Born to Bark Read online

  She said nothing for several minutes while she stirred the batter and poured it into the muffin tin. As she placed the tin in the oven and closed the door, she said to me, “It’s your fault because you didn’t train him. I will give you exactly eight weeks from today. After that I will give you a test. I want that dog to know how to come, sit, lie down, stay in place, and walk on a loose leash at the end of that time. If he fails that test …”

  My mother just left that sentence uncompleted, leaving me to imagine terrible fates for both Tippy and me.

  I did not know how to train a dog. I had taught my beagle Skipper a few things by waving food at him and he had listened and responded, at least most of the time, but even his best performance would not be enough to pass a test. Tippy was going to have to learn an awful lot and I didn’t really know where to start. Even worse—it was Sunday and the library was closed, so I had nowhere to go to get the help that I needed.

  The next day when school finished, I went directly to the library and pawed through the drawers full of cards that cataloged the books until I hit the subject topic “Dogs.” The library had only one book in its collection that was indexed under “Dogs—training of.” I scribbled down the number and nearly ran to the appropriate shelf, worried that someone may have already checked it out. However, there it was, Training You to Train Your Dog by Blanche Saunders. I could not have known that of the few books available on the topic at the time I had accidentally hit upon the best of the lot. Through the 1950s, the dog training methods used throughout most of Europe and North America were still strongly influenced by the German military and their service dog training practices. The techniques used to train dogs reflected the attitudes of the military at the time and were based upon strict discipline supported by force if necessary, so a military dog trainer’s tools included a leash that was braided and made rigid at the loop end so that it could be turned around and used as a whip if the dog failed to obey. These forceful methods worked and became the standard the rest of the world followed for most of the next century. Only later did people learn that more than one-third of the dogs subjected to such training regimens would break under the pressure and eventually fail.

  Probably the most significant person during these early years was Colonel Konrad Most, arguably the father of modern “traditional” dog training. Konrad Most understood the importance of rewards and punishments, but believed that the best motivator for dogs was their desire to avoid punishment. Although a word of praise or occasional petting might be useful, choke collars, leash jerks, and even an occasional whipping were the mainstays of his training methods.

  Hollywood would add a certain glamour to such compulsive dog training methods because of the success of dog trainers such as the American colonel Lee Duncan, who became known for his exceptional dog Rin Tin Tin. In 1918, Duncan found a bombed-out German war-dog kennel in Lorraine, France, that contained a German shepherd and her litter of pups. Duncan took one pup and named him Rin Tin Tin after the one-inch-tall wool puppets that French civilians gave to the liberating American soldiers for good luck. One of the captured German kennel masters taught him the techniques employed by Konrad Most, and Duncan used these to train his dog. Rin Tin Tin would go on to star in 26 Hollywood films and was credited for saving the fledgling Warner Brothers Studio from financial ruin during the silent film era.

  The second Hollywood influence on dog training came from Carl Spitz, a German immigrant who was another student of Most. In 1927 he opened the Hollywood Dog Training School and became famous for being the trainer of many canine film stars, such as Terry, who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz.

  One more direct import from Germany rounded out this early dog training world. Josef Weber learned to train dogs from Konrad Most’s training manual when he was an instructor in the Berlin Police Force dog training unit. Ultimately he set up a “residential” dog training school in Princeton, New Jersey, for the dogs of people who were too busy (or uninterested) in training their own pets. His clients were an international Who’s Who of the wealthy and famous. One person who came to him for instruction, not for her dog, but for herself as a dog trainer, was Blanche Saunders.

  Destined to change the way dogs would be trained, Saunders never would have started on that career path had it not been for a breeder of standard poodles, Helene Whitehouse Walker. At that time (and even today), many people thought that poodles were wimpy, stupid, and useless dogs—fit only to be primped and coifed and shown in beauty pageants. Walker’s experience with the breed had shown her that they were actually intelligent and hardworking.

  While visiting Europe, Mrs. Walker saw some dog obedience competitions and wanted her dogs trained to perform these tasks in order to demonstrate to the world how clever poodles really were. Josef Weber recommended that Saunders do the actual training and also handle the demonstrations, noting, “She is very good with dogs, although she inclines toward being somewhat too gentle with them. However, for a breed like a poodle, that might be a virtue.”

  Blanche Saunders would later say that she was sitting on a tractor when Mrs. Walker approached her and said, “I’m told that you are good with dogs. How would you like a real job training them?” Saunders did not ask for any details but simply jumped off the tractor and asked, “When do I start?”

  While Saunders trained the poodles, Walker used her persuasive skills and approached dog clubs and breeders with the idea of holding competitive obedience tests at dog shows. To further popularize the new sport of dog obedience, Saunders organized public demonstrations, some held in highly visible settings, such as Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Garden, and at sporting events at Yankee Stadium during intermissions.

  In 1936 the American Kennel Club (AKC) agreed to award titles to dogs who reached a high enough standard of performance at dog obedience trials. Once the rules were in place Walker and Saunders engaged in a nationwide trek to popularize dog obedience as a sport. Together they loaded three poodles and all of their jumps and other gear into a trailer and started a 10,000-mile tour around the country. Going from one dog show to another, they stopped to give many public performances under a “Train Your Dog” banner. These made Blanche Saunders one of the most respected dog trainers of the time and, when her book appeared in 1946, it was virtually guaranteed to be a success.

