The Lost Hour (Short Story)

Hello, all!  I mentioned in a previous post that I've spent my writing time lately on short stories rather than blogging.  That doesn't mean I still don't have a number of dog-related posts on my mind, especially now that Tristan and I took an on-line reactivity bootcamp and learned more than ever before about why it occurs and ways to manage or prevent it.  I will share that information soon, but today I'd like to share a dog-related short story I wrote.

As background, I participate in a couple of monthly writing challenges.  At the beginning of this month, there was a challenge to write a 500-word story based on the title, "The Lost Hour."  I decided to write about a dog that was lost for an hour, and the owner's discovery of what went on during that hour.  This is meant to be a light-hearted story with a happy ending, and not at all meant to take away from the seriousness of the issue when a beloved pet goes missing and the bad things that could happen.  

Please keep your fur babies safe, especially as the nights get scarier with Halloween approaching!

The Lost Hour

Vicki stormed through the front door, took the stairs two at a time, and fired up the laptop.  Ten minutes later she was back outside with flyers in one hand and staple gun in the other.  Running and calling at the same time, she papered every pole within three blocks.

Back at the house, she posted to several lost pet Facebook pages while the printer chugged away. 

~

LOST DOG 

Isolde is about two feet tall, a tri-color female hound with a mostly black back, 

brown face and ears, white legs and belly. 

Call 148-4926 with any sightings.

~

Gotta find her before rush hour starts, Vicki thought as she grabbed her car keys.  She would drive to the park first, then circle the area she had run and post flyers on each block.   It was 6:15 am and she was supposed to leave for work by 7:00 to make an early meeting. 

The hell with that if I haven’t found her yet.  Oh, I hope she doesn’t get hit by a car!  At least it was lighter out now than when the dog had yanked out of her collar. 

Walking early, they didn’t usually see anyone else.  Vicki didn’t have any idea why all of a sudden today there were so many loose dogs coming from every angle to frighten her nervous pup.  Trying to lunge and bark in three directions at once, Isolde’s emotional stress bucket had overflowed.

At the park, Vicki fell to her knees in tears when Isolde bounded into her arms. “Oh, girlie, I’m so glad I found you! That was the worst hour of my life!  Are you OK?”

Isolde ran to the playground before Vicki could clip the leash.  Following, Vicki froze when she saw the Belgian Malinois standing on top of the Jungle Gym.  Her eyes widened and her body tensed when she realized there were dozens of dogs in the park, filling every square inch of ground, all focused on the Mal.  Isolde had returned to her side and was sitting in a relaxed posture – ears forward, hackles down, brow unfurrowed.   Vicki was the one who was frowning, because of what the Mal was doing.  Or what he seemed to be doing.  No, he was definitely doing it.  He was speaking. Not barking. Not whining.  Not howling. Speaking.  In words.

“Our hour is up, so that’s a wrap!  Next time you will report back on how successful your owner rehab was.  Remember, their stress buckets are all overflowing lately with things that aren’t important to us.  Use your funny antics to make them laugh; they really need it now.  Let them pet you longer; it lowers their blood pressure.  Seniors, it will make them happy to see you play with your toys the way you used to do. 

"Now everyone hurry home before your owners wake up and blow up the Internet with lost dog reports. 

"Isolde, please leave your owner home next time!”

 The End

Today's Walk With Tristan

Hello!  I keep meaning to get back to this blog as part of a daily writing practice.  Plenty of ideas are still swimming around in my head, but lately when I do sit down to write, it's been to meet the monthly deadline for the short story challenge I joined.  Today I decided that I have something to say about dog training.

This morning I found myself in yet another online discussion, this time in the Animal Behavior College (ABC) Alumni Facebook Group, where people were expressing strong opinions about prong collars and e-collars.  I have little to say about e-collars because I've never used one nor have I had any training in how to use them. I'm not against necessary and appropriate use as long as the owners have been taught by experienced, humane trainers.  I know a little more about prong collars.  I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly.  Lots of people who have never used them get emotional about the bad and the ugly, and refuse to believe there can be any good.  The more I learn and observe, the more strongly I believe that dog training requires a big tool box.  Condemning a trainer for using what may be the best tool for a given situation could be condemning a dog to not being able to remain in her home.  My mantra is "Help the dog."

