Sorry, I can’t help it. None of us can. When we look at dogs we see ourselves in them, no matter how often scientists warn us against attributing human feelings, thoughts, and emotions to non-human animals.
I think dogs are a hell of a lot like us. They grow and learn, they have distinct personalities, and they’ve lived and worked with humans since the beginnings of time. Even the most disciplined and objective scientist, I bet, goes home at night and talks to his dog.
I hope you’ll indulge me, then, as I try to get inside a dog’s head.
We live with two miniature dachshunds, Schatzi and Maxie. Schatzi is the elder, very much the alpha dog. We raised her from a tiny pup, house-training and teaching her everything she knows about living with humans. Maxie is, we think, slightly younger; she came to us as an adult, perhaps five years old, her habits and behavior around people already formed.
Their diet is regular: dry kibble in the morning, a dog treat in the middle of the day, wet food at dinnertime. The wet food consists of frozen meat pellets, which we buy in bags at the feed store and keep in the freezer at home. The pellets are made of beef, venison, lamb, chicken, rabbit, and duck — we buy a different flavor each time. Since the pellets are frozen, we have to thaw them out first. Each night at dinnertime, as the dogs are eating, we put two fresh scoops of pellets in a plastic container which we leave in the fridge to thaw for tomorrow.
When Schatzi and Maxie eat, they wolf their food in three or four gulps and finish together. Once they’re done Schatzi moves over to Maxie’s bowl to lick the last traces of flavor from it, while Maxie does the same to Schatzi’s bowl. Even so, I watch them while they eat, because sometimes Maxie is a little slower and Schatzi will try to muscle in on what’s left of her food.
What slows Maxie down is this thing she does where she jumps back from her bowl, then warily sneaks back to finish her dinner. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does it’s clear something startled or frightened her. I started wondering what that something could be.
Whatever it is, it never happens at breakfast or treat time, only at dinner and then not always. So it’s not a fear of food, nor does it seem to be deference to Schatzi’s alpha dog status. It’s something else, and I think it’s me or something I’m doing.
Lately I’ve been watching Maxie closely as she eats. I’ve observed that she only jumps back from her bowl when I do a certain thing. Like the dogs, I too have a set dinnertime routine: I put one scoop of thawed pellets in each bowl, then put the bowls on the floor. As the dogs start to eat, I turn to the freezer, open it and pull out the bag of frozen pellets, then scoop tomorrow’s dinner into the plastic container to thaw.
Maxie starts in on her dinner without a care in the world, but as soon as I make a move toward the freezer she starts keeping an eye on me. She doesn’t jump back from her bowl until I open the freezer door, or at least that’s what I thought until last night, when I tried to observe her behavior more scientifically. Last night she kept eating as I opened the freezer door, but jumped back the second I reached inside for the bag. I’ll try to confirm that at dinnertime tonight, but I don’t want to take it any farther than that.
Exactly what it is that frightens her when I reach inside the freezer for that bag I’ll probably never know. But clearly it does frighten her, and that’s the last thing I want to do to this sweet little creature, who has always been wary and shy around humans. So after tonight, I’ll change my routine and stop preparing tomorrow’s dinner until both dogs have finished eating.
We think we know and understand Schatzi, since she grew up with us. Maxie was an adult when we got her, her mannerisms and habits already formed. We don’t know much about her prior life. For a year or so before she came to us, she belonged to a friend’s daughter. The daughter was starting her own life, changing jobs and moving from apartment to apartment, so she had to leave Maxie with her mother, who already had two dogs of her own. Maxie was well loved by both daughter and mother, but we thought we could give her more attention and a permanent home, so we offered to adopt her.
The thing is, Maxie lived with someone else, possibly more than one person, before living with our friend’s daughter. We know nothing about that part of her life. Was she loved then, or was she neglected or abused? She had been spayed, but that’s all we knew about her medical history. Even her age was unknown — the vet, looking at her teeth, said she was probably a year younger than Schatzi.
We once had a coyote-collie mix named Duke, who like Maxie was grown when we got him. One day I dropped a glass on the kitchen floor and reached for the broom. Duke yelped and ran for the hills. It was pretty obvious he thought I was going to beat him with that broom, and he must have had a reason to think that, poor thing.
Maxie, like Duke, is afraid of something. You can fault me for anthropomorphising, but when she jumps back from her dinner I see fear. Did a previous owner do something bad to her? Probably, but it’s hard to imagine what it could have been. If she shied away from brooms and sticks, like Duke, cause and effect would be clear. But reaching inside a freezer? What could be threatening about that? We’ll never know, but it’s real to Maxie, and now that I realize it’s scaring her I won’t be doing it any more.
Most people who adopt adult dogs and cats call them rescues. Technically, I guess, Maxie’s a rescue, but I don’t like to think of her as that. She had a pretty good life, at least the life we knew about, when we took her in. It’s not like we were rescuing her from the pound or something. We thought she’d have a more stable life with us, and that she’d enrich our lives, and that’s how it’s turned out. Is she happy? If I may be allowed to attribute human emotions to a dog, I believe she is.
It’s only anthropomorphism because we’re doing the studying, we’re in the driver’s seat. Animals, all animals, were created for our pleasure and amusement and we have the inalienable right to do with them as we choose since of course we’re humans. That we are, in fact, just another animal doesn’t matter.
Doc was found wandering on the streets of Sacramento and nothing was ever known about him but it was clear that there had been very bad moments in his life.
Great blog piece but then you know how I feel about dem hounds.
Me too! I still think of Doc, and I know you miss him.