At the time I uploaded it, it lifted my spirits and I enjoyed seeing it every time I turned on my computer. Back then all traces of fall color had long vanished; the periods of daylight were getting shorter, and the scenes they illuminated darker and duller. Back then I longed for enough snow to cover the ground and brighten things up again. As a substitute, the screensaver worked.

But after a long and sometimes brutal winter, seeing all that winter white on my computer as well through my office windows became depressing instead of uplifting. I wanted and needed a picture that would remind me that no matter how bad this winter’s weather was it, too, would pass like all the winters before it. This led to an entertaining period during which I looked at all my pictures of springs past in this house. By the time I’d narrowed it down to two pictures, I knew I’d make yet again.

Seeing the old apple tree in blossom no more than 5 yards from the front door reminded me of an early sign of spring I’d already experienced this year but forgot: the sound of some inexperienced male blue jay attempting to signal his claim on this territory by beating a tattoo on my roof with his beak. I knew it was an inexperienced male because mature birds of all species view the tree as a neutral zone. They share the blossom’s nectar, the apples, apple seeds and any insects attracted to same, as well as the suet in its feeder. In all the years I’ve lived here, I have never seen any bird attempt to build a nest in the tree. It’s as if the young jay’s failure  to claim the space serves as a warning to all the newbies.

What makes this particular avian display an unlikely method to maintain a territory is that my roof is a standing seam metal one. Although I’ve never attempted to bang on such a roof with my head (since I don’t have a beak), I assume that this is not a rewarding experience because the birds who do it quickly abandon the project. What I don’t know is whether the adult jays deliberately withhold this information from some or all of the young males for some reason. All the mature adults seem to recognize the tree as a communal food source. While their behavior in the tree may be more rowdy than that of members of more dignified species, no one gets hurt and they do wait their turn at the feeder. The willingness of all the jays to do this seems to suggest that information regarding proper tree-related behavior somehow has been passed from parent to offspring.

If so, why not point out to young males that hoping to claim a space as close to the tree as possible by banging their beaks on a metal roof isn’t worth the effort? Perhaps this behavior serves as a cautionary lesson to young males of all the avian species who might consider claiming all of the tree’s rich resources for themselves who may lack the shock-absorbing anatomy of the jay’s skull. In such a way, a futile but not fatal bit of beak-banging by one may benefit many. Or maybe this is the mature male jays’ idea of a hilarious teaching moment. They see some hotshot young male high on testosterone who thinks he’s going to claim the tree and ignores advice from his elders that this is not a smart thing to do, and decide to let him figure it out for himself. Off he flies to the end of the roof closest to the tree, perhaps with visions of making his elders eat crow (metaphorically speaking) when he’s a smashing success. Meanwhile they find convenient perches high in the apple tree from which to watch. Do they chuckle when the cocky young male gives up after a brief volley and flies back to the woods to recover? I wouldn’t put it past them because like crows, they do seem to exude a special brand of joie de vivre.

Thinking of this caused me to recall other signs of spring I’d missed as testosterone levels rise with the increasing daylight. Even though I possess only a tiny fraction of avian knowledge compared to many, I do know that the calls of some birds are also changing. And while all still respect the apple tree’s neutral status, same-species males are becoming less tolerant of each other’s presence than they were a month ago.

Meanwhile Bamboo who showed no desire to venture outdoors in December and January goes out on sunny days even when it’s much colder than it was then. Admittedly, he doesn’t go far. Until I dug a path through the high pile of snow to the feeder that also obstructed his view of the tree, he would go to the end of the front walk to ascertain the status of the stone wall. The more of it exposed, the longer he stayed there. This makes sense because unlike the tree, the wall serves as home to the rodent species he considers worthy prey. Once satisfied, he then went just far enough down the driveway to observe the apple tree and its inhabitants from there.

Since I made the path to the tree, he stands on the walk and watches the birds for a while in what to me seems like a thoughtful way before checking out the wall again.

For now the wall remains buried. But come March 1^st when I publish this, who knows? In this crazy winter that may not be the case. But once the wall does emerge, I image that Bamboo’s thoughts and mine both will turn to how much
he enjoys blissfully taking advantage of the wall’s sun-warmed capstones in the early spring.

I don’t know about Bam, but I can hardly wait.

Far too soon, only one egg would remained in my boiled egg stash and the urge to make it the most memorable Easter egg of them all inevitably overcame me. With visions of an egg with multiple stripes of color that would blend into each other like those of a rainbow, I’d dip my egg briefly into each cup of dye and move quickly on to the next color.

But the rainbow never materialized. Because I tried to do too much too fast, each successive dunking contributed to what ultimately became a mottled brown egg.

