Friday, December 31, 2010

Communicating



We consider ourselves to be more intelligent than dogs, but most of us expect dogs to learn our language and we make little attempt to learn theirs!

Dogs are very social, and therefore are very communicative, but most people don’t really understand them, and therefore have a lot of problems with them.  But actually, dog language and people language have a great deal in common.  Dogs understand this and are very sensitive to what we are communicating – including things that we did not really want to communicate or don’t even know we are communicating.

They are especially sensitive to body language, which makes up a really large part of their communication system, while we tend to ignore it in favor of words.  I know that it has become very popular in the last years to have all sorts of experts in body language and communication interpreting and analyzing what our politicians are really saying.  But our dogs have been doing this forever!  Dogs don’t lie, and you can’t lie to a dog either – we could learn something from that…

I don’t have to say much to Habibi – he knows exactly what I mean and what my intentions are.  Before I move, he knows if we are going out now, or if I am just getting up to make a cup of coffee.  He knows when I am getting my things together to go out whether he will be able to come along or whether this time he has to stay at home.  He knows when I am happy, when I am pleased with him, when I am really annoyed, and whether I am pretending to be annoyed, without a word being said, and he reacts appropriately. And reactions like giving me a silly grin when he knows that I am annoyed to make me laugh are very effective.

Since I spend much more of my time with dogs than with people, and have been trying to learn their language for any years, I also find it easy to understand what he is communicating to me.  We look each other in the eye, and I understand exactly what he means, although to someone else, these expressions look exactly the same.  Dog language is so subtle and intricate that the slightest changes in posture and expression can make a huge difference.  Also when they do use their voices to communicate, there are huge and subtle differences in “words” and tones – I know perfectly well when Habibi is “talking” about something happening outside whether he is just amusing himself (and dogs do like to bark to break up the boredom of nothing happening) or if there is really something going on that I have to check out.

I think that dogs get frustrated by our incompetence at understanding things that are perfectly clear.  Habibi is quite tolerant, I haven’t caught any looks of scorn.  But my first border collie was not very patient;  she would bring a toy over and throw it in my lap, expecting me to react, and the look she gave me if I didn’t do so immediately was very clear:  “How stupid can you be!!!! Don’t you understand something as simple as throwing a ball???”  And she would scoop up the ball and dump it on my lap again, in the hopes that I would finally understand.

Habibi is more subtle.  He comes over holding his toy and stands and looks at me.  It is impossible to resist those penetrating eyes for long, but if I do, then he simply lays his head on my knee. “Come on, you can do it!”

I find that I communicate by preference with dogs.  Communicating with people can be exhausting, especially when they just keep on talking and talking about what they have already said…my attention starts to wander.  Dogs don’t have excess verbiage – they say what they mean with their bodies, and they really think you are stupid if you don’t understand it the first time.  They may at times reinforce what they are saying with vocalization, but it is minimal – dogs that are very noisy and bark all the time are usually frustrated – no one tries to understand them, so if they make a lot of noise, maybe that will work!  People just go on making a lot of noise…

Of course, dogs thinking we are stupid does not mean they love us less, they just have lower expectations.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Touch

Habibi is the most somatic dog I have ever had.  Most Canaans tend to be a bit aloof as far as body contact goes – they come over for a bit of attention and petting, but then they usually go on about their own business.  Even the collies, who can be real pests as far as getting attention goes (“Pet me! Pet me! Pet me!  Pet me more!”), once they have discovered that the nose push doesn’t work anymore and the hand remains limp, will go off to find a comfortable place.

Habibi, however, seems to feel that the place he needs to be as much as possible is in physical contact with me.  When I am sitting, he is next to me with his body touching my legs.  This is true both at home, and when we go out.  Wherever I am sitting, he presses up against me – nearby is not good enough, it has to be physical contact.  If it is absolutely impossible – as when I am sitting at the computer with my legs underneath the desk, with absolutely no space for him to get in – then pressed up against the chair legs also works.

It is true that dogs gain confidence from being with the rest of their pack, and a bit of physical contact is certainly a great boost to confidence.  But lack of confidence has never been a problem for Habibi.  He has always been a very self assured and forward fellow.  I have a feeling that he has intentions of boosting my confidence.

