The Lost Dogs (29 page)

She excelled at her relationships with the people she knew. Best Friends staffers continued to sleep in the buildings holding the Vick dogs for the first six months. Each night they would bring one dog out to sleep with them. For her first such stay Hendrick brought Little Red. It was a good choice as the dog quickly snuggled in for a comfy night. Before long Little Red had a reputation as one of the best bedtime buddies, and she became a favorite when attendants were choosing a dog to hang out with for the night.

The charts that tracked her behavior and attitude were trending in the right directions. Registered daily on a scale of one to ten, her fear index had hovered above five in the early months, spiking at eight. Now, six months in, she could have wild day-to-day swings, but her median reading was below four. Her confidence rating started close to four and had climbed to near five. Likewise, energy, enrichments, and enjoyment of life were all up.

On paper and within the bounds of her newly formed world, Little Red was growing happier and more sure of herself, but up to now she’d been isolated from other dogs. The staff at Best Friends decided it was time to begin introducing her to her canine neighbors. Their ultimate goal was to get the dogs comfortable enough with other dogs that they could be integrated into the larger Best Friends population and live in a typical kennel setup with one or two others. They had already started this integration process with some of the other Vick dogs and had found success.

Little Red was next, although her situation was different. Her multiple scars and worn-down teeth led many to suspect that she had been a bait dog, one used for practice by the fighters. When a dog that has had that experience feels threatened, it’s more likely to lash out. Its fear and insecurity can lead to aggression, and it’s inclined to attack first as a form of defense.

The staff was well aware of this possibility when it took Little Red into a fenced area and then strolled into view with Cherry Garcia, another Vick dog who was known for his mellow disposition. As soon as Little Red, the sweet snuggly sleeper who loved to smile at people, saw Cherry, she stood at attention. Both dogs stared at each other across the compound.

BOUNCER HAD FINALLY RETURNED
to earth and it was not a soft landing. For the first few days in Marthina McClay’s house, the big lug didn’t know where he was or what to do with himself. He had no interest in food. In the crate he whined and peed. Let out of the crate he would pace, from one end of the house to the other, back and forth, endlessly. As McClay watched him circle the layout she thought she was seeing him literally unwind his stress.

In the evenings she would put him in his crate, dim the lights, play soft music, and sit with him. It took five days before he would sit next to her outside the crate, and even then it was brief. She began stroking him gently and offering up little massages, which he seemed to like and hang around for. When given toys, he chewed at them for a minute but didn’t really know how to hold them in his paws and gnaw at them.

Bouncer was less than thrilled to meet McClay’s other dogs. He wasn’t fearful or aggressive but something closer to suspicious. Though not obvious, he had scars, mostly on his front legs, and he seemed wary of the presence of other pit bulls. McClay did have a purpose for the other dogs. She had started training Bouncer almost immediately and the other dogs were part of her approach.

Born in Wichita, Kansas, McClay moved to Palo Alto, California, as an infant. From her youngest days her family had German shepherds, and she says her earliest memory is of her hand rubbing against fur. Later the family owned Dobermans, and Marthina befriended a breeder who taught her how to train dogs. His method was based on negative reinforcement. To correct unwanted behavior he relied heavily on a choke chain, a studded collar that digs into a dog’s neck when pulled tight. McClay didn’t love the approach but it did seem to work, and she didn’t know anything better.

When she was a teen she spent three straight summers back in Wichita, where she started to train and ride horses in pole-bending and barrel-jumping competitions. The experience made her even more comfortable around large animals and taught her a lot about their behavior. Based on her work with horses, she thought there had to be a better way to train dogs. A few years later, when she got her own dog, an Australian shepherd mix named Poco, she trained him using only positive reinforcement.

She didn’t realize it at the time, but McClay had stumbled into a schism that would divide dog trainers. Not many people use choke chains anymore, but there is one school of thought that operates on the principle that dogs are pack animals and in order to train them you have to assume the role of the alpha dog. This requires that the trainer display dominant behavior while forcing the dog into a submissive role. The techniques, at the extreme end, include things like going through doors first, eating first, convincing or even forcing a dog to roll on its back and expose its belly.

The other camp contends that such extreme measures are not necessary and preaches positive reinforcement with treats and praise. They often use a clicker approach, in which the trainer holds a small device that makes a clicking sound. Every time the dog does what’s being asked, it gets a click. The dog begins to associate the sound with doing the right thing and the system can be used to teach it all sorts of behaviors.

McClay fell somewhere in the middle. In her own training with Bouncer, and all her dogs, she used positive reinforcement, but she also understood the power of the pack. That’s where her other dogs would come into play in Bouncer’s training. They would teach Bouncer how to be a dog. Once he was accepted into the group, he would be able to see what they did and did not do, how they acted around one another. If he got out of line one of the other dogs would correct him.

It didn’t take long for this to start working. About ten days after arriving Bouncer had begun to chill out and settle in. He was making great progress in his training and getting more comfortable with McClay’s other pets. He still preferred not to approach other dogs head-on—he defaulted to a side-to greeting with a sideways peer, which sent an “I come in peace” message—but he was happy to interact once a friendly rapport was established. Maybe two weeks into his stay McClay had all the dogs out in the yard. Dexter, a young male pit bull, approached Bouncer and dropped into a play bow, a familiar pose in which a dog lays his front legs on the ground, thrusts his butt into the air, and gives a short happy bark. It says, “Wanna play?”

