The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout (13 page)

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Authors: Jill Abramson

BOOK: The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout
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As we left the run, I took Daisy’s owner aside and asked if she would be willing to coordinate her visits to the funky run with ours for a week or two. She graciously agreed, and the next few times Scout encountered Daisy she was always happy to play with her.
Scout’s acceptance of Daisy as a playmate proved to be a breakthrough. At the farm, she was no longer intimidated by Viggo. Though they didn’t engage each other in play, Viggo stopped bullying her, and Scout stopped cowering at my side whenever he was around. Now, she would rush to her friends even if he was present.
Then, suddenly, Viggo was gone. In late January, a month before Lee was due to deliver Viggo to Fidelco for his final training, Lee’s partner, Deb, badly broke her ankle. Lee—who also had a full-time job—could not possibly take care of Deb, give Viggo his two hours of exercise, and go to work every day. Fortunately, Fidelco allowed her to return Viggo a bit early.
Before driving Viggo to Bloomfield, Lee took him on one last walk at the farm. The day was cold, and the only other dogs there were two rambunctious golden-doodles, Ikey and Kaboo. Lee watched as Viggo played with the two dogs in a light, easy way, even sharing his beloved Chuckit ball with them. “I was so proud of him,” Lee told me later. It was a testament to her patient training that Viggo had turned out to be a good, social boy after all.
Months after Lee said good-bye to Viggo, I asked her about that last day, but she still had trouble talking about it. At first, she brushed past the subject, but then she admitted that it had been very painful. She wanted Viggo to have his toys with him, but packing them up had been terribly hard. Their parting had been upsetting, too, in part because after arriving at Fidelco she had helped lure Viggo into a crate, one that she thought was too small. And the drive home was simply awful. A couple of hours after our conversation, she sent me an e-mail in which she confessed, “I was too embarrassed to admit that I sobbed on the ride back from Fidelco. Now you are the third person who knows that—the other two are my mom and Deb.”
Viggo just before returning to Fidelco
(Lee Gibson)
Reflecting on how attached I was to Scout, I found it inconceivable that anyone could give up a dog after pouring so much love and effort into training him or her. But dogs, like people, are happiest when they have a job to do, and Lee was very invested in helping Viggo achieve his purpose in life, which was to be a superb guide dog. However difficult it was to let him go, she was comforted by the knowledge that Viggo might soon be providing essential aid to a blind person.
 
 
Now that our pup’s former nemesis had a serious job, I found myself wondering about Scout’s purpose in life. Her current work—to get fully trained and stop pulling on her leash—seemed so trivial compared to what Viggo was doing. But Scout’s job, I realized, was hard in its own way. She was struggling to grow up, to make the transition from a wantonly destructive, overenthusiastic puppy to a law-abiding, loyal, and happy dog. Like all major transitions, it wasn’t easy.
Part of growing up involved learning new skills. In the front hall of our apartment in New York, which
we called “Scout’s school,” we practiced all of her commands—Sit, Stay, Lie down, and the rest—but we also taught her new tricks like shaking hands with her paw and finding some of her toys by name, like Ball. We used the clicker to compliment her when these moves were well done, and we augmented the clicks with plenty of hugs and pats. She lapped up our attention and practically glowed with pride. Equally important, she craved to learn more.
But Scout was still a puppy, and sometimes she was destructive or just plain naughty. At the farm, she would forget herself and lead other dogs down forbidden paths. More worrisome, she continued to pull on her leash despite our best efforts to train her not to. By February she weighed seventy-five pounds, and now she could pull me right into the gutter, which she too often did if she spied a discarded McDonald’s bag or some other irresistible temptation. In fact, just before Henry and I had left on our trip to China, Scout pulled me down and dragged me a few feet along the icy walk by the Hudson River. My lower back hurt enough that I was sure the long plane ride to Beijing would be ruinous; I was so concerned, in fact, that I even kept the news of this disaster from Henry. To my relief, my back was sore but not injured, but the experience delivered a sobering message. Scout was now so strong that she was capable of causing me
serious physical harm. And given the residual effects of my accident, I couldn’t help but worry about the damage that might occur the next time she pulled me to the pavement.
Far more often, though, I took pleasure in watching Scout behave like a typical adolescent. At my sister’s house one day, Scout found a closet full of children’s paraphernalia, most of it related to a series of books my sister had written about a character called Fancy Nancy. Among other things stowed in the closet was a little white stuffed dog named Frenchie. One afternoon, Scout broke in and stole her. My sister took the toy and returned it to the closet. On our very next visit, Scout stuck her head in my sister’s fireplace and was instantly covered in black soot. Then she made a beeline for the closet and stole Frenchie again. When my sister saw that Frenchie, after being covered with Scout kisses, had become a little gray stuffed dog, she gave up and told Scout she could keep Frenchie for good. Laughing, she said, “I guess you want a baby now that you’re big.” Scout, seeming to understand that she had won her coveted toy, wagged her tail and kept her sooty jaws firmly clamped on Frenchie’s hindquarters.
 