For instance, he is not really keen on strangers coming to visit – this is our territory, his and mine, with the other dogs in the pack allowed, and a few carefully chosen and approved people allowed.  But strangers!!! He has learned that I (sometimes being rather stupid and trusting) do allow people he does not know well or even those that he has never met before to enter our space, and that I expect him to tolerate them and not even to nip them a bit in warning.

So they are allowed to come in.  But he immediately takes up his position pressed against my legs.  Pressed against the front of my legs, in fact, and sitting or lying alertly with his eyes never leaving the face of the intruder.

“Just move a bit!  Just do something that I can interpret as being threatening…! I am waiting for it!”

A few times, when he has been particularly worried about a visitor, he has agilely and quickly shifted his position onto my lap – that way he can look at this invader at eye level. 

Habibi knows that doing more than glaring is not allowed – but that glare can be very convincing, especially when there is a faint growling vibration going on as well…

But his interest in close physical contact is not confined to protection.  He simply enjoys it.  He makes use of all his abilities to encourage me to stroke him.  Pushing his nose under my hand often works, but when it doesn’t, he has developed additional ways of manipulating.  He will very gently and carefully grab the edge of my sleeve and pull my hand towards him, and if there is no sleeve, he will very carefully take hold of my watchband.  He may also take hold of my hand itself, and is really good at gently tugging the hand and then quickly getting his head under it for the pat. He also is very persistant.  I try to ignore him in the hopes that he will get fed up and leave me alone, but that rarely happens – usually it is I that gives in and pets.

Not that I really object…

When I am lying on the sofa watching TV, his favorite place was right next to me on the floor, where he could also reach my hand quite easily. But now that winter has started, and it is cooler, he has decided that the floor will not do – his place is on the sofa, with the length of his body against me.  He is also an expert at pushing the edge of the blanket away with his nose to make himself more room.

He also likes to bring one of his bones to share with me while we are lying there together.  He will put it in my hand so that I can hold it for him while he chews.

The sofa is not very big, and he is not a small dog, and lately I have been noticing that he is getting more of the sofa than me…

But it does help to keep me warm on those chilly winter evenings – nothing like a warm dog…

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The best way I know of to make sure you stay healthy is having a lot of dogs and no money.

In the last few days, several people that I haven’t seen for a while have told me that I look good.  It certainly was a great feeling, since I have gone through a rather difficult year with periods of not feeling great.

But it made me start to think about how we cope with those years creeping by and the inevitable effect they have.  And my conclusion is – the best way to stay in good shape is to have a lot of dogs and no money.

Having a lot of dogs is much more advantageous than having a lot of children.  You can tell the kids, “I really don’t feel great today, get your own breakfast.”  My dogs are not interested.  Time to eat is time to eat, and they expect their regular routine of care whether I am in top form or not.  The up side is that they are always appreciative – they are never in a bad mood when they refuse to talk to me, there is always great joy to see me and plenty of wagging tails.

Since I have no money, I can’t afford to hire someone to help out and do some of the work, so I have to do it all myself.  Taking care of a lot of dogs involves a lot of physical work.  Since I live in the hills, that also means going up and down hundreds of stairs every day, often carrying things that can be quite heavy, and climbing around on the hillside to clean up after the pack.  All of my dogs are pretty hairy – the rough collies, of course, are obviously full of coat, but for those of you who don’t have Canaans or smooth collies, you can be assured that there is a lot of hair on those dogs. So there is always plenty of grooming to be done – great exercise for the arms and back!  There is always something that has to be done, and since I was raised by a very efficient, particular, and house-proud mom, I have guilt feelings about anything that I have not managed to accomplish.