Bouncer instinctively understood the offer and seemed happy to respond, but what happened next horrified McClay. Bouncer leaped into the air, flung his legs in all directions, and landed with an awkward shuddering thump, front legs thrust slightly forward and back end wiggling. It was the lamest play bow McClay had ever seen. Even Dexter stood up and looked at Bouncer as if to say, “Dude, work on that.” Regardless, it got the job done and that day Bouncer became part of the group.

McClay also had an epiphany about the sort of dog she was dealing with. Bouncer was a great dog, but he was “an idiot.” Or to be more generous, he was a sixty-five-pound puppy. When she was sitting in the big rocker, he would jump up on her and knock the entire chair over. He didn’t know how to climb onto a couch. Even though he was bigger and possibly older than some of the other dogs, he pestered them like an annoying little brother.

For the most part they ignored him, but when he took it too far, they would turn on him with a sharp bark, a snap, and a low growl and he would know he’d crossed the line. Same thing when he played inappropriately or committed some other transgression. The dogs were teaching him what was cool and what was not.

Had he been a more aggressive sort with alpha instincts of his own, these instances might have led to a confrontation, but it was pretty clear to McClay early on that he was a willing follower, a big goof who just wanted to have fun and get along. In fact she began to toy with a new name for him.

With his size and muscularity he looked like a real tough guy, but he was in reality a lumbering galoot who was as sweet as a Halloween basket and wouldn’t harm anything. He reminded her of someone: the Cowardly Lion from
The Wizard of Oz.
He was even the same color as a lion. On December 26, McClay made her decision. In honor of the big cat that lacked courage, Bouncer would henceforth be known as Leo.

Every day Marthina McClay woke up around 7:30. She let the dogs out in the yard while she made a cup of coffee and grabbed the newspaper. Then the pooches followed her back to her bedroom and up onto her bed, where they had a big snugglefest. Leo was always the last one in.

Every day he got three legs and most of his body on the bed but left that last leg hanging off the side, paddling at the air as if he couldn’t quite make it up. McClay knew this was an act. She had the video evidence to prove that the dog formerly known as Bouncer could jump clear over the bed if he wanted, but he did not want to. It was almost as if he needed the shot of love and acceptance, a daily reassurance that McClay and the other dogs would grab him by the collar and yank him back from the abyss.

In 2002, McClay had watched a TV report about dogs saved from a fight ring. In the segment an animal control officer picked up one of the dogs—a skinny, scarred, and uncertain pit bull—and the dog rested its head on the officer’s shoulder. McClay was moved. How could a dog like that go from the depths of abuse to cuddling a stranger? It said something about dogs in general and pit bulls in particular; they had a sort of boundless optimism.

She had been volunteering in shelters and came across her share of pit bulls. She admired the way they didn’t seem to dwell on whatever suffering they’d seen or endured. Instead, they simply wanted to get on with it, to get back to something better. She began seeking them out when she went to shelters, and she noticed a trend. When pit bulls were evaluated for adoptability, the attendants usually went in expecting a problem. When someone’s looking for a problem, he usually finds one.

McClay felt as though the whole approach to pit bulls needed to change. She set out to overhaul the dog’s image by showing how great the breed could be. In 2004, she adopted Haley, a beautiful brindle female of unknown origin she found in a shelter. Besides regular obedience training, she began training Haley to be a therapy dog, one that visits hospitals and nursing homes to provide companionship and uplift for the infirm.

The process of training a therapy dog is a daunting one that requires not only perfect obedience but a series of hospital-specific tests. Will the dog react if an IV tower is rolled past its head? Will it jump up on a wheelchair or a patient’s lap? Do loudspeaker announcements bother it? Will it be attentive and focused on the people it visits? After all these skills are tested, the dog must go through three observation sessions in a medical facility. If it passes all tests perfectly—nine out of ten isn’t good enough—it’s certified as a therapy dog.

Haley had her certification in five months. On that day months ago, when McClay saw the Vick dogs being led off the property on TV, she had also said, “It would be cool to take one of those dogs, turn it into a therapy dog, and show the world what this breed is all about.” Leo gave her the chance to do just that, and it was beginning to appear as if he would prove her right much sooner than she ever imagined.

Once he relaxed, Leo responded to training like few dogs she’d met. One of the things she loved about pit bulls was their willingness to work hard, and Leo set a new standard. Matched with his strong connection to people, which made him eager to please, he advanced at a rate that astonished even McClay. By the latter part of January, not even six weeks after he’d arrived from the shelter, Leo was a certified therapy dog.

His backstory as a Bad Newz survivor made him a hit everywhere. No matter where he went—hospital, nursing home, urban school—Leo met few people who had been through more than he had.

During one of his first training sessions with live patients, Leo visited an Alzheimer’s sufferer. The woman sat staring through a window, but when Leo came in she looked at him and smiled. The nurse told McClay that the woman never made eye contact with anyone.

When Leo visited a man with cardiopulmonary disease, the guy became so animated talking about his Airedale terriers that he removed his oxygen mask so he could be better heard. McClay had seen similar things with other therapy dogs but there was something different about Leo. He had a quality that made people respond. Was it sweetness? Intensity? Compassion? No, it was something else. McClay thought about it as she watched him in action. Finally, she nailed it: dorkiness. He had that big lumbering body and goofy face, and he walked up to people as if to say “Hi, I’m Leo,” and they simply responded to him. He was just so approachable, so open.

That attitude worked equally well when McClay began taking Leo into schools and juvenile detention facilities so kids could see that pit bulls, even those from Michael Vick’s vicious pack, were not salivating monsters but kind and friendly animals that deserved better treatment. She also began working with shelters on their evaluation procedures.