I mentioned in another post that I’d watched Alpha, a film fictionalizing the domestication of dogs during the Paleolithic period, as the New Year rolled over. I made much of the song I heard as 2022 turned into 2023, but there wasn’t much song and dance about the wonder that is doggy friendship for humans. I think I even declared this the year of the accordion, as if so many years over the last two decades weren’t. Obviously, before I played the accordion, I was obsessed with listening to it.
But what if this is truly the year of the dog? No, it isn’t according to the Chinese calendar. I don’t mean that. I mean that dogs give me and many other humans great joy, and I have three of them, so three times the joy. Of course, as with the accordion, I’m not sure why this particular year would be declared as such, except that I watched a good movie about a wolf-dog to set the tone.
Dog behavior is fascinating to me; we might learn something from observing it. We can’t get into their heads, but we can watch their repeated patterns of reactions and make some good guesses.
First of all, let’s look at their hierarchical system. While I’ve read articles claiming that the concept of one alpha dog in a pack is false, I see a clear hierarchy among my dogs. Putting aside “alpha” for a moment, we definitely have a “queen bee.” You see, we have an elderly female dog, thirteen years old, who is as spry as they come. She’s a Shiba-Inu mix, and a lovely, loyal, and somewhat neurotic pup. In fact, she tripped me on New Year’s Eve because the neighbors were putting off fireworks, and she was certain it was WWIII, so therefore camped out somewhere I didn’t expect her to be, and down I went, falling on my thumb. I didn’t break one of my accordion-playing digits, thankfully, but she scurried off, now fully convinced of our war-torn world. She is a very anxious dog.
When she was almost eleven, we brought home two boy pups, eight weeks old. She put up with them then and still does now, and she actually enjoys rough-housing with them in the yard. She’s like a child who was an only for too long and is trying to recapture her doggy youth. She grew up with cats, I’m sorry to say. My husband likes cats and used to rescue them all the time. Oh, no, I found this poor stray kitty. I don’t much like cats and didn’t appreciate this, but to be fair to him, he was simply being a good firefighter. Naturally, people used to dump their unwanted kittens in front of the fire station or academy, knowing it was a fireman’s job to rescue cats — they didn’t even have to be up in trees.
But let me be absolutely clear: my elderly female dog (Kindle) is 100% in charge. The other dogs defer to her. She enters the house first, gets the first tidbits of food treats, and if one of the boy dogs annoys her too much, she will have him on the ground in a submissive posture even though she is smaller than both. Kindle is amazing. I half believe she will live forever, though I believed that about our longest-owned pet, a gray tabby cat called Frolic. Frolic weathered so many near-death experiences. She seemed invincible. And then she quite suddenly got old and died. She lived a good life, did Frolic (yes, Frolic and I put up with each other).
After Kindle, there is still a hierarchy among the two boys, and it honestly comes down to size. One of them is large, the other more a mid-sized pup. The large furry beast of a dog is clearly the alpha of the bros. These two came from a litter where the father was Australian shepherd, and the mother was a heeler, border collie mix. The big furry dog looks identical to an Australian shepherd, and the other like a collie. I don’t know where the heeler went. They are both black and adorably furry.
So, when all three dogs are crowding at the back door, Kindle enters first, then S’mores (the large dog), and then poor dear little Ryuk last. If I’m on the couch, S’mores will plop on my lap to show everyone he’s boss (Kindle isn’t much of a lapdog). He will luxuriate in my petting his thick fur and then climb down and growl at his brother. We used to view this as aggressive behavior and try to curb it until we realized he was giving permission to Ryuk to climb on my lap. Ryuk always understood, as he’s a dog, and he would peacefully climb up and take his turn cuddling. It was almost as if the poor would-be alpha (if it weren’t for that pesky Kindle) had to show a measure of strength before allowing his brother to take his place.
Have I learned something from my dogs and their behavior, as in, how might I apply it to my life? Well, I do feel like growling at people sometimes. No, that’s not right! No of course not. Instead, I’ve learned that if we don’t respect our elders, they’ll pin us to the ground until we submit. No, I’m sure that’s not the message either. Dogs are loyal, though, and they love their people unconditionally. Yes, I’m sure that’s the lesson.
Jill Domschot 