I had two major health problems last year.  The first was when I steeped out of my car and my leg twisted under me – torn meniscus.  I suppose in the scale of seriousness of injuries, this is not all that high – but boy, did it hurt!  The doctors have no miracle cure – rest the knee, and build it up again.  Well, resting was not an option – the dogs were waiting. I tied huge bandages around it to immobilize it as much as possible, used a broomstick as a cane (not having a cane readily available, as you can imagine), and went to take care of the dogs.  They were a bit put off by the slow pace of food delivery, and didn’t much care for the broomstick, but otherwise, as usual, were glad to see me.  It took me a few months to recuperate enough to get rid of the broomstick – but believe me, stairs are great physical therapy.

The other problem was what turned to out to be some rather major surgery, a hysterectomy.  I am not a fan of visiting doctors, and certainly not this sort of medical intervention, so I kept putting it off and asking my doctor to do more tests and more tests in the hope that he would discover that it wasn’t necessary.  But that didn’t work, and in the end I had to have it done.  Well, I thought, two or three days in the hospital and then I can get back to normal life.  After all, when a bitch goes through this operation, she is back to normal behavior in a day or two…

Boy was I wrong!  I couldn’t believe how long it took for those muscles to start functioning normally again!  Months and months!  Why are we so different from our dogs???

But there was work to do, so no staying extra days in bed – the dogs were waiting.

And I think that is what kept me from feeling sorry for myself and got me up and functioning normally again.

Even under normal circumstances, without any problems, this is what keeps me fit.  I am a morning person, and I do like to get up in the morning. But even in the cold and rain, or when I really would love to stay in bed a little longer, at precisely six in the morning, Habibi’s cold nose is in my face. 

“Time to get up!’

“Come on, Habibi, just another half hour…”

“Up!  Everyone is waiting!”

If I try to hide under the covers, that nose still finds me and is then accompanied by a thorough face wash.  No resisting that!

So up I get and out, to be greeted by a pack of happy, enthusiastic friends that keep me healthy and fit and make my life a joy.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Mother Lilo

A little more about Lilo.  Lilo has puppies at the present, and Habibi is the father.  This is a repeat breeding of puppies we had last year that were very successful, Habibi’s first children, three lovely little ones.  We met two of them a few weeks ago. Habibi was not very interested, as expected – fatherhood does not make a great impression on dogs.

Lilo, however, is an extremely devoted mother.  She has had several litters in her lifetime, and is willing to care for them forever.  She never gets tired of them, never loses patience, and is willing to go on feeding them for months, even though they have been eating solid food since they were a few weeks old.   If she still has the possibility of access to them, she will turn her four or five month old puppies over and clean them thoroughly. 

Canaans, being very natural dogs, take the birth process very much in stride.  Bitches of other breeds can be very fussy and pampered, wandering around restlessly, digging, panting, and fussing, and telling the world what a burden pregnancy is, for days before they finally deliver.  And then the whelping – well, some bitches can really make use of it to gain a lot of attention and sympathy.  Canaans, however, tend to just get on with business.

Lilo certainly doesn’t get worried by such a natural process.  This litter was born about an hour after she ate a hearty breakfast and showed no signs of intending to have her puppies in the near future.  A few hours later, when I came out to see her, there were the puppies, fat and contentedly nursing, and spotlessly clean.

But Canaans do tend to get strange ideas in their heads.  Last time Lilo had puppies, she managed to open the back door, go out behind the house, and dig herself a burrow that would have been big enough for a young elephant.  Fortunately, I caught her at it before she decided to put her puppies in it, and the door remained locked for the rest of the time she was with her puppies.

This time, she decided, for some reason that is clear only to a Canaan, that the whelping box that had been perfectly fine for several litters, was no longer the right environment for her puppies.  I found all four puppies in a neat little pile on the floor outside the box.  I of course put them back.  Next time I came to take a look, they were out again, once again in a neat little pile.  This went on for about a week – I put the puppies back on their nice clean bedding, Lilo took them out.  She never forgot any of them, never let them wander off – they were always in a nice little group, fat, full, and quiet.  Being moved didn’t seem to bother them at all.

Fortunately now the puppies are too big and heavy for her to pick up anymore.  Though now, of course, being Canaans, at almost four weeks of age they have no problems climbing out on their own.