This long-forgotten memory occurred to me as I finished reading The Great Grisby by Mikita Brottman. Like my egg-dying experiences, I began the book with enthusiasm. According to its subtitle, The Great Grisby would cover two thousand years of literary, royal, philosophical and artistic dog lovers and their animals. According to the introduction, it would answer multiple questions about the human-canine bond that have engrossed anthrozoologists and others interested in the bond for decades. To accomplish this, the text would delve into the lives of twenty-six human-canine combinations often overlooked by history. Additionally the behaviors of the author’s French bulldog, Grisby, and her relationship with him would feature prominently in the book.

How could a book that focused on the three primary areas of academic and clinical interest for my entire career be anything less than perfect? I looked forward to learning about more obscure dogs with intriguing names such as Atma, Quinine, and Xolotl and the people with whom they shared their lives. I eagerly anticipated new answers to those complex bond questions, as well as discovering more about the specific relationship and bond between the author and her dog.

Unfortunately in my enthusiasm, I forgot to keep the crucial last paragraph of the introduction in mind. It informs readers that the book’s structure mimics a leisurely stroll in the park with an off-lead Grisby: it isn’t always direct, it gets side-tracked, it backtracks. For example while Chapter One (Atma) provides a comprehensive discussion about dog names from a historical perspective and about how Grisby came to be called Grisby, Chapter Two (Bull’s-eye) begins with a brief discussion of Bull’s-eye and his owner, the moves on to one about dogs as human alter-egos followed by those about Grisby’s training or lack thereof, dog-fighting, and the author’s fears that someone might steal her dog. Chapter Three, Caesar III, begins with a discussion of Willa Cather’s short story “Coming, Aphrodite!” about a common bond phenomenon: the problems that arise between couples when their incompatible perceptions of a dog belonging to one of them lead to conflict. This leads to a discussion of a dog in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, followed by those about Wharton’s real dogs, taking dogs on trains, Amtrak’s no-pet policy, and walking and riding with Grisby.

That’s tough going for someone like me whose background in the biological sciences and clinical veterinary medical and ethological practice required the development of an organized—some might say anal—mind!

But while I readily admit I may be more impaired than others in this regard, I do think that a bit more organization and a bit less wandering would have benefited a book that attempts to cover as much ground as The Great Grisby does. Answering all the human-canine bond questions the author proposed to answer is a monumental enough task without being restricted to using obscure canine examples whose names begin with specific letters of the alphabet.

That each chapter of The Great Grisby bears the name of a specific dog also raises expectations that the dog will feature prominently in the material. But while each chapter does begin with a discussion of the dog, how much presumably depends on how much actually is known about the obscure dog as this relates to the topics considered in the second part of the chapter.

The second chapter component takes one of more aspects of the title dog and his/her relationship with the owner or other humans and then expands it to make some point about the human-canine relationship in general. This component of each relatively short chapter may contain multiple references to people and their dogs, and their and their friends’ and society’s responses to their dogs, as well as references to similar human-canine interactions in other times and places. Plus references to related works of fiction and nonfiction as well as paintings and music.

Because introducing readers to more obscure dogs and dog-related references is the goal of this part of each chapter, an impressive amount of research often underlies these. But while I usually can keep unfamiliar names straight given sufficient context, the multitude of unfamiliar canine, human and other names in some of The Great Grisby’s short chapters often overwhelmed me. On multiple occasions I became so engrossed in trying to keep everyone and all the references straight that I came to the end of the chapter with no appreciation of any unifying theme.

For more organized—or anal if you prefer—readers such as yours truly, fewer more fully developed examples would have made the text more memorable. Similarly, descriptive chapter subtitles or a short opening paragraph that described the purpose of each chapter and if and how it relates to the overall theme of the book would have helped. Barring that, an index at the end of the book that would enable readers to locate topics of interest would have been appreciated.

The third element in each of The Great Grisby’s chapters comprises an abbreviated dogoir. More specifically it’s a subset of that genre, a first-dog dogoir. For those unfamiliar with the word, a dogoir is a memoir via which authors deliberately or unwittingly use their dogs and their relationships with those animals as a vehicle for exploring themselves. Relative to the human-animal bond this component of the book is the most intimate, accessible, and revealing. Unlike the other people in the book whose specific projections of emotions, beliefs, or symbolism on their animals may warrant a few pages at most, those involving the author and Grisby wander through the entire book like an off-lead untrained dog in a crowded park.