Let me tell you this: without a prong collar, Tristan and I would not have gone on a 45-minute walk on this beautiful day in the seaside village we are visiting.  As it turned out, for 99.9% of today's walk, the collar was just resting high on his neck - a tool that was available if needed but which didn't have to be used.  Because the tool was available, I felt comfortable walking him in a busy environment, where even on side roads there was a moderate likelihood of passing other dogs.  He also has a harness that can be helpful, but somehow when we packed this time, that harness did not make it into his bag.  So, it was either the prong or his martingale.  Relying on the martingale would have set us up for failure if we hadn't been as lucky as we were today with respect to not having to pass many other dogs.

I took these two pictures halfway through our walk.  Do you see a dog that is "shut down" or suffering from "learned helplessness," which is what the naysayers claim happens as a result of using this type of collar?  Neither do I!

I have not written much about our use of the prong collar because it is so controversial.  Before I tell you how, when and why we use it, let me list for you what Tristan knows, none of which was taught using the prong collar:

• sit
• down
• stay
• back
• wait
• off
• heel
• focus
• watch
• leave it
• let's go
• place
• come
• here
• on-the-mat
• paw
• other paw
• loose-leash walking
• switch (to trade dog beds with another dog)
• back-to-bed (when I'm not ready to get up yet!)
• table (get up onto a flat surface, like the granite bench you can just see in the pictures)
• up-up (when it's OK to get up on our bed)

All of the above was taught using positive reinforcement.  The on-leash behaviors and the behaviors learned in group obedience classes were taught on either a head collar (Gentle Leader or Halti) or front-pull (Easy Walk) harness.  The prong collar was never used to teach or correct for any of these behaviors.  When there are no distractions, Tristan can do all of these behaviors off-leash.  He can hold a focus while loose-leash walking, and can hold a 2- to 3-minute stay.  I'm not saying that there aren't times when it is appropriate to teach or correct these behaviors using a prong; I'm just say that's not what we do.  If you have a negative opinion of these tools, it's probably based on not knowing the full range of ways they can be used.  If you find only one takeaway in this post, let it be this:  the prong collar and positive reinforcement are not mutually exclusive!  They can be used together to increase the odds of success.

So, if Tristan's so smart and obedient, and we hardly use the prong collar, why does he wear it?

Well, all those things he knows fly out the window when he is faced with another dog on a leash.  Over-arousal in the presence of leashed dogs began, for no obvious reason, when he was 18 months old.  Previously he had been in group obedience classes and met many other dogs on walks with no issues.  There was no fight, no attack, nothing scary that happened.  The only thing that's been suggested to me that I couldn't deny is that when he initially began to be frustrated or aroused (for whatever reason) by leashed dogs and was wearing a head collar, it got worse because he had been trained not to dissipate his nervous energy through his displacement behavior of choice, which is sniffing.  I do not know if that is true, but it is the only thing that has been suggested where I couldn't say, "No, nothing like that ever happened."  Because he is a hound, and because most trainers teach that it's good leadership to walk your dog at your side without allowing him to sniff, a head collar was recommended and is what we used until the craziness started.  

Reactivity?  Craziness?  What do I mean?  On leash walks, what it means is that Tristan starts pulling, lunging, jumping and barking when he sees another dog on a leash - especially one coming towards us.  It's not aggression; it's panic.  I see smaller dogs do it all the time, and people laugh.  But Tristan is 50 pounds, and if he catches me off-guard he can trip me with his leash or pull me down (which fortunately has only happened once and resulted in nothing worse than a skinned knee and a red face).

We sought training help right away, which is when we were introduced to the prong collar.  Unfortunately, the trainer used old-school techniques which may have made the problem worse.  We tried to continue with the prong for awhile after that, without using that trainer's more drastic techniques, but we were inconsistent in our application and Tristan seemed oblivious to it.  During this same time frame, Tristan developed an unusual skin condition that was initially treated (for over a year) with steroids. Now that we understand better that his problem is anxiety, I'm guessing that the steroids didn't help his mental state.

Eventually, we converted to an Easy-Walk harness, and I attempted counter-conditioning as taught in a Reactive Dogs Facebook Group I joined.  We also consulted with an Behavioural Veterinarian, who diagnosed a chemical imbalance and prescribed medication.  She explained, and other experienced trainers and behavior experts have since agreed, that when Tristan is in what we call his "frenzy," reacting to another dog on leash, he is unaware that his human is present and cannot hear any commands his human might be trying to give him.  It's a panic attack, and yelling words at him doesn't help.

