Izzy, the Soul Dog

April 21 2008 – As many of you know, I had the unfortunate experience of having to kill Orson, a dog I loved, after he bit three people. Some of you also know that this was a controversial move, harshly criticized by many dog lovers as uncaring, lazy or cruel. Ironically, the book I wrote about Orson, “A Good Dog” has been my most successful book, and perhaps the most praised.
  I am often asked if I regret the decision to put Orson down, and I told an interviewer this week that I do, of course I do. But I also regret that I didn’t put him down after he attacked the first person, so that the other two, including a child, didn’t have to suffer.
  The fact that the decision was so controversial and intense tells us how far we have come in our love for these marvelous creatures, and how difficult it is to maintain perspective.
   It has also become a controversial idea in America that dogs are not the same thing as children, and many people are stunned at the very idea that dogs may not have the same souls and psyches as human beings.
  Before and after that decision about Orson I’ve talked with many researchers, trainers, behaviorists and breeders, and I have come to believe in recent years that the powerful but sometimes thoughtless love of dogs has caused a sort of moral inversion, and if you look at the statistics involving dog abandonment, welfare, and death, has become a new form of abuse, much more deadly and pervasive than what we normally think of as abuse.
  Dogs in America are not likely to be beaten to death. They are quite likely to die from being seen more as humans than animals, from being overfed, poorly bred and raised, and too adorable to control.
  Patty, a California behaviorist for 25 years, wrote me this week that she appreciated the horrible decision I had to make, and the immense loss involved. But she also wrote it was the right choice. It is common knowledge, she wrote, that canine temperaments are mostly formed by 4 to 6 months of age. The odds of long-term success transforming a two-year-old unstable, dominant dog with “variable social inclinations,” she wrote, were slim to none. It is possible, but very rare and often beyond the ability or resources of most dog owners.
  In l980, she wrote, millions of dogs in the United States (I’ve seen some estimates of a third of all dogs)  were given up for behavioral problems that went unrecognized and/or uncorrected as puppies. Today, she writes, the ratio has “risen” to one in three dogs.
  These figures are compiled by national and local humane societies, and veterinary organizations. Poorly informed or incompetent breeders and raisers of puppies turn out countless adult dogs whose behaviors are no longer considered safe, cute or tolerable when they grow older, or acceptable to the owners, or ultimately, to anyone else.
  These dogs often lose their homes and their lives, often because we love them too much to show them how to live in our world.
  Puppies imprint lifelong behavioral patterns from birth to about four months of age. It’s the time puppies are – or aren’t – taught rules and boundaries, both social and environmental. Many dog lovers, trainers and authors advance the idea that any dog can be trained or re-trained relatively easily. I do not believe this is so, and just think about the dogs you and your neighbors and friends have had and do the math yourself.
  Training a dog looks and seems easy for a TV personality to do, but not when you try it yourself, and not for most of us ordinary humans. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of money, and even then, the odds are long.
   Unfortunately, Patty writes, many dog owners are so smitten with the cuteness of puppies, (and, I would add,  growing notions of them as children), that they are reluctant to train them or upset puppies with rules, until they start becoming a problem, and are often beyond training. People want – need – their dogs to love them unconditionally, and they often fear discipline will alter that love.
  I live with animals, and have for some years, from sheep to donkeys to dogs to steers and cats and goats, and love most, if not all of them. I get them from birth, condition them with ample, food, socializing and attention and there  is not a one I wouldn’t kill in a second if he or she harmed a human being, or became unstable or dangerous. Not a one, and if I ever adopt the idea on this farm that no animal can ever leave this world for any reason, including the harming of humans, then it is time to give up the farm, for I am doing noone a service, not me, farms, people in general, or the animals. A farm is the real world, and animals are not a fashionable political theory for me.
   Moral theory for me involves self-respect, and my animals, like me, have to live to a certain standard in the world, and one of those standards is safety and the idea that human welfare is valuable and important. We are not superior to animals, but  we need to live safely and to value human life, in my view. When we lose that, we have lost something beyond dogs.
   Dogs are not people. They are animals, we are responsible for them, as they cannot train and care for themselves, and weobliged to carefully and thoughtfully – not emotionally and reflexively – consider our relationship with them, and whether it is really helping or hurting them.
 The dogs pay the price for this fundamental misunderstanding of their nature. Orson paid the price.
   I have spent a number of years in the dog world, writing about dogs, researching their behavior and considering the intensifying emotional bond humans have with them. In my experience, Patty’s letter rings quite true, and if you doubt it, ask just about any vet in the country. Or any behaviorist.
  Dogs in America are personified, undertrained and overfed, and the idea that no dog can ever be killed or put down, even when they injure and frighten human beings,  is simply not a moral or tenable idea to me, not to mention the overwhelming evidence that it harms many more dogs than it saves.
  I love dogs, and it’s great to love dogs. But as we move to see dogs as children, as having souls, as going to heaven, as being superior and more loving and loyal and worthy than humans, we ought also to consider the moral implications of our love on this species, perhaps the closest to us in the world: we are killing a lot of dogs with love.
   I loved Orson way too much to let him bite another child in the neck.

April 21, 2008 – I love many things about my farm, and I’m going to list them periodically, to remind myself how fortunate I am, and how grateful I need to be for this farm. One thing I always love is late afternoons in the big barn, where a life all of its own goes on – chickens pecking around, barn cats chasing mice, feed and brushes, halters and cans, barn swallows fluttering in the rafter, strange and ancient smells and traces, old tools and impliments, barrels, feed, shadows and smells, strange shadows and light. In the late afternoon, the sun comes streaking in and the barn creatures make their final rounds before settling in for the night, when the barn is never totally quiet, but at peace.

April 21, 2008 – Warm, sunny. So I’m launching a new photographic initiative, which I call the Wildflower Campaign. I know nothing about wildflowers, and have rarely ever noticed the in the woods or on the side of the road. Today, Mary Kellogg the poet took me out into her woods and showed me some wildflowers, and that lit me up as a photographer. In a few minutes, I am sailing out into the woods with Lenore and Izzy and we are going to spot some wildflowers, and then begin the process of learning something about them.
  Wildflowers, to me, are among the prime examples of great beauty in small things, and I am taking my responsibility seriously to bring some meaning to the light and colors of the world. Another thing to stop by the road for. I am sick of being chased by phobic people who don’t want anybody taking pictures of anything near them.
  We had to keep Lenore from eating this wildflower, a Hepatica I am told, and I am glad she didn’t get it. I loved the walk in Mary’s woods, and my favorite moment was when I heard her softly called out, “Lenore, honey, please don’t eat the wildflowers.”

Lenore was beat in the sun and failed in her effort to eat wildflowers