Even so, I wanted to know more this first dog-owner and her first dog, a desire that began on the third page when the author wrote: As of the time of writing, Grisby is almost eight years old, and he tips the scales at thirty-two pounds. There it was, possible evidence of perhaps the most perplexing bond-related problem currently plaguing companion dogdom: pet dog overweight and obesity. Standard weight range for purebred French Bulldogs is 18-28 pounds. Would the author use her considerable historical research and introspective skills to explore the role of the human-animal bond in canine overweight and obesity? Historically, was overfeeding dogs in certain cultures considered a way to communicate one’s wealth and position to others? Or one’s love to one’s animal because words to do so could not be found? Or an individual or societal belief that no gift of self could measure up to a piece of cake or dish of pudding?

Aside from the author expressing anger when a veterinarian comments on Grisby’s excess weight, the subject receives little attention. While initially disappointed, in the end I decided this was probably rightly so. Overweight and obesity rank high among those with an interest in contemporary canine health and behavior. But neither is obscure, even though the bond’s role in both often does get dismissed or ignored completely. On the other hand, The Great Grisby is a book about the past as experienced by little known dogs as perceived by a formidable array of historical personages from an equally formidable array of backgrounds. The Grisby component provides an integral contrast, an intimate vignette of a contemporary first-dog owner doing what most of us in that position do or did: naively try to come up with the right combination of interactions and projection of emotions, symbolism, and beliefs that will result in what we consider the best bond experience for us. In that regard, the book succeeds very well.

In retrospect I realized that had the horse arrived, I would have felt far more inadequate than complete because I knew nothing of any practical value about horses and their care. But at that time, I perceived that animal as the universal antidote for all that ailed me in body, mind, and spirit. As I routinely discover in my work, such beliefs about animals are still alive and well, and they’re not only embraced by children.

Let’s begin 2015 by considering two kinds of stealth animal behavioral problems that holidays may expose.

Size Matters
Regardless of species, young animals will get bigger as they get older. If you keep your animal-radar on when you surf the web or engage in social media, it won’t take long before you see pictures or videos of a variety of animals who have taken over human beds, couches, or chairs. In some instances the animals began sleeping in those locations as youngsters because they were ill or otherwise needed close monitoring for some reason. Similarly, many people find some reason to hold young animals in their laps in the car for the trip to the animal’s new home. Usually a passenger in the vehicle does this, but sometimes drivers may succumb to the temptation to do this too. In these situations we often tell ourselves we do this to comfort the animal. But most people admit they enjoyed doing this a great deal, and sometimes even more than the animal.

But as the animal grows, enjoyment can turn to annoyance. Mary gets tired of pushing the dog out of the way on the bed so she can get some sleep. John discovers that any pleasure he experienced riding or driving with his puppy in his lap vanished when the dog turned into a 40-pound adult.  In addition to a dog of that size literally weighing him down, his pet became a very real safety hazard.

Other interactions with young animals become established because initially they make us laugh. These include puppies jumping up on us, and kittens climbing up our jeans, sleeping on our heads, or making kamikaze leaps onto our backs and clawing their way to our necks. When the puppy’s jumping up becomes an attention-getting display capable of ruining clothing and knocking people down, suddenly it’s not funny anymore. Even though Kim thought it was funny when her 3-pound kitten slept on her head, when the now 15-pound adult nests there she finds it much more irritating than humorous.

In these examples perceived positive choices people made regarding their young animals come back to haunt them in the form of problem behaviors and all the human fallout associated with these when the animals matured.

Human-Animal Displays Not Ready for Prime Time

The majority of these displays traditionally evolved either deliberately or unwittingly in the privacy of one’s own home. But for better or worse, videos of these behaviors increasingly show up on the Internet. Some are relatively benign, such as singing  or dancing with pets. Personalized feeding rituals also are fairly common and run the gamut from making animals display unrelated behaviors to earn the food, to sharing food, to teaching animals to eat with utensils.

At the edge of the spectrum are those who encourage animals to take food directly from their mouths. There also are those who share quality time with their pets while engaging in a full range of personal hygiene activities, the exact details of which I’ll leave to your imagination.

Once again context determines perception of these human and animal interactions. Complex interactions and rituals that may be highly rewarding for those who live alone with their animals may become a source of great distress if a Prince or Princess Charming enters their lives. Other times such interactions may drive off housemates who may be vital for survival in times of economic downturn.

Another fairly common unintended consequence of these interactions occurs when these people and their animals must be separated for some reason. When this happens, those same interactions may make it difficult to kennel the animal or find a pet-sitter willing to engage in such displays. Other times people feel so embarrassed about the nature of the interaction that they don’t reveal its existence to any caregivers. Whether the separation is the result of necessity or a long awaited vacation, owner and animal may suffer. Abbie feels guilty because she felt too embarrassed to mention her elaborate feeding ritual to her cat-sitter; her cat is so confused in its absence, he refuses to eat at all.  Meanwhile the time others spend separated from their animals may be filled with fears that the animal will do something that will cause the caregiver to wonder what the animal and the owner engage in behind closed doors.