 
Not long after Henry and I returned from our trip to China, we decided that we had to do something about Scout’s pulling. Even when I carried a sack of her favorite treats and gave her constant rewards for walking parallel to me on a loose leash, she frequently darted sideways or lunged forward at unpredictable moments. Now I had a phobia of my own: I worried that every walk to the funky dog run could end in calamity, with me sprawled on the icy sidewalk or, worse, with both of us lying in the street facing oncoming traffic.
In our use of positive reinforcement to train Scout on her leash, we employed a range of tools and techniques. We continued to use our clicker, which often
but not always proved effective. We regularly dipped into the ever-present treat bag, which was stocked with enough meaty, moist, and delectable tidbits to provision a small expedition down the Amazon. We also tried attaching Scout’s leash to a harness instead of to her collar, but although this relieved some of the strain on her neck, it did nothing to diminish her power to pull either of us along. Too often it felt like Scout was walking us, not the other way around.
Henry and I were convinced that in the right setting and with enough time and patience, the positive approach to loose-leash training could be highly effective. Neither of us had forgotten Diane Abbott’s instruction to reward Scout every time she appeared at our sides in the heel position, and we did our best to be consistent about doing so. But when I was trying to hurry across a busy avenue in front of a flotilla of racing cabs, I could spare little time to entice Scout to forge on or follow my lead.
Scout did her best as well. She learned to sit at red lights when instructed, and then, on the command Let’s go, to quickly cross the street. But though she was reasonably well behaved in traffic, whenever we approached the block leading to the funky dog run, she could not control herself. Every morning, the two of us presented the same absurd spectacle: as we approached the run, there was Scout running in front
and me trailing behind, holding on for dear life. I felt like I was waterskiing—or, on snowy days, ice-skiing—behind a big golden boat.
Of particular concern was Scout’s habit of pulling my arms from their very sockets at the sight of another dog. And there were dogs everywhere: in our building, on the street, walking along the river. Scout was curious about each dog we encountered, whether known to us or not, but if she saw a dog with whom she was especially friendly she would pull to kingdom come. One day that February I realized that Scout, at ten months old, weighed only forty pounds less than I did. No wonder her pulling frightened me so much.
I called Diane Abbott yet again, and she urged us to give the Gentle Leader one more try. But Scout simply wouldn’t walk with it on; instead, she would plop down on the narrow and very busy sidewalk in front of our building. Since we live only a few paces from a gigantic apartment building and the downtown offices of Citigroup, our sidewalk is a human highway day and night, so lying down on it is not advised.
After I told Diane that the Gentle Leader wasn’t working, she had another idea. Whenever Scout pulled, Diane said, I should stand without moving on the sidewalk. Then I was to divert Scout with a noise, either
the clicker or another sound, and pull her back toward me. When she returned to my side, I was to turn and walk with her in the opposite direction for a few paces. Then I should command her to sit and give her a treat, after which I was to turn again and resume walking in the desired direction. At first I was optimistic about this strategy, but I quickly realized that following it required that I budget at least an hour to get anywhere because of Scout’s persistent pulling.
More frustrated than ever, I spoke to Lee Gibson, who through Scout’s first winter became almost as invested in Scout’s training as I was. Lee loaned me a training manual called
My Dog Pulls: What Do I Do?
which was written by Turid Rugaas, a well-known dog trainer from Norway. Rugaas’s book, replete with diagrams illustrating the preferred method of correcting a dog that pulls, confirmed Diane’s basic principles of stopping, changing direction, and offering a treat before proceeding. But the approach described in the book only underscored how laborious a process this antipulling regimen could be.
As much as I would have liked to follow their advice, both Diane Abbott and Turid Rugaas assumed unlimited time for dog walks and a relatively calm environment in which to take them. But the realities of my life in Manhattan called for other means and methods. I needed time in the morning to read the
full
Times
news report, master what the competition had published, and then take the subway to work. All this came on top of making sure that Scout had her walk as well as enough exercise and playtime. If I dutifully followed the Rugaas regimen and was constantly stopping to correct Scout’s pulling, I would be hopelessly off schedule. And, frankly, dog owners like Diane Abbott and Lee Gibson were a lot more patient than I was. After weeks and weeks of working to get Scout to stop pulling, I began longing for a surefire cure.
The day of reckoning came when Scout encountered the two dachshunds that lived in our building. They and their owner were standing on a corner across Greenwich Street; when we arrived at the opposite corner, our light for crossing was red. As usual, I commanded Scout to sit while we waited for the light to change. But when the two dachshunds saw Scout and began barking at her, Scout bolted into the street, pulling me behind her. We were both nearly hit by a taxi, which screeched to a halt.
Our close call left me shaken and miserable: Scout could have been killed and I could have been run over again. This time, I didn’t keep the incident secret from Henry, and when I told him about it he immediately agreed that we had to take more drastic measures.
 