  Even though her mentor Josef Weber thought that she was “too gentle” with dogs, Saunders had not completely broken away from the force-based, military-style training inherited from Germany. She did, however, bring a broader understanding of the principles of learning to the field of dog training. Specifically, she observed, “Dogs learn by associating their acts with a pleasing or displeasing result. They must be disciplined when they do wrong, but they must also be rewarded when they do right.”

  Force and compulsion were still acceptable means of training for Saunders. Thus, the main tools that she used were the leash and the choke collar, usually a length of light metal chain with a ring at either end. When the chain is slipped through one of the rings and the leash is attached to the other ring it creates a nooselike device. When the leash is pulled or jerked, the noose tightens, causing discomfort as it cuts off the dog’s air supply. Releasing pressure on the leash removes the pressure on the dog’s neck. With choke-collar training, the dog is basically working to avoid the punishing effects of the tight collar. Saunders’s innovation was that, along with the forceful guidance, she tried to add some positive rewards, noting, “There is magic charm in pieces of cooked liver and chicken.” She anticipated what modern dog trainers call positive dog training methods when she said, “It is important that you know that kindness will accomplish much more than harshness and cruelty. A dog has a wonderful memory and he won’t forget your attitude toward him.”

  When I was only 9 years of age, none of the specifics of the history of dog training methods mattered to me, but it did matter to me that Saunders wrote, “The reason that dogs and children get along so well must be that they are so much al
ike. They think alike, act alike, and they even train alike.” I read this passage as meaning that it was reasonable to think that I could train my dog even if I had not yet grown up. As far as necessary equipment went, I already had a leash, so all that I needed was the choke collar.

  My family was hard-pressed for money, so I dared not ask for funds to buy a second collar for Tippy that would be used just for training. But I remembered that one of our neighbors had had an old dog that had died a few months earlier and that she had worn what looked like the choke collar shown in Blanche Saunders’s book. I gathered up my courage and crossed the street to their home. I knocked on the door and Mrs. Friedman answered. My voice quavered a bit as I started speaking, since I knew that my parents would not have been pleased to find out that I was asking the neighbors for any sort of “handout.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Friedman,” I said. “I’m really sorry that Rosy died. I have my own dog now and his name is Tippy. My mother says that I have to train him, and I got this book that shows me how to do it, but it says that I have to use a choke collar and I don’t have one. I was wondering if you kept Rosy’s collar and if I could borrow it until I trained my dog or until you get another dog. I’ll give it back afterward.”

  Mrs. Friedman smiled sympathetically and said, “Well, Rosy was a lot bigger than the little dog that I’ve seen you walking. But if you think that it will help, I’ll give you her collar.”

  She disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with what seemed like an enormous piece of chain. Rosy had been a very large Labrador retriever. Her collar was two or three times longer than what was required to circle the slim neck of a fox terrier, but it was a choke collar and it was not costing me anything, so it would just have to do.

  I thanked Mrs. Friedman and ran home. I sat in front of Tippy and looked at the picture in the book that showed Blanche Saunders shaping a chain like the one that I now had into a loop collar while a black poodle watched her with a happy expression. It looked easy. Next I slipped the collar over Tippy’s head and when I released it I heard a clunking sound. The collar was so large that if Tippy nodded his head just a few inches the ring that hung down would bang against the floor. My trim little dog wearing the long, wide-linked heavy metal collar looked like a prisoner chained in a dungeon that I’d read about in books about knights and castles.

  “It’s okay, Tippy,” I reassured him. “You only have to wear this when you are being trained. The rest of the time you can wear your own leather collar.”

  Tippy gave a little wave of his tail suggesting that he understood, or at least forgave me for the indignity of it all.

  Carefully following the instructions in the book, I began training Tippy to sit and lie down on command. Physically positioning and guiding the dog was an important part of Saunders’s training procedure, so I would tug up on the choke collar and push Tippy’s hind quarters down to get him to sit. Getting him to lie down involved a bit of a wrestling match, with me grabbing his paws to pull him down and if necessary even lying down on top of him to keep him in position. As Blanche Saunders hinted, sneaking him a bit of food when he cooperated really helped.

  Every day after school, I would put that enormous chain collar on my dog and work with him for an hour. On weekends I would train him for an hour or so early in the morning before the rest of the house was awake. The sounds of “Come!” “Sit!” “Down!” “Heel!” and “Stay!” uttered with all of the power that my high-pitched young voice could manage became the background music to my family’s life.

  Looking back, it is a great wonder to me that Tippy learned anything. My timing was awful, and all of those jerks, pulls, pushes, and tugs should have ruined my relationship with him. Perhaps the treats helped offset the buildup of any negative emotions, plus I gave him a lot of patting and praise. Unfortunately, a significant obstacle to my success was the “Dennis Factor.”