Gearing up to Solve the Problem

Once you identify a problem related to your animal, next you need to get yourself in the right frame of mind to deal with it by addressing these 3 key points:

1. Eliminate any negative emotions because they’re energy vampires and you’re going to need all your energy to resolve the problem.

2. Frame the problem as a challenge for you and your animal, an opportunity to learn new things about each other and yourselves. Seeing the problem as evidence of failure on your or your animal’s part will needlessly deplete your energy supply too.

3. Accept responsibility for initiating any program of change and seeing it through to the end. To help you do this, make this your mantra: My animal, my problem, my responsibility.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t seek help if you need it. You should. But if you want an animal who’s well- behaved with you and others in multiple environments, ultimately you’re the most important person involved in that transformation.

Once you identify any problems and nail these basics, you’re ready to make 2015 a year of successful new beginnings for you and your animal.

May the coming year be filled with the very best for you and your loved ones of all species.

FRICA

OLLIE

BAMBOO

THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE HILL

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” 

Now I realize that the same could be said about all the microorganisms  that make up our world too.

I’m a list-maker and as I write this, I face my usual crammed-full, ever-lengthening holiday do-list that includes gearing up for taking the new website live. Still, I suspect that most people would consider my list laughably simple compared to their own. But it seems like a lot to me and even overwhelming on some days, so much so that this probably will be the shortest commentary I’ve ever written.

Naturally my list got me thinking about its fulfillment as it relates to my animals. This resulted in the troubling realization that in many ways my do-list is all about me, self-absorbed wretch that I am. Nor do I think I’m alone in my orientation.

The truth is that for many of us getting everything done that needs to get done during the holiday season is based on the assumption that all nonhuman household members will cooperate. They won’t swallow ribbon, drag the new baby’s toy under the couch and have at it, knock over the tree, or eat food meant for guests and barf up same on the bed. They won’t terrify carolers with their yodels, barks and howls, express their anal glands and take off when they see Uncle Joe dressed as Santa, or curl their furry bodies around Grandma’s neck as they purr, suck and knead the fake fur collar of her robe. In short, they will behave perfectly.

And what might they wish regarding our behavior during this same period?  I created an even longer list trying to answer that question. In the end I tore it up and thought about the two things most pet dogs and cats enjoy most: sleep and play. That seems like the perfect holiday animal barometer. If they’re sleeping or playing by themselves or with each other, then all is well. But if they’re getting into trouble, sniping at each other, succumbing to nonspecific gastro-intestinal disturbances, then I need to calm down. When I do, they do. They and their predecessors have proven that to me time and time again and no doubt their successors will too.

And when they do, it’s the most perfect gift I could give them and they could give me.  If you don’t believe me, try it this holiday season. Treat yourself to a dose of the human-animal bond at its very best.

]]> http://www.mmilani.com/blog/2427/the-most-perfect-gift/feed/ 0 http://www.mmilani.com/blog/2444/meandering-with-myrn-episode-325/ http://www.mmilani.com/blog/2444/meandering-with-myrn-episode-325/#comments Wed, 26 Nov 2014 10:20:57 +0000 http://www.mmilani.com/blog/?p=2444 Imagine you had a neophobic cat. In other words your cat was fearful of anything or anyone new that entered your home. And because these additions frightened the cat, he sought to neutralize their negative effect by peeing on them to signal his claim. Under those circumstances I image most of us would make the same assumption a client who had such a cat did. In her mind, the cat was always peeing everywhere.

But the cat wasn’t really. It just seemed that way because she was an avid shopper as well as a highly social person. As a result, she often received deliveries of one sort or another and routinely invited new people to her home. So even though it seemed like nothing in her home was safe from baptism by cat pee, that wasn’t really the case. He only peed on the new arrivals.

This week’s podcast considers similar problem-behavior perceptual traps and how to avoid them.

In that case dogs of country or city breeding who wind up in the opposite environment may wind up feeling like ducks out of water.

If we accept that the human animal bond is a bilateral physiological and behavioral phenomenon, then it’s reasonable to assume that anything that changes our behavior is capable of changing theirs. But typically we speak of this in terms of active displays. How we relate to them when we’re happy, sad, or calm and relaxed—that kind of thing. But what kind of connection do we form with them when we sort of seem to be looking at them but sort of not? Could our clever lenses turn out to generate a technological version of the Clever Hans Effect?