After becoming a trainer, I was introduced to a completely different way of using the prong collar.  This was not part of my ABC curriculum, but learned at the shelter where I volunteer.  So, back to today's walk.   The only times I applied a gentle tug to momentarily tighten the collar (followed by an immediate release) were when Tristan was already in heel position, walking on a loose leash, in the absence of other leashed dogs.  I accompanied the tug with a "focus" and rewarded with a treat when he looked at me.  He knew "focus" first (taught via positive reinforcement without the prong), so the objective is to teach him to look at me when he feels the collar tighten, and to create a positive association.  When we see other leashed dogs, the collar gets through to him when my voice doesn't.  I try to see other leashed dogs before he does.  Most of the time, all I have to do is a gentle, quick tug (not a harsh "pop"), which makes him look at me, and say, "let's go!" as I make a U-turn to avoid passing the other dog.  If he has seen the other dog, he might bark a little and look back over his shoulder a few times, but he willingly comes with me on a loose-leash and his body language tells me he is happy not to be passing the other dog.  This is way better (and I believe less painful for him) than the frenzied behavior that would ensue if I was unable to get his attention without the prong or if I stubbornly refused to help him by making the U-turn.

Earlier this year, I was introduced to B.A.T. (behavior adjustment training) techniques.  I need to learn more about it before I can explain it to you, but for Tristan and me it meant walking with an extra-long lead (12- to 15-feet), using a 3-in-1 harness, allowing loose-leash "wandering," encouraging sniffing, and playing games with tossed treats while we walked.  I was doing this on a dirt road with hardly any traffic during a time of day we weren't likely to pass many other dogs.  When we did pass other dogs, the later it was in the walk (i.e., after the most time sniffing and playing games), the less aroused he got.  I wish I had learned about B.A.T. sooner, instead of when Tristan was approaching 11!

Even if we had remembered the harness when we packed for this weekend, though, the setting where we walk here isn't appropriate for loose-leash "wandering." The prong, a 6-foot leash and a treat bag were the best tools for today.  I allowed a fair amount of sniffing, and when I was ready to move on I could say "leave it" or "let's go" and had no need to tighten the prong for compliance.  When I wanted to take pictures of him on a granite bench, I said "table" and then "sit," and got both without tightening the prong.  When I saw another dog and decided to make a U-turn, his attention was already on me so I did not have to tighten the prong - all I had to do was say "let's go" and change direction.  But I am glad the tool was there so that if the timing was different or he saw the dog first I would have been able to use it.

Best of all:  After 45 minutes, when we were almost home, he saw another dog walking at a  90-degree angle to us, across the street at a T-intersection.  He barked twice and then looked at me, offered a sit and held a focus - without me doing or saying anything!  He got a jackpot of treats and praise for that!  If he would automatically do that every time we encountered a leashed dog, I would feel that we'd found the Holy Grail!

My First Dog's Last Day - Part 4, Some Final Thoughts and a Picture of Casey

I started asking Grace what she remembered about the bite over a year ago.  So, as simple a concept as “let sleeping dogs lie” seems to be, you might be wondering why it took me a year and so many words (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) to conclude that the reason Casey ‘s bite wasn’t “out of the blue” is because he was disturbed while he was sleeping.  Well, all I can say is that it originally didn’t seem that simple.  Here is a list of things that may have clouded my thinking: 

1. We’d had the dog for 3 years before the bite, and had never seen or recognized any hint that something like this would happen.  It’s hard to resist the temptation that there must have been an underlying reason, like illness or pain.  That could very well be the case, but nevertheless it was physically waking the dog that was the trigger.
2.  Although the warnings to “let sleeping dogs lie” are out there, they don’t seem to be as prevalent as other warnings, such as not bothering a dog when it is eating or has a bone.  People also seem to worry more about dog training methods, what dogs should and shouldn’t be allowed to do, and whether the dog is “good with children” than how to make sure a child is “good with dogs.” 
3. Often the advice as given is not to TOUCH the sleeping dog, which Grace didn’t do!  Replacing the word “touch” with “disturb” would cover more situations and prevent more bites.
4. Most of the time when experts teach that dogs don’t “bite out of the blue,” they mean that they give warning signals through their body language.  When I tried to analyze this bite in that context, I kept running into the problem that Casey was asleep right before the bite, so he wasn’t yawning, lip licking, trying to increase distance or any of the other cues that often go unnoticed.  The “body language” here was the sleeping itself!

