Merle's Door

by Ted Kerasote

  "Give me fifteen more minutes," I told Merle, "and we'll walk up the hill and get the car."

  When I stood, he dropped to all fours and went to the screen door to look outside. Leaving him to his gazing, I went to my desk. A couple of minutes later, I heard him lie down directly behind my chair. I turned. He was lying on his side, looking coyly at me from the corner of his eye.

  "Everything okay?"

  Thump, thump, thump—his tail hit the carpet hard, and I thought of how long humans have heard that contented sound. Whether 12,000, 50,000, or 400,000 years, it mattered little. All that mattered was the timeless refrain, echoing down through the ages, the human voice asking, the dog's tail responding:

  How are you?

  Better now.

  I am glad.

  So am I.

  Eyes locked: together.

  Chapter 3

  The Synaptic Kiss

  Unlike one of my childhood dogs—a Beagle-Terrier cross named Tippy, who began to whimper the instant she saw the vet's front door—Merle waltzed into the Jackson Hole Veterinary Clinic as if he had booked himself into a spa. He greeted the receptionist heartily but politely, allowed me to pick him up onto the stainless steel table without the least bit of fuss, and stood calmly for his vaccinations, swallowing his deworming pills as if they were candy. Inspecting his teeth, the vet, a square-jawed man in jeans and a western shirt, named Jack Konitz, declared Merle about ten or eleven months old and probably a yellow Lab with some Golden Retriever mixed in.

  "Any hound?" I asked.

  He stared at Merle's face. "Could be."

  From the vet we went to Valley Feed and Pet, where I bought Merle a forty-pound bag of kibble and a red collar on which to put his rabies tag, his Teton County registration tag, and a tag inscribed with his name, our address, and phone number. I also bought him a rubber ball with a bell in it, a rubber bone that squeaked when pressed (sounding like the noise of a chiseler), and a rawhide chew.

  "Oh, boy, do I have some treats for you," I told him as I got back into the car. He was in sphinx mode, occupying the entire cargo space of the Datsun, its rear seat down, as he watched customers enter and leave the store, the end of his nose twitching in appreciation as a rancher pulled in with a pickup truck. Merle's eyes gleamed. The man must have smelled of cattle.

  Back in Kelly, we got out of the car, and without delay I began his training as a bird dog. I threw the rubber ball across the small field in front of the trailer. Merle watched the arc of the ball with disinterest. I waited. He didn't move. Retrieving it myself, I shook it under his nose so its little bell tinkled, and tossed it again. Unfazed, Merle watched its fall.

  "Go get it," I said. "You've got Retriever blood on two sides."

  He gave me a look that said: "I don't do balls."

  I held the rubber bone in front of his nose. He sniffed it perfunctorily. I squeaked it. His ears pricked but he made no move to grab it. So I pulled out the pièce de résistance—the rawhide chew—and held it under his nose. Another superficial sniff.

  "Mmm-mmm-mmm," I said in the tone of voice that adults use when trying to feed reluctant children. So as not to wound me too grievously, Merle tried to wag his tail, but his lack of enthusiasm was clear.

  "Oh, come on!" I exclaimed. "This is a rawhide chew. Dogs go wild for them."

  I pushed it between his lips. He parted his teeth and took it. I let it go, and as it touched his tongue, he opened his jaws and let the chew fall to the porch. He backed up from it—one step, two, three—then gave me the tiniest wag of his tail, just its tip, as if to say, "I apologize, I really do, but I don't do chews."

  I sighed.

  In her perceptive book The Other End of the Leash, dog behaviorist Dr. Patricia McConnell states that dogs who have been raised in an environment without stimuli, like those poor dogs who begin life in the bins of puppy mills, often develop "into adults who won't play with any object, ever, not with balls, rawhide chew bones, or Frisbees."

  I wondered whether this had been the puppyhood Merle had experienced. Had he been raised in the Navajo equivalent of a puppy mill? Yet he seemed pretty well socialized—at least to people. McConnell goes on to say, "Perhaps there is a 'critical period' for object play, just as there is for socialization, in which dogs are hardwired to learn how to play and what to play with."

  I collected the dog paraphernalia and toted the bag of kibble into the trailer, emptying a healthy portion into a new stainless steel bowl.

  Merle waited, now wary of Ted bearing gifts.

  "Have at it," I said, sitting on the floor nearby and waiting for another rejection.

