Listen! (9780062213358) (18 page)

I first saw Coyote in the woods across the lake from my house just the way Charley sees him, and that sudden sense of connection happened between us, too. I thought he was a stray, recently abandoned by his owners. Our dog had just died, so I invited this mysterious and wild-looking red gold dog to live with us, assuming (because I've always been very good with dogs) that it would take only a couple of weeks to win him over. It was only later that researchers at Wolf Park in Indiana explained to me that he must have reached adulthood without ever interacting directly with people. That meant he really was a wild animal. The task of taming an adult wild animal, they told me, was nearly impossible. Luckily, I didn't know that on the day I invited him into our lives.

It didn't take long to discover that nothing I knew about training dogs could work with this dog that I couldn't touch, confine, or leash. As in the book, I had to rely on techniques I learned from Jane Goodall's work with wild chimpanzees to get him gradually used to my presence in his woods. Of course, I also relied on Casey (the golden retriever called Sadie in the book). I was less scary to him when he could keep Casey between us.

We humans use words, dogs don't. It's true that dogs can learn what individual human words mean—Coyote's first human word was probably
liver
. But because dogs don't use words, they can understand more than just our language in their interactions with us.

A good deal of how dogs communicate is based on body language—their posture, how they hold their ears and tail, their mouth and lips and teeth, even their eyes. Because they've lived with humans for thousands of years, dogs have developed the ability to read us in that way, too, even though our bodies are so different from theirs. The fact that Coyote, though wild, was a dog and not an actual coyote or a wolf—animals who have not lived with humans—that ability to read human body language was built in; it was a part of his heritage.

The story of how Charley got a collar onto Coyote is exactly what happened in real life. Even though he'd begun letting me touch him and take hold of the ruff of fur around his neck, whenever I was trying to get a collar on him (whether I had it with me or not) he wouldn't allow me to get close. But once I explained to him what I wanted to do, he let me put the collar on him immediately. It wasn't that he understood the words I spoke. Telling him what I was planning meant that I was no longer sending out an intention to trick him. It was that intention that he had been picking up on before. He doesn't like to be tricked.

Since animals need to communicate with each other without words, we shouldn't be surprised that they can read intentions, including our own. If you have a pet dog, or a cat, you may have experienced this. Lots of pet owners know that they have only to think about giving their animals a bath or taking them to the vet for the animals to go into hiding.

It was easy to see that Coyote could read me really well—my problem was that I found it very hard to read him. I learned easily enough to decode his body language. Check out the photo of me holding him. His ears are back, letting me know that while he is willing to put up with having his picture taken, he is not happy and would like me to let him go soon. (When he's happy or interested, his ears are up—or sharply forward.) But while we were walking, I needed to know where he was. And I needed to let him know when I really wanted him to come back, even if he wasn't close enough to hear my whistle.

R. W. Tolan

I began experimenting with “listening” with my mind, letting my imagination loose, trying to pick up something directly from him. When Charley imagines Coyote chasing a pair of deer and getting kicked—then later sees the cut on his nose that he got from the deer's hoof—that, too, is a true part of the story. One day when he had gone off on his own and had been away for a long time, I pretended I was Coyote, doing what he was doing and seeing what he was seeing. It was only a game. But Coyote still has the scar on his nose from that kick I thought I had only imagined.

A year after Coyote began living in our yard (long before he was willing to be even an occasional “house dog”), we got Samantha, a chow/shepherd shelter puppy, to be a companion for him. Samantha lives in the house all the time; Coyote is in and out, depending on the weather. Samantha loves to swim; Coyote doesn't. From May till October, I go swimming almost every day; so Sam swims with me while Coyote runs along the bank, doing his own thing. But both of them love our swim times. All I have to do is
decide
to swim and usually both dogs appear, wagging and barking with anticipation. It's easy enough to understand how they do that if I swim at the same time every day for a while. But even if it's a totally different time of day, they're somehow able to pick up on my intention to go swimming before I've even stood up to go get my suit. Science can't explain yet how they do this, but they do it. One thing my time with Coyote (and with Sam) has taught me is that to develop the ability to communicate with an animal requires respecting their nonhuman but powerful intelligence.

If you'd like to make this kind of connection with an animal that lives with you (whether it's a dog or cat, a bird or horse or potbellied pig), the first step is to spend a lot of time with your pet. Hang out together the way you'd hang out with one of your friends. You aren't likely to develop a close and deeply interactive relationship with an animal that sees you for only a few minutes a day. Offer to be the person in the family who feeds it, walks it, and grooms it. Talk to it while you do these things—as if it can understand you.

Really talk to it; never mind what the neighbors and your family might think. Tell it what your day was like, what you're hoping will happen tomorrow or next week. Tell it the happy things that have happened and the not so happy things, too. If your best friend did something that hurt your feelings, tell the animal. It doesn't have to understand your words to pick up what you're feeling.

If you have a dog, you've probably already noticed that when you're really happy your dog may come around wagging his tail and “smiling.” When you're crying, your dog may come and lean against you or jump into your lap and lick your cheek, as if to comfort you. Though cats and dogs are very different in the way that they interact with humans, it isn't only dogs that offer comfort when they feel your sadness. A cat of mine who never slept on my bed once spent most of a week there when I came home from the hospital after a serious surgery. This sort of behavior is not a coincidence.

If you talk to an animal on a regular basis, you'll be surprised at how much it seems to understand. Try using your imagination to invent what it might say if it could talk back. When you begin to imagine these conversations, you will find your relationship deepening. You will begin to understand each other in new ways. Behind your words there are feelings and there is meaning, and behind the animal's body language and the sounds it makes there are feelings and meaning as well. Trust that understanding is possible between you.

While it's important to talk to your animal, it's equally important not to talk
all the time
. Spend time just being quiet together. If you go for a walk in nature, find a place where you can just sit in companionable silence. Practice letting go of language and just being with the animal, opening yourself up to any thoughts or images that come into your mind. Learn to
listen
the way Charley learns to listen.

Watch the animal, too. The more closely you observe it, the more you will be able to understand its body language. There are books that describe the way cats and dogs use their ears, their tails, their lips and teeth, to communicate. Those signals are fairly consistent from individual to individual of a particular species. If you have both a dog and a cat, you know that a wagging tail does not mean the same thing for both. But by watching carefully, you can also learn your own animal's temperament, personality, and style. Animals are no less individual than people.

Eventually, you are likely to discover that just being with your animal this way lets you know it better and better—you don't have to figure out whether it is body language or something else that is responsible for this growing understanding. You are simply developing a deeper relationship.

Once that deeper relationship is established, you can experiment with sending and receiving specific messages.

You will probably want to begin with sending because it's easier. Many people who communicate clearly and successfully with animals do it entirely through language, relying on the animals' ability to receive the meaning behind the words.

When your animal is on the other side of the room, try asking it to come to you without moving any part of your body and without speaking out loud. Think the animal's name, think the words you would usually use to call the animal. See if it comes. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work the first time you try. It may take time to learn what works best. Both you and the animal are trying something new. You may be able to get the animal's attention at first without getting it to do what you're asking. Its ears may move in your direction, or it may open its eyes and look at you, or turn its head in your direction. That's an important first step.

Remember that even when you're interacting with other humans using language you both understand, there can be misunderstandings. And sometimes an animal understands what you're asking it to do but (like a person) just may not feel like doing it! At times when we're outdoors and I call to Samantha out loud, she looks right at me and runs in the other direction, because she has something she'd rather do. Don't be surprised if that happens with a mental call as well.