And here is a list of what I consider the “takeaways” from this story:

1. First and foremost, of course, let sleeping dogs lie!  Beyond not touching the dog, avoid touching, pushing or pulling the dog’s beddding - even if that bedding is made up of your bedspread or an article of your clothing!
2. Don’t become complacent.  No matter how long a dog lives with you, the dog is still a dog!  Casey was with us for 3 years before this happened.  On his next-to-last day, he would have been described as a dog that had lived with children ages 8 through 16 with no problems, no bite history, no aggression.  If you make rules and they seem to be working, stick with them!
3. When teaching your children how to be good with dogs, don’t just teach rules but teach situational awareness.  In this example, even if Grace knew to let a sleeping dog lie, she was faced with the conflict between two rules:  not waking the dog vs. making her bed before school.  While most people can memorize a list of rules, it’s recognizing all the situations where they should apply and reconciling two conflicting rules that can be a little more difficult, especially for children.  Help them learn how to make good choices, even if it means something like not making the bed at that moment!
4. Be willing to manage the environment.  That includes creating a safe space for your dog to hang out while you are too busy to provide active supervision.  Use barriers if necessary.
   
5. Teach your dog basic voice cues and hand signals and have all family members practice them so frequently that using them (and your dog’s compliance based on positive reinforcement) are second nature.

Finally, I purposely have not yet posted Casey’s picture or mentioned his breed.  He was NOT a “pit bull type of dog,” Rottweiler, Akita or Canary Dog, which are the dogs I’ve seen listed (exactly like that) on an insurance exclusion.  I have heard people say they support breed restrictions because they believe a certain breed tends to “bite out of the blue” more than others.  Although we know better now, Casey’s bite at the time seemed as “out of the blue” as a bite can be.

Casey

(Check out the 

carpet, in case you 

weren't sure this picture

was taken in the 1970's!)

Result of a Google search for
a Collie-Dachshund mix

Best guess based on responses when I recently posted my only picture of Casey on Facebook and did some Google image searches is that he may have been part long-haired Dachshund and something else, maybe collie.  The point is, any dog can bite (even seemingly “out of the blue”) and they all have sharp teeth.

I want to thank my sister for letting me tell this story, and I want to reiterate my purpose isn’t to cast blame on anyone for what happened to either Grace or Casey.  No one who gets a dog thinks something like this will happen, but it can happen with any dog, in any family.  Without a crystal ball or a time machine, the best way to prevent it is to take a few easy steps right at the beginning no matter what kind of dog you have or what its temperament seems to be.  Decide how to manage the environment, make rules that the whole family will follow, and do formal obedience training at least through the basic manners level.  Your family will be safer, and your dog has a better chance at having a long, healthy, happy life as a member of your family.

My First Dog's Last Day, Part 3 - Why Did it Happen and How Can You Prevent A Bite in a Similar Situation?

In Part 1 of this series, I described Casey and his last day.  Part 2 provided a factual description of the bite and its consequences.  Here in Part 3 I present an analysis of the possible reasons why this bite happened and what another family might do to prevent a similar event.

Why Did the Bite Happen?

Three-year-old Casey, the family dog, bit 11-year-old Grace one morning when she pulled on her bedspread to get him off her bed so she could make it.  The bite required stitches on one side of Grace's face, very close to her eye on that side. Casey was euthanized. 

Although we can come to some general conclusions, why this bite happened is a question that will never be fully answered. Forty years later, Grace does not remember if this is the first time Casey was in her way when she went to make the bed, and we don’t even remember if he was routinely allowed on the furniture.  Maybe he was protecting his space.  Maybe he was startled or frightened by the sudden motion beneath him.  Maybe he didn’t feel well.  Maybe one of his feet got caught and twisted when Grace pulled the bedspread.  Maybe he was in the middle of a bad dream!  Most simply, maybe it was just a reaction to being startled awake.

If there were any advance clues that something like this might happen, we sure didn’t see them. It may very well be that Casey gave us some signals of discomfort in similar situations from time to time, but we didn’t recognize or understand them. However, there couldn’t have been any body language cues like yawning or lip-licking immediately before the bite because the dog was asleep.  On the other hand, the expression, “let sleeping dogs lie” dates back to at least the 14^th century, if not even earlier to biblical times! 

Grania is supposed to be on the 

light green spread, which is
supposed to be on top of the
print one.  She will resist if I try to
either move her with my hands
or pull the green spread back
under her, but she will move
herself  if  I call her to another
part of the bed.

