When You Go, All I Know is You're My Favorite Mistake

I feel the need to muse on "Whoops". Not the last entry, but the concept in general. 

"Whoops" means taking responsibility for the previous unwanted or unexpected circumstance, but in a light-hearted, not-so-serious way. It's interchangeable with dozens of other interjections. "Crap", "Nuts", "Fudge", "Shoot!", "Darn it!", the urban export "My bad!", or the perpetual Canadian "Sorry!" 

So why did I call that walk where so much out of my control sprang out at us a "Whoops"? 

Well, ultimately, it's all my fault. MacShane would never get out of this house without extreme measures if I didn't reach for a doorknob. (Thankfully I don't think any of these three hooligans can figure out how to work the old-fashioned brass knobs on a 100 year old house's door, but only because they're rounded-off. Lever-style latches? Forget it! We'd never have them in the house.) 

So I put a leash on him and I took him down a city street where, while it's usually quiet, at any minute, any number of things could literally appear out of nowhere. Doing these things means I leave him vulnerable every time we go out that door into an area I can't lock or otherwise shut down. And after the life he’s had, why in the Richard Nixon’s Favorite Word should he trust me? Our only options once we're on the sidewalk are to endure or flee, and I'm a Clydesdale, not a thoroughbred, built for hard work and endurance, not speed. He? Is nimble as a deer and faster than a polecat up a pine tree.

I know this, now, because yesterday, we had another "whoops". Two of them, really, but only one truly worried me. 

The first moment of struggle made me take a turn we usually don't, and caused the second indirectly. A neighbor one block over who walks a large shaggy white mixed breed dog on a prong collar was following us. Now, I've mentioned before that I have very firm and science-backed positions on the equipment and methods used to handle dogs. We're closing in on one of them, so brace for links. 

When the very political Humane Society of the United States publishes the following live on their website, I feel like I'm not just being reactionary about the practice because it 'looks mean'. 

"Aversive collars, or collars that rely on physical discomfort or even pain to teach a dog what not to do, are not a humane option. While they may suppress the unwanted behavior, they don't teach the dog what the proper behavior is and they can create anxiety and fear, which can lead to aggression. Positive reinforcement training methods—ones that use rewards—are more effective and strengthen the relationship between you and your dog."

So to set the scene, I have a 70#, dog friendly but stranger averse dog on the sidewalk two blocks from our home, walking around on a harness while still adjusting to what I think I've counted is the 8th or 9th major traumatic change or separation in his life. I do my best to keep us at least 40' away from the things I know to be his major triggers, which include white vehicles, diesel engine vehicles, strangers, small children, other domestic animals and wildlife, and loud noises like gunshots. (And I live in South St. Louis, where getting drunk and firing your gun in the air is apparently the only way to celebrate anything. This summer is going to get interesting, or we're renting a big RV and driving into the boonies to listen to the tree frogs instead of the 308s.) 

If I can't get far enough away from the trigger fast enough, we start doing tricks on the side of the road, assuming he's not already so focused on the potential exciting or scary thing that I can't get his attention any more. I'm not showing off at that point; I'm trying to keep the dog from biting me or pulling out of my grip and hurting someone because he gets too scared to be Him instead of a cornered carnivore.

This neighbor and his big white fluffy dog, twice now, have decided to follow us on our walk, guy talking to the dog the way I talk to our dogs inside the house. Normally happy baby talk means happy dog, right? Not in this case. The dog's body language is cautious and avoidant. (What do I mean by that? Well, here are some examples.) The guy sounds like he’s having a grand ol’ time, but I don’t see a single reward come to the dog, just lots of baby talk and movement.

To take it one step further, the even bolder San Francisco SPCA picks apart the usual arguments for using control devices instead of teaching on their website. Thyroid glands and tracheas are pretty important for the lifetime of the dog. Like, even if you find a vet that will hack off your dog's ears and tail, they won't remove *those* parts. Seems best to preserve them, right? 

Realistically, if something "looks mean" that's probably because it *is*. But besides the inability to read his dog, this neighbor guy doesn't know "how to properly use" the device he's decided to make his dog interact with to get any kind of stimulation outside of their little bungalow and tiny fenced yard-- a dog that appears to be the most recent in a long lineage of large, white fluffy dogs that were bred to wander acre after acre of pastureland keeping track of hoofstock, with the ability to kill coyotes or a small wolf if needed. 

My neighbor, like many other well-meaning people, has turned a herding or guarding machine thousands of years in development into a couch ornament with no actual *job*. A government does not train military snipers and then expect them to sit on a sunny back porch killing flies by throwing toothpicks. And yet, here is a herding or working breed of dog walking in quarter mile circles in a city being stabbed in the neck at random for daring to not walk at the turtle's pace set by the human with a length of nylon in his hand. 

The dog has the choice of, essentially, solitary confinement, or walk in the same boring circle once or twice a day doing everything in his power not to inconvenience the human with the metal thing by looking up at the wrong moment. But even further complicating the issue: the "self-correcting" collar is merely slung on the dog and clipped to a leash, thus it fits in such a way that the dog is going to wiggle out of it one day, if he doesn't just jerk his neck out of joint. I hope I'm not on the block the day that happens, and ditto for the guy with two retired racing greyhounds that finishes their loop of the neighborhood just before we start ours, or the lady with the little fluffy blonde thing that heads out after we're already home. If I do happen to be around when that happens, I'll be tossing a slip lead on his dog and walking it to his fence myself while having a frank talk about what I've seen, where I work, and the kind of help he's likely to need.