 
That evening I happened to be having dinner with Sam Sifton, the
Times
restaurant critic. One of the perks of my job is occasionally accompanying Sam on visits to a restaurant he plans to review. That night we ate at Maialino, a new Roman-style trattoria that had recently been opened by Danny Meyer, one of the city’s best restaurateurs.
Sam, a fellow dog lover, often asked about Scout, and he had particularly enjoyed the story of Scout’s petty thievery at Locanda Verde. (After hearing my tale of woe, Sam commented, “At least she has good taste. That chicken is sensational.”) Mere minutes after arriving at Maialino, I told him about my harrowing experience on Greenwich Street earlier in the day.
Sam immediately understood the seriousness of my problem. “You need to call in the heavy artillery, pal,” he told me sternly. “You need CujoCop.” He then handed me a business card for a dog trainer and New York City police officer who had trained bomb-sniffing dogs after 9/11.
Noting that CujoCop’s card had an image of a German shepherd on it, I told Sam about Scout’s aversion to the breed. “It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “Cujo can train any dog and any breed. I know, because Joe—
our huge and very ill-behaved mutt—became the perfect dog after an hour with Cujo.”
Sam then told me the story of how Cujo had come to the rescue not long after Sam and his wife, Tina, adopted Joe from an animal shelter in Linden, New Jersey. Claire, their younger daughter, “found” him on
Petfinder.com
, and though the director of the shelter told Sam that Joe was already spoken for, the Siftons decided to drive out to the shelter just to meet him. Joe—who was then two years old and weighed seventy-five pounds—was gentle and calm, and he sniffed at the two girls affectionately. Claire’s instinct that he would be a sweetheart seemed correct.
Barely an hour after the Siftons returned to their home in Brooklyn, they got a call from the shelter. Joe was suddenly available again. “It didn’t work out,” a worker at the shelter told Sam. The man who had the first claim on Joe owned another dog, and when the two dogs were introduced tempers had flared. That same day, the Siftons drove back to New Jersey to collect Joe.
As advertised, Joe was a big, sweet, Lab-related mutt. But he also displayed some wildness: he had a tendency to nip the kids during play and to run hard at Sam or Tina. Sometimes he would jump up as if to bite them, his paws tearing at a loose pant leg or
sleeve. Understandably, everyone in the Sifton family found Joe’s occasional bad behavior frightening.
The final straw came when Joe attacked a couple of other dogs in the park and then bit a neighbor whom he perceived as a threat. “It was terrifying,” Sam said. “We thought we’d have to get rid of him.” Tina called the shelter to ask what to do. Someone at the shelter told her they occasionally worked with a trainer named Chris Velez, whose nickname was CujoCop. He’d know what to do, the person at the shelter said.
As it happened, Chris was stationed in the Siftons’ Brooklyn precinct. Sam and Tina immediately arranged for Chris to make a home visit, which would involve a one-hour consultation and training session. When Chris arrived, he greeted Joe and then asked Sam and Tina a number of questions. While they talked, Joe sniffed Chris a few times before lying down at his feet. About half an hour later, Chris suggested taking Joe for a walk.
“Incidentally,” Chris said as they made for the door, “you have a great dog. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him. You may have to change your behavior more than he will. He’s a good guy.”
Over the next few minutes, Chris taught Sam a completely new way to walk Joe. His approach was definitely pack-leaderish, like Cesar Millan’s. “You can give him treats and rewards,” Chris told Sam. “But
someday you’re not going to have treats or rewards in your pocket, and then you’re gonna be in trouble.”
Chris also stressed the need for Joe to have a job: a walk was about doing his business (defecating and peeing), not taking a leisurely stroll. There was to be no stopping to mark trees or greet other dogs. “We walk—that’s the job,” Chris instructed Sam. Only when Joe was thoroughly exercised and tired would he be released from his job.
Chris spent most of the session training Sam, not Joe. After Chris’s initial visit, the Siftons scheduled a few follow-up consultations, and Sam sometimes called Chris with questions or problems. But from that first hour on, Joe’s behavior changed. By following Chris’s regimen, Sam said, they had brought out the best in Joe, and there had been no alarming incidents in more than a year. “Joe’s a happy member of our household now,” Sam reported. “That would never have happened without Chris.”
 