I have observed my current dogs do not seem to enjoy having fabric pulled under them.  They are both allowed on the bed during the day, on top of an old bedspread that protects the nicer one beneath it.  My older female hound, Grania, loves to dig a nest, and ends up lying mostly on the nice bedspread with the old one bunched around her.  Sometimes if I try to pull the old bedspread back underneath her without moving her, she lifts her head and gives me that “leave me alone” look.  Yet if I call her to another part of the bed without touching her -- so she is out of the way when I fix the spread -- she happily complies, and I get no “looks” or “complaints.”  

Tristan, my younger male, isn’t as much of a nest maker.  One morning I did an experiment.  Several times in a row, I tugged on the bedspread beneath Tristan and watched his reaction.  I didn’t take it away from him; I just pulled on it.  The first time, he sat up and turned his head away from me.  The second time, he was still sitting and he licked his lips.  The third time, he laid down and yawned.  The fourth time, he got up, moved further away and laid back down, facing away from me.  These are all textbook signals that a dog uses to communicate – “Hey, I’m uncomfortable!  Don’t keep doing that to me!”

Tristan claiming his original spot 

on the bed with one front leg, while

turning his head away from me after 
I pulled on the spread. He wants me

to go away, or at least to stop

doing that!

Maybe dogs’ dislike of sudden movement beneath them isn’t so surprising.  After all, the expression “having the rug pulled out from under” a human generally connotes a negative experience.  Perhaps Casey – being woken up by it – didn’t have strong enough bite inhibition at that moment to stop himself from reacting to something that felt threatening or scary.

What Should You (or Your 11-Year-Old Child) Do in this Situation?

How can you prevent a bite in a similar situation?  The answer to that question starts long before the moment you or your child decide to make the bed.  

What follows is intended as a menu, not a prescription.  In other words, it’s a list of options.  What works for one family may not be the same as what works for another. The options fall into the three usual  categories:  Managing the Environment, Instructing the Children, and Training the Dog.  They aren’t mutually exclusive, but can and should be used in combination with one another.

Managing the Environment – This is the most straightforward approach to many dog-related issues, yet one that people often reject because they don’t like restricting the dog’s freedom or changing their own routines.  Simply put, if you don’t want your dog to “get” something (or someone), don’t give your dog access to that thing (or person)!  Close doors.  Use crates or baby gates.  Put things away.  

Most pertinent to this situation, make a rule that during times of the day when active adult supervision of dog-child interactions isn’t possible, they don’t occur.  In other words, the dog isn’t allowed in a room with a child unless there is also an actively supervising adult in the room.  

Give the family dog his own bed

in a quiet location, and teach him

to stay there during busy times of

the day when active supervision
isn't possible. Use barriers like

crates or baby gates if necessary,
and help him learn to be happiest

when he is out of the way!

Of course, Casey had never given us any indication that we needed a rule like this.  He had been with us since Grace was 8 years old, and the bite didn’t happen until she was 11.  But it’s not the point to wait for something to happen.  If we had made a family rule when we first got Casey that he wasn’t allowed in the kids’ bedrooms in the morning, his routine of being in his own comfy dog bed somewhere else in the house would have been well-established 3 years later.  It’s not implausible that he might have wandered into her room anyway, but an established alternate routine may have made the situation less likely. This rule may sound draconian, but if it had been in place then Grace wouldn’t have been bit that morning and Casey might have had a longer life.  It’s not an unreasonable precaution during busy parts of the day in an active household with young children.

Instructing the Children – We thought we knew all the basics.  Don’t bother the dog while he is eating. Don’t take away a bone.  Don’t pull the dog’s tail.  We didn’t do those things because our parents told us not to.  Just one more rule – don’t bother the dog when he is sleeping – could have prevented this incident.  It’s easy now to find sources online for what else kids should be taught about sharing space with dogs.  (See, for example, The "Doggone Safe" website where the two dog bite safety tip graphics above are from.) And it might also be a good idea to foster good decision-making skills.  Let your kids know it’s OK to wait until later to make the bed if there is a sleeping dog in the way!

Training the Dog – A dog can be taught all of these things, any one of which could have been helpful that day:

·         Stay off the bed at all times,

·         Get off the bed (in response to a very simple verbal cue like “off” or even a hand signal),

Tristan waiting patiently for

permission to get up on the bed.

·         Wait for permission to get on the bed.  Tristan sits and watches us make the bed every day, and understands that he should not get up until the dog cover is on it.  (And he knows “Off!” for those times when he jumps the gun.) 