Monday, December 13, 2010

Genetics

Let me introduce you to a few more of the pack here, Lilo and Domino.  Both are Canaan dog females, six and a half years old.  They were born only a week apart.  They are both really lovely girls with nice stable temperaments, fond of children, discriminating in knowing at what to bark and at what not, both have had successful show careers, and have had several litters with very successful puppies.  I really love the two of them…except sometimes…

Canaans are very intelligent dogs and very well adapted to everything that promotes their survival.  Nowadays, survival can also be considered the best way to get the most cookies, and they can also be very good at that.  But they are dogs that use their energies for things they consider positive and beneficial, and don’t waste them on nonsense.

Lilo and Domino grew up together, as they were the same age, and both were intended to stay here.  They got along really well, until one day when in an irrational sisterly way, they suddenly decided they hated one another.  After a few experiences of having one or the other trying to sneak out the gate to demolish her sister, they were totally separated, and each has since lived in her own little queendom, where they can look at each other separated by several fences and yards.  This does not, however, mean that they have given up.

Dogs are supposed to hate the taste of metal, and don’t like picking up metal objects – one of the reasons that one of the tests in high level obedience tests is to pick up a metal dumbbell.  Lilo and Domino, however, are perfectly willing to grab hold of the edges of the metal panels used as part of the kennel fences – quite strong and thick ones, as they are basically used for roofing – and to pull them loose, chew them, and eventually rip off pieces, in the hope that they will manage to get to one another. The bottoms of all the panels in their vicinity have teeth marks and tears. This has also not been particularly kind to the condition of their teeth, but that doesn’t seem to bother them.  This behavior has now seemed to have become something they enjoy doing, as they do it to fences which are not at all related to separating them.

They also have no problems with grabbing the fencing wire and trying to free it from the frame.  Lilo, who used to live with my daughter, also developed a method of grabbing the fence towards the top, holding on with her teeth while she climbed up it, thus pushing it down with her own weight and letting her companion, my daugher’s American Akita, out to run free. She herself had no problems climbing up and over the fence, but her Akita companion was too big and heavy, so she had to invent a method of getting him out also.  This was the end of Lilo’s stay with my daughter…

Domino likes to occupy herself with a wider variety of activities, one of which is eating her plastic dog house.  These dog houses are supposed to be indestructible, according to the manufacturer.  However, they present no problem to Domino, who has managed to eat a good portion of several of them. Nothing seems to deter her appetite for them, she prefers them over lovely meaty bones, and all of the various sprays and such that are supposed to prevent chewing apparently just spice them up a bit.

I have had a lot of dogs over the years, but these two are unique…

Lilo and Domino have the same father, a dog we brought home from the desert as a tiny puppy, who was a really tough and determined dog who without a doubt could have survived anything.  The only strange thing he ever ate, though, was a tick collar, which he ate in its entirety except for the buckle and which necessitated a quick trip to the vet.

Never discount genetics – more things are inherited than you might think…

Domino

Lilo

Weather

I know winter has come when one of the collies in the pack, a smooth girl called Freckle, sits in the middle of the yard, exactly where she is visible from all the windows, crunched up in a ball and with a totally pitiful look on her face, to communicate to me that it is cruel and indecent to expect any poor little dog to be out of doors, especially a dog like her without any hair…(Tell me about the lack of hair at shedding season!)  Freckle LOVES to be out of doors, where she can herd the other dogs and be in the center of action, and if she is inside when something is going on, wears a groove in the floor by the door until I give in and let her out.  But the minute there is a hint of cold or rainy weather, the situation immediately changes - she needs to be inside.  Once she comes in, she disappears into one of the dog baskets in as tiny a ball as possible, in the hopes that I will not notice she is there and she can stay there until the spring.

Well, somehow I can accept that a poor smooth collie, having developed in the tropical clime of England and Scotland, could object to being out of doors in our terribly cold Israeli winter. (When I travel to Europe in the summer, I take my Israeli winter clothes.) 

Habibi, however, is a Canaan Dog.  Both his grandfathers were wild dogs that had to survive, among other things, the weather conditions in the desert. 