In watching our distance from this dog, I've never seen it walk with the tail in a normal or elevated position. I've never seen its ears up. I've never seen it allowed to pause and sniff a spot as long as it wants to. The dog is perpetually curled about thirty degrees away from the human regardless of what they're doing. 

The guy may not feel like he's done anything athletic or exerting when he gets back to his house with his dog and probably thinks it was a good trip, but the dog clearly feels out of sorts about something, and one day that's all going to fall apart. I don't need it falling apart while I have a dog with me who will protect that clearly uncomfortable dog from his or her own owner because MacShane or McKie suss out faster than the human that the reason the dog is uncomfortable is the human with the leash. 

Remember, my two big guys have over half a dozen bites to humans between them. A dog that uses force on humans successfully once will absolutely do it again if they feel the need.

In the meantime, thanks to being followed around the block like a lost goat twice, I've ordered a bright red hoodie that essentially says "We're training, go away." If I can find a silk screening company in STL that will do it, I may have something sarcastic custom made too. 

I may also slip a note in the Prong Collar Guy's mailbox asking him to please not follow if he sees us changing direction and zig-zagging to stay away from him, but I'm not sure how to word it so that we won't be reported to the Citizens Services Bureau for being "dangerous" simply because we don't care to be followed in public. I suppose that's all my fault too, though; we're a woman alone and a beautiful, friendly-looking dog. How dare we exist without a male chaperone or open carry permit! /sarcasm 

So, as a quick PSA: the best thing others can do when they see someone walking with a dog go off the path and start practicing sit and down all of a sudden is to give them more space. Apparently most people don't know that, or what a yellow ribbon on the leash means. 

This guy decided twice now to follow us with a minimally secured dog, even when I obviously looked right at them, cued MacShane to “cross”, and sped up to move away. Whoops! Guess I need to take my mace, a knife, and a break stick now too, just in case, since I am responsible for keeping MacShane away from all the hazards I possibly can when we’re out and about. 

My next step is to decide how much responsibility for chaos and fear I’m willing to take on. Where does my comfort with “Whoops” end and these walks become exercises in futility, or flat-out dangerous?

Our second “Whoops” actually led to a net positive, once we got off of the block where the Guy with the Prong Collar lives. Unfortunately it involved upsetting the barrier reactive collie two blocks down and the fat chihuahua three houses away from the collie. In our zig-zags to avoid the Guy with the Prong Collar, we went down a side street, really more of an alley, with tall yards on both sides too steep for me to walk into. The left side lawn is nearly vertical to 3’ off the sidewalk, and again, I’m a Clydesdale, not a thoroughbred. I didn’t think even Francis the Talking Mule could coonjump into this yard!

So of course, that’s the stretch we’re walking when traffic appears, a white SUV. Now, large white vehicles are a Bad Thing to MacShane, so I had options, but had to choose in seconds: 

1. Make a run for it, piss off the fat chihuahua even more, and turn seeing a big white vehicle into getting chased by a big white vehicle (again?).

2. Try to turn around and go back the other way, passing the scary white vehicle, but for a briefer period of time.

3. Get out treats and hope.

Option 3 was the most expedient. 

“Park it?” I asked, and patted a patch of green grass about 3’ higher than my feet were planted. He bounced right to it and sat, ears down and panting slightly more than he likely should have been, but making eye contact, clearly looking for instructions. 

We were eye to eye when the SUV went around us. I rewarded him with some liver at a rate of one bite per second, with plenty of “Yes, good, Yes, good, Yes, good.” until the vehicle was past. As the dust cleared, I checked our three o’clock, then nine, then six. 

“Okay, let’s go,” and MacShane was off the lawn wiggling at the foaming chihuahua that was levitating off the ground higher and higher with each “YAP!” but thankfully will never be able to get over that fence without a trampoline and an infusion of helium.

I thought we’d make it home safely after that. Shows what I get for thinking. 

The next vehicle wasn’t white. It was maroon. It needed an exhaust overhaul in 2018 by the sound of it, and a new catalytic converter by the smell of it. The driver gave not a fart in the wind that we had no sidewalk to get to and blew past us like his tail pipe was on fire, not just full of holes. 

Welcome to St. Louis drivers, who don’t give a single damn about anything that isn't getting where they want to be right now and slow downs are always the other guy's fault.

MacShane lurched to the end of the leash, cursing out the driver, spittle flying, before I could attempt to cue “park it” again, but once the van was far enough away “park it” on a grassy spot worked a second time. Whew!

Again, I thought we’d make it home okay after that. I should learn to stop thinking. 

The landlord’s cat Panther was out on her porch. No helping it, I had to resort to distracting him by letting him get close enough to our car that he thought we’d go for a ride and give Panther time to slink away to safety.

It was, in some ways, the walk from Hell, but at least I didn’t swear at a sanitation engineer this time. Whoops!