·         “Come” which could be used to call the dog off the bed and out of the room if necessary.  

To be reliable in the moment, these cues and behaviors must be taught in advance, practiced hundreds of times and reinforced daily.  I don’t remember if Casey knew “off” or whether he was very good at coming when called.  But I do remember that we had not gone through formal obedience training.  If it was available and we had, and if all of us family members regularly practiced with him, then it might have been second nature for Grace to call Casey off the bed rather than to pull on the bedspread.  But lacking that foundation, none of us knew any better, and without formal training and tons of practice, Casey would not have known what Grace wanted if she had started trying to give him verbal commands at that moment.

Here is a one-page summary of bite prevention advice for this scenario.

Next - Part 4, Some Final Thoughts and A Picture of Casey

Potential Bite Scenario: The family dog is sleeping on the child’s unmade bed, and the child has been taught to make the bed before leaving for school
What should the child do?
	Bad Idea ☹	Good Idea 😊	Why?
Push or pull the dog off the bed.	X		Startling a dog that is sleeping may frighten him, and he might snap before realizing that he is safe.
Pull on the bed covers so that the dog will jump or roll off.	X		Besides being startled out of sleep, the dog might find it scary to have the covers pulled beneath him, or he could get tangled and it might hurt.  Instead of jumping off the bed, he might try to stop the child from pulling the covers.
Without touching the bed or the dog, use a verbal cue like “Off” or “Come” to tell the dog to get off the bed. *		X	The child’s hands and face do not have to be near the dog.  If the dog has been rewarded in the past for obeying verbal cues, then he will be happy to jump off the bed.  It’s generally a better idea to try to use a cheerful voice instead of physical force to get a dog to move.
Ask an adult to come help.		X	If verbal cues don’t work, or the child doesn’t know them, then it’s best to get an adult to come handle the situation.  Keep in mind, though, the adult has the same choices and concerns as the child!
Wait until later to make the bed.		X	Does the bed really have to be made at that moment?  If it’s not acceptable to wait until the dog moves on his own, then maybe the dog shouldn’t be allowed in the child’s room or on the bed at all!  Your child’s safety should be a higher priority than a made bed or a dog that is allowed everywhere.
*What if the dog doesn’t know any verbal cues like “Off” or “Come?”
Teach him!  If you don’t know how to do it yourself, then find a trainer who can help you.  But until the dog learns the cues, and the whole family knows how to use them, then the best choice is to manage the environment so that the scenario does not occur.  This means that you teach the dog and the children that the dog should stay somewhere else in the house during the busy morning rush.  Be willing to use the dog’s crate, baby gates or closed doors to keep the dog where you want him to be.

My First Dog's Last Day - Part 2: The Bite and Its Consequences

In Part 1 of this series, I described Casey and his last day.  Here is Part 2, a factual description of the bite and its consequences.  An analysis of the possible reasons why it happened and how another family might prevent a similar event is presented in Part 3.

A perfectly normal
morning activity

The Bite

Three-year old Casey -- whom we had since he was a puppy and who had never been aggressive before -- was sleeping on 11-year-old Grace’s unmade bed.  Grace was dressed for school, and pulled on the bedspread that was underneath Casey.  She thought he would just jump off so she could make the bed; instead, he jumped up and bit her in the face, scarily close to one eye.  She remembers our father coming in and forcing Casey out of the room when he heard her cry out, and our mother taking her to the emergency room.

The Consequences

When we got home after my mother picked me up at school, Casey was tethered in the far back of the yard.  I was told that my father had said he could not come back into the house and no one could go out to pet him.  Even though Casey was jumping, pulling and barking to come in, I was not tempted to disobey.  I don’t think I was afraid of Casey, but it was such a shock and such a new situation that it seemed best to follow the rules.  

When my father came home from work, he took me for a ride in the car and explained his belief that a dog that bit a family member could never be trusted again, and that Casey would have to be put to sleep.  I was sad, but we were a family where Father knew best so there was no arguing or questioning.  I was also very grateful that the bite had missed Grace’s eye, and the fact that it was so sudden and so close seemed to support my father’s position.  Maybe Casey would bite again, and next time maybe someone would lose an eye.  I can’t imagine how my parents felt when they first saw Grace’s face right after the bite.

