it.” ³