  My brother Dennis, 6 years younger than I, thought my dog training efforts were hilarious and invented a game in which he would try to distract Tippy or get him to disobey me whenever possible. When I would tell Tippy to “Stay!” in a sitting position, Dennis would run around or make catlike meowing sounds to try to get him to move or lie down. When I would give Tippy a “Come!” command he would stand on the side and call the dog while waving a bit of food to entice him away from me. When I would tell Tippy to lie down and stay, while I moved across the room to stand for a minute or so, Dennis would bounce a ball in front of Tippy, and, if that didn’t cause him to move, would run behind him and tug on his tail. Whenever Tippy responded to him instead of obeying my instructions, Dennis would wag his finger at him and yell, “Bad dog!” and then roll on the floor laughing hysterically. When I tried to get my mother to intervene, she would smile and tell me that I was doing a good job training Tippy and that Dennis would learn by watching me so that he would be able to train his own dog when he got older. Dennis was standing beside me when I had this conversation and he responded by waving his finger at me and squeaking, “Bad dog!” He then fell to the floor laughing again while I tried to imagine some form of unpleasant retribution.

  The 8 weeks flew by, but Tippy did seem to be under a reasonable degree of control now. His test was scheduled for a Sunday morning. We all went into the living room and my father, mother, and Dennis sat down on the sofa. My mother then said, “So show us!”

  Tippy seemed to understand that something important was happening and was calmer and more observant than usual. He even seemed to give a little nod of encouragement to me, punctuated by the end of his long choke collar chain thumping against the floor.

  I began by walking Tippy around the room, keeping him beside me in what trainers call the “heel position.” Left turn, right turn, fast, slow, halt, and sit—all seemed perfect and he moved as if he were glued to my left leg. Then I placed him in a sit, stood in front of him, and told him to lie down, then to sit, both of which he did precisely. Next I told him to stay and I marched across the room.

  “Tippy, come!” I called. The handsome little terrier bounded to me dragging his overlong chain collar along the floor and sat directly in front. Then I showed off his crowning achievement. Standing tall, I told him “Tippy, go around!” He stood up, circled behind me in a clockwise direction and sat down by my left side. My mother actually applauded and my father gave a smile that made his pale eyes sparkle. Tippy had passed the test and all was well.

  Dennis gave his usual comment, “Bad dog!” but this time I didn’t mind.

  Later that week I returned the choke chain to Mrs. Friedman. I would still occasionally practice obedience commands with Tippy, but I had promised him that he would only have to wear that chain collar while I was training him, and I now considered him to be a perfectly well-trained dog.

  Three or four weeks had passed since Tippy’s obedience test, and on a weekend day my mother was in the kitchen making a big pot of split pea soup. I had a library book in my hand and was thinking about going outside, where the sun was shining and I could read for a bit. My plan was to find Tippy and take him out with me for company, so I had his leash in my other hand. It was then that I heard Tippy barking in the living room. It was his frantic bark and it was superimposed on the sounds of my brother Dennis laughing. I dashed down the hall and into our little living room to see what was happening.

  Dennis was using a flashlight to cast a bright spot on the floor, moving it erratically and laughing and shouting “Bad dog!” as Tippy dashed this way and that trying to catch it.

  Even though Tippy was trained, if he became overexcited and entered that state of terrier frenzy, I could not be sure that he would still respond to my commands, and the consequences of him dashing into the kitchen and another collision with my mother were too dreadful to contemplate.

  I shouted, “Dennis, stop that!” but he only laughed and jumped up on the sofa while moving the light spot on the floor faster and faster. Tippy was becoming more and more excited, so I quickly closed the living room door
to prevent him from charging down the hall. I called “Tippy, come!” No response.

  “Tippy, down!” No response.

  Accelerating, the little terrier made his dash for the door. Finding the door unexpectedly closed, he made a quick turn to avoid a collision, but lost his footing and slid a short distance on the bare wood floor only to bang against the rickety wooden pedestal table beside the sofa. Time slowed as I watched the table tilt and the red glass lamp tip over and crash to floor, breaking into several large pieces. The noise and the near miss from a large falling object brought Tippy to a halt long enough for me to grab him and clip the leash onto his collar.

  Dennis was still jumping up and down on the sofa, laughing and shouting, “Bad dog!” when I opened the living room door and raced down the hall dragging my dog. I had to get him away from this newest disaster. Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration. I shouted, “Mom! Dennis was jumping on the sofa and knocked over the lamp and it broke. I’m gonna take Tippy outside so that he doesn’t cut his feet on the glass. Dennis is still in there.”

  I felt no remorse. Dennis was ultimately responsible for this mess, and I doubted that he could shift the blame to Tippy, but I wanted my dog out of sight just in case. Perhaps my dog—my wonderfully trained dog—could avoid suffering the consequences of this latest lapse in control.

  I sat on the front steps of the house, my arms around my dog. The warm sunshine helped calm me and I stopped shaking. Tippy turned and gave my face a lick. I faintly heard my mother’s angry voice drift through the window and my brother’s insistent explanation of “Bad dog!” which did not seem to be carrying much weight today. I chuckled to myself and whispered in Tippy’s ear, “Good dog!”