Grace’s stitches were done by a plastic surgeon.  Boys made fun of her when she returned to school with bandages on her face.  She had to apply Neosporin and tape to her face for an entire year.  We happened to move during the year, so with tape on her face is how she started the next school year in a new state.  The procedure succeeded at keeping her face from being visibly scarred, and her inner strength kept her from being emotionally scarred.  It would be reasonable to assume that she would not like dogs after that, but she overcame any tendency to generalize her fear.  Her family got their first dog when her daughters were young, and now they have two.  She was surprised when I recently told her how proud I was of her for not letting that very scary incident turn her against dogs forever.

Were there other reasonable options for Casey?  I remember as a child hearing about dogs being sent to live on farms when they couldn't get along in city or suburban households.  We didn't know anyone who lived on a farm.  I do not know if there were shelters where we lived in the 1970s that would accept and rehome a dog with a history of biting a child, or if there were “dog rehabilitators” like there are now (or if Casey even needed that level of rehabilitation).  Even if there were, I do not believe my father’s strong conviction, that the dog wasn’t safe for anyone to own, could have been overcome.  No one knows if Casey would have bitten again.  This is a personal decision that was made in my family, and parents continue to have to make decisions about the fate of family dogs when something like this occurs.  They must put their children's safety first, and I will never condemn my father for making the decision he thought was right, within the context of the cultural norms and information and resources available at that time.  

Would the consequences to Casey be the same today?  While I feel I have learned enough over the past couple of years to analyze why this may have happened and how another family could prevent a similar event, I am not an expert on when to classify a dog as aggressive or dangerous and how to decide whether a dog can be rehabilitated. My personal opinion is that Casey was not aggressive by nature, and that he may have been able to live safely with dog-savvy owners in a family without children. Maybe, if we had access to the type of guidance and resources that are available to families now, he could have even lived with us.  In general, the topic of identifying aggressive dogs and determining the fate of a dog once it has bitten is very emotional and very controversial.  It is not taken lightly at the shelter where I volunteer.  Strong opinions can be found on both ends of the spectrum, and it is difficult to even find an objective discussion online.

Focus on prevention for the future rather than judging the past.  It is not my objective here to judge or to say what is right or wrong in any individual situation.  Each dog and each situation are different, and the options vary from place to place based on culture and what resources are available.  It’s a difficult situation, and the outcome is nearly always sad in one way or another.  Rather, I am focused on education and awareness so that families can take steps to prevent potential bite scenarios from occurring in the first place.  What those steps might be for a scenario like Grace's and Casey's is discussed in a  in Part 3 and summarized in this table.

My First Dog's Last Day - Part 1: Not a Normal Day

When I started formally studying dog training, I read in the curriculum materials that the most common reason for dogs to end up in shelters (where their ultimate fate might be euthanasia) is behavioral problems that could have been prevented or addressed by training.  So from the very beginning, one of my interests was to help save dogs' lives.  Volunteering at the shelter, I heard stories of dog bites and comments from the Animal Welfare Manager and other experienced, dog-savvy staff about how the bites could have been prevented if the families had been better educated about triggers and dog body language.  Recounting her witnessing of someone who should have known better hugging and kissing a known fearful dog, one colleague relayed that she wanted to ask, "Are you trying to kill that dog?"  Her meaning was that the person's actions might cause the dog to bite, which could then mean the dog might be euthanized.  It wasn't long before I came across the concept that while obedience training could help prevent behavioral problems, the most effective way to prevent dog bites is to change people's behavior around dogs, particularly children's behavior.

One day, someone was telling a story of a family dog that had bitten a child, and I suddenly made the connection that the exact same thing had happened in my family.  It's not that I had forgotten or blocked it; it was just so long ago that I hadn't connected it to my current interests.  Once the light bulb went on, I started wondering if that bite, 40 years ago, could have been prevented by better training the dog or by different family behavior. Although there is no way to know, and we also will never know if another bite would have happened even if that one didn't, I have some ideas.  My memory of what happened in our house didn't initially seem as straightforward or obvious as someone taking a bone away, playing too roughly or missing body language cues that we know more about now.  However, the same general concepts of managing the environment, teaching children and training the dog come into play.

Not a Normal Day

My first dog was named Casey.  His last day, when he was only about 3 years old, started like any other day.  This story takes place over 40 years ago, so some of the details might be a little fuzzy.  To the best of our recollections, it went like this:

I took the early bus to school every day;
no time to walk the dog.