During the summer, the other Canaans are very happy with the sun and heat. I find them lying and sunbathing in the middle of the day, and it certainly does not limit their activity.  Habibi has no objections to going out – he loves to go out and make his rounds, making sure that all is right in his kingdom.  But he very quickly returns to the doorstep, waiting for me to open the door and let him back in to the air-conditioned interior.

“Habibi, you are a desert dog. You are supposed to live in the extremes of heat and weather, not in the house.  You are a survivor!”

“If it was up to us Canaan Dogs, the air conditioner would have been invented two thousand years ago.  Who says surviving has to be uncomfortable!”

But summer is nothing compared to the winter.  With the first rains (which this year arrived by furious downpour), he looks outside with disgust.

“You don’t really expect me to go out there and get my feet wet, do you?”

“You really do need to go out once in a while to pee, you know.”

“I have a great bladder, I can wait to pee until next week when the rain stops.”

Finally persuaded to go out, he doesn’t touch the ground – he leaps from the porch to the top of the grooming table and from there to the top of the dog houses in the yard.  One quick jump to the ground at the end of the yard, a quick leg lift, and then back up on the dog houses for the route home.  Inside again, he gives a thorough shake, which expresses his disgust with the wetness on his coat, and then a few dainty licks to his paws to be sure they are again dry and clean, and he is ready to return to the position he has decided he is worthy of for the winter – under the blanket next to me on the sofa.

“I am, after all, a desert dog.  I don’t need to deal with water!”

“But Habibi, it does rain in the desert sometimes!”

“Well, if it was up to us Canaans, we would have climate control…”

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Racism

Habibi is a racist.

Our neighbors have a golden retriever.  He is a typical big, waggly, soft, loopy fellow, friendly to everyone whether on two feet or four.   The neighbors often let him run loose, and he wanders around the vicinity of their house, though in “public” property, where all the neighbors pass and park their cars.  His major occupation is picking up everything he possibly can mange in his mouth and scattering the pieces.  Another of his habits, typical of any male dog of course, is to pee on anything and everything including the wheels of the parked cars.

Habibi oftens sees him running free when we come home in the car.  True that this is, in actual fact, public territory, not ours  – but not to Habibi!  We walk around there, our car is parked there – therefore, it is ours!  This presumptuous dog has no right to be wandering around and lifting his leg on the wheels of our car!  Habibi warns him very vocally from the car, and also from behind our fence – when he is out with me in the lower part of our yard, he can see the road and dogs and people that might be walking around down there.  Of course Flaubert (yes, this is, believe it or not, his name), is unconcerned and indifferent to what Habibi considers to be property rights, and too placid (or stupid?) to care.

This, of course, is totally infuriating to Habibi.  Ignoring his rights!!!!

Last weekend, we were at a dog show, a multibreed show with several different breed clubs participating, and quite a variety of dogs present.  Habibi knows very well that dog shows are neutral territory, this is not a place he is required to defend and other dogs are allowed to be there.  He ignores them, sitting next to me and looking through them as if they are invisible, or lying calmly in his crate, his only interest being to try and keep me in his line of sight.  The only time I saw a reaction, a warning growl, was when one quite stupid dog owner let his dog come up to the crate and drink from Habibi’s water dish which was just outside.  How dare he touch something that was ours!  But otherwise, his behavior at shows is exemplary.

But at this show, I was surprised to find Habibi very actively interested in getting hold of any goldens that were in our general vicinity. Despite my emphatic warning that goldens were definitely allowed to be there and that he was definitely not allowed to touch them, I could feel throughout the day his tension whenever he caught sight of one.  The vibrations of his under the breath growling whenever one came in sight could be felt clearly through his leash.  He also showed his strong disapproval of Labradors – after all, all of these chunky cream colored dogs look alike, who can tell them apart?


For Habibi now, any golden is guilty and considered fair game.  And Labradors are too; for him, they are  the same floppy eared, waggly, soft lipped things with less hair. Dogs do identify one another by breeds.  Who says that only people are racists?  Though dogs usually seem to have a reason…

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Fire

The terrible firestorms that caused such devastating destruction in the north of Israel over the last days took me back 15 years to my own experiences in a forest fire.  The fire that destroyed the entire forest around our farm in 1995 was the worst forest fire in Israel’s history – until now.  This fire is many times worse.  But I know very well what people in the midst of it are going through.