 
As Sam told me the story of how CujoCop had worked wonders with Joe, including stopping his leash pulling, I became convinced that it was time to bring a tougher brand of trainer into our lives. Scout had learned her basic puppy manners in Diane Abbott’s
class. She had mastered a number of our commands and for the most part responded well to them. Henry and I, meanwhile, had clicked and treated her beyond all reason. Fundamentally, Scout was a good dog who tried very hard to please—except when she was on her leash. So after months of using positive reinforcement to train her to stop pulling, it was time to take a harder line. I would probably never become the calm, assertive pack leader extolled by Cesar Millan, but maybe Chris Velez could get me closer to that ideal.
I called Chris the next morning and spoke to his wife, Darcie. She was sure Chris would want to help with Scout’s pulling, but there was a practical problem: Chris was finishing a tour in Iraq in the Army Reserves and wouldn’t be back for several weeks. Darcie promised that Scout would be first on Chris’s dance card when he returned.
True to his wife’s promise, Chris called shortly after he arrived back in the United States. He could fit in an appointment one morning before he returned to work on the police force. Henry and I both arranged our schedules so that we could be there for his introduction to Scout.
Chris, a muscular, balding man with a wide smile, had been a police officer and detective for twenty years. Since 1995, he has trained search-and-rescue dogs
for the New York Police Department. He has also long served as a corporal in the U.S. Army Reserves, and in Iraq he has trained dogs to search for explosives. When he came to our apartment that morning, he brought a brochure about his services that included a list of problems that he could mitigate or correct. When I scanned the list, there it was, just what we were looking for: “pulling on leash.”
Like many New York cops, Chris has a genial but business-like manner that suggests both a high degree of competence and a quiet confidence that he has seen it all before. His dog-training equipment consists of a leather leash and metal slip collar, sometimes known as a choke chain or choke collar. After a few minutes of preliminary conversation, he explained how to position the slip collar. “It won’t choke or hurt her if you use it correctly,” Chris promised, seeing my frown at the notion of putting a chain around my puppy’s neck. But I had resolved to get tougher—maybe the slip collar would help, I rationalized. Soon, Chris, Scout, Henry, and I all headed outside to test the Cujo magic on the street.
Dog trainers are close observers of people, too, and Chris seemed to sense our anxiety about Scout’s difficulties. Before we left the apartment, he complimented Scout’s demeanor and behavior, saying, “She doesn’t have an aggressive bone in her body.” Once
outside, we had walked only a few steps when Chris praised our “step off” from the curb into the crosswalk.

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