I got up in the morning and got ready for school.  I was in 11^th grade, and my bus came before 7 am.  It was dark outside at that time of day for much of the school year, so I don’t remember it being part of the routine for me to walk Casey before school.  If he got up, he went outside and did his business in the yard.  I really don’t remember how much interaction I would have had with him before school; I don't even remember where in the house he normally slept for the night. My younger brother and sister were in middle school and grade school, respectively, and my sister’s bus was the last to come.

Eleventh grade started early in the morning and ended in the early afternoon.  My best friend and I sometimes stayed for after-school activities, and our mothers took turns picking us up.  On Casey’s last day it was my mother’s turn, but she wasn’t there at the usual time.  We didn’t have cell phones in the 1970s, so we walked down the street to a pay phone.  It would be odd for my mother to be late or to have forgotten, and she sounded stressed when she picked up the phone.  I think she said something about just getting home after having spent the whole day at the hospital with my sister (who is getting the fake name of “Grace” for this story.)

My high school in 1976.
 The person taking this picture would have been standing on the city corner
near the pay phone we used to call home for rides, day or night.

Hearing that the day had been spent at the hospital, I assumed Grace was sick.  She came with my mother to get my friend and me, and we were horrified to see bandages all over one side of her face.  The bandages covered stitches that circled from her jawline to within an eighth of an inch of her eye.  That is when I learned the shocking fact that my dog had bitten my little sister.

Back to the Beginning

No dog while we rented upstairs
 and had no yard of our own.

Casey was our first family dog. Until I was 13, we lived in a rented upstairs flat in a city in northern New Jersey.  I was the oldest, and it was a family goal to buy a house and move out of the city before I went to high school.  I remember always wanting a dog, and our parents promised that when we got a house we would get a dog.  Meanwhile, we spent plenty of time with dogs at our grandparents’ and neighbors’ houses.  There was a dog that lived downstairs from us that we knew to avoid when he was tethered because he could be mean, and there was a dog next door that I used to walk after school and who I enjoyed practicing “tricks” with – simple tricks like “sit,” “beg” and “give me a paw.”

We got the house and moved during the summer when I was between 8^th and 9^th grades.  Right away, I went for a week-long visit to my grade school best friend’s house. Her family had moved out of the city a year before we did, and their house was about an hour away from our new home.   One evening, a neighborhood group had a “Chinese Auction” – where you buy raffle tickets and walk around putting tickets in cups for things you’d like to win.  On one of the tables, there was a basket of puppies. 

Guess where all my tickets went! My friend’s mother said it had better be OK with my parents, and I assured her that my whole life I had been told I could have a dog when we got a house and now we had the house – so of course it was OK; why wouldn’t it be?  There were about 5 puppies, I think, and a ticket was pulled for each.  My number was called!  I got one!  It surely was one of the most exciting days of my young life!

I called home as soon as we got back to my friend’s house after the auction.  My parents were surprised; I’m not sure how pleased they were, but I had my dog!  First, I named him “Alfie” (after the song, “What’s It All About, Alfie?”), but then I decided I liked “Casey” better (after “Casey-at-the-Bat”).  When I took Casey home, there was a cake in his honor!  It had been baked and frosted before I changed his name, so there was a smear of color in the frosting where “Welcome Home, Alfie” had been changed to “Welcome Home, Casey.”

As far as I know and remember, Casey was a typical puppy.  He made us laugh by doing things like chasing his tail and pushing his food bowl all over the floor. 

I don’t remember many “accidents” in the house, so he must not have been too difficult to train.  We rough-housed with him the way kids do (or did in the 1970s, anyway) and I taught him all the tricks I knew how to teach –  again, “sit,” “give me a paw,” and “beg.”  He would chase a ball but wouldn’t bring it back.

I think he may have growled once when a neighborhood kid came too close while he had a bone, and Grace remembers him growling one time when she walked by while he was eating.  I don’t remember the dog being punished for either of those instances; we were simply reminded that we should keep ourselves and other kids away from the dog when he was eating or when he had a bone.

I don’t remember Casey even being punished the time he quietly stole almost a whole cooked roast beef off the counter.  I just remember that he ate enough of it before we caught him that his belly got really big and I was told to walk him however long it took for him to relieve himself.

In short, we were a normal 1970s family with a normal 1970s dog, and normal 1970s rules about leaving the dog alone when he had a bone or was eating.  No one thought of Casey as a mean dog that might hurt one of us with a serious bite.

Next  - Part 2, The Bite and the Consequences