Pine forests, when they burn, quickly become uncontrollable.  The dry pines, full of highly flammable resin, actually explode, shooting burning pine cones great distances, where they set more fires.  These are extremely hot fires, and everything in their path is pretty much vaporized, all that is left is ash.  They can skip areas and totally devastate adjoining spots.

The conditions were so familiar – even though the fire I went through was in July, and this one was in December, it was after a long period of very hot and dry weather, with strong and changeable winds that made the path of the fire unpredictable.  In these hilly forested areas, access is also very difficult, both ground and air, making it even harder to extinguish the fire.

I experienced anew, in my mind, the panic, the terror of having my whole life’s possessions destroyed, and over everything else, my terrible fear for the fate of the dogs who were left trapped at home, and that I couldn’t get to.  Fortunately, in my case, there was some power above that made the fire skip over my home and property, leaving animals and possessions unharmed, and burning everything around us.  It takes years for a forest to regenerate – it is green around us again, but we will always remember the black.  In this new fire, things did not work out so well – many people died, much property was destroyed, and it is still impossible to know how many wild and domestic animals died, despite great efforts to save them.

And all of this because of a small spark left unextinguished by careless people, and by the lack of interest of the politicians in modernizing our fire fighting capabilities…not sexy enough, I suppose…

(The full story of my own experience in a forest fire is in my book, Tails of Shaar Hagai)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Dog Car

December 2

Dog Car

My car is a dog car.  Many more dogs ride in it than people, and much more frequently.  Puppies get their first lessons in travelling in the car, and seeing the big world out there, adults accompany me to all the places that dogs are allowed to come to.  The car is well equipped with a supply of water dishes, water bottles, leashes, collars, a few folding crates, newspapers, towels, paper towels, blankets, an old raincoat covered with dog footprints, just in case the weather changes, and anything else that I might deem necessary.  Everything is also well upholstered with dog hair in various colors and lengths.  When the windows are open, the hair circulates around the car in the breeze, sometimes escaping through the window and leaving a furry trail behind.

I do have one of those little rollers somewhere in the car, that are meant to clean lint and hair off of clothing, but I am really not sure just where it is, and I think that it is totally covered with fur anyway.

The car has a familiar, pleasantly doggy aroma, which I think must be very comforting to the dogs – it smells like home and friends.

People travel in the car on those rare occasions when someone accompanies me to a dog show, when I have to pick up one of my grandchildren from an after school activity, or when there is a guest from abroad that I am showing around the country or transporting from place to place.  Since these guests are almost always dog show judges or dog breeders, the hairiness of the car is a natural state for most of them.  My daughter, however, who although a doggy person is also an extremely fastidious housekeeper, is not enthusiastic about travelling in the car on those rare occasions when her own (which is spotless and smells like flowers) is not available.

About once every six months or so, I take the car in to be washed.  This is usually when the dust on it is so thick that it is impossible to tell what color it is and the side mirrors don’t reflect anything anymore.  The last time was after I discovered that the local mice had decided that the car was a natural landmark, and began to store their acorns in it.  After hearing terrible noises when I started the engine, I discovered a pile of half eaten acorns in the air filter.  Only after I thoroughly cleaned and washed it were they discouraged and decided that it did not smell like a hill of dirt.

The guys in the car wash are not at all enthusiastic when I show up.  The first time I went to my current car wash, the guy took a look inside and asked me if my dogs lived in the car.  I always get charged the highest possible rate for the job, since they say that cleaning it takes them as long and as much work as doing three or four normal cars.  I have to say that they are right, I don’t begrudge paying them for their work, I certainly wouldn’t want to do it myself.

A few days ago, the time came to have the car washed.  When I picked it up and drove out onto the street, I had a very weird feeling – it felt as if there were no windows.  I felt quite disoriented.  The windows were so clean that I could see through them without seeing them, it was like driving with nothing there between me and the scenery.  Weird!!!

Of course, by now things are getting back to normal…