  He walked to the bowl, sniffed the surface of the kibble with care, and began to wag his tail approvingly. He finished his dinner in a dozen ravenous gulps, licking the bowl clean.

  "Phew," I said as he came over to me and put the top of his head against my chest.

  A few days later, Steve Heksel, a river guide who lived in a one-room cabin south of my trailer, brought home a black-and-white Border Collie pup named Jack. Only about ten weeks old, Jack began to romp with Merle, and, in the stylized behavior of puppies toward older dogs, fawned on him. Merle would let Jack crawl on his shoulders and chew his ears, closing his eyes in patient toleration, then spring up and run away from Jack, a move that sent the puppy into a high-pitched frenzy of barking: "I'm going to catch you! I'm going to catch you!"

  About this time, a young Vizsla named Zula also arrived in Kelly, moving with her family into one of the yurts that dotted the twenty-acre sage meadow that lay north of our trailer. She had a smooth, amber coat, long ears, like those on a Maasai woman, tender hazel eyes, and a moist, wide, flesh-colored nose—the canine equivalent of Cosmo lips. Her waist was pulled in and there wasn't an ounce of fat on her.

  Merle went gaga over her. She would make her way over the decrepit wooden bridge spanning the creek that separated our field from the main meadow, stepping daintily over the teetering boards, then race to our porch, where Merle would already be bounding down the steps. Round and round they would tear, cutting a circle about thirty yards in diameter, first Zula leading, then Merle, round and round, heeled over like cyclists at a velodrome, until I thought their hearts would burst.

  Poor Jack would try to enter their blistering race only to be bowled over by the two of them. Recovering from his tumble, he'd sit in the circle they were scribing in the grass, his head swiveling to follow them, a plaintive but eager look on his face. Finally, Zula and Merle would pile up together, lying nose-to-nose, sides heaving, while Jack climbed over them, pulling their tails and ears, trying to get them to play.

  It now occurred to me that Merle must have learned how to play with other dogs at some point in his young life. Actually, more than just play. Refreshed from the brief nap they had taken, he would sit up and look around with an air of anticipation. He'd test the wind, nostrils dilating, then take a deep breath, and throw his snout to the sky. Opening his mouth wide, he'd let out a howl, starting low and climbing through his considerable register. One howl completed, he'd wait for Zula and Jack to chime in before going on. The three of them would sit together, muzzles pointed at the cottonwoods and the mountains, having their morning songfest. At least three times a day, they would gather to chase each other, to nap, and to sing, each of them then returning to his or her respective yurt, trailer, or cabin. Merle would stand on the porch and watch Zula go over the bridge with a fond expression on his face, his tail doing a slow, appreciative wag: "Gosh, I like her."

  His collar, with its trio of jangling tags, stayed on a hook by the door, for there seemed to be no need for him to wear it in Kelly. He was willing to walk near me as we went between the office and our cabin on the hill, lagging to investigate a smell, then galloping to catch up. When I would hear him coming, I'd crouch to face him, opening my arms, as he'd race headlong at me. At the last possible instant, he'd veer off, brushing my knee with his flank and laughing, "Ha-ha-ha!" In fact, if I noticed anything about our walks,
it was that he didn't want to let me out of his sight.

  As for my fears of his chasing wildlife, they were quickly allayed. When we'd see the bison, who continued to hang around the cabin, Merle would stand by my side, wagging his tail in a lazy arc, and look up at me with a humorous glint in his eye, implying, "Yep, I remember." When we'd walk by mule deer, he'd watch them—one ear pricked toward them, one ear angled back in my direction—as I'd repeat, "Deer, no, stay," my voice low and rumbling. And he'd look up at me with an expression that contained a hint of exasperation, the canine version of "I get it. I get it. I'm not supposed to chase wildlife."

  For a few blissful days, therefore, I believed that I had found the model dog. All those training books that advised using a clicker to indicate to your dog the precise instant it has performed the desired behavior instead of saying, "good," or "yes," or "well done"; that counseled using the "alpha roll-over," during which the human acts as the alpha wolf and disciplines the dog by rolling it over on its back and growling in its face; that advocated a nothing-in-life-is-free approach to training, in other words that no food or treat should be given unless the dog earns it by sitting or lying down—these training books had it wrong. All you had to do was give your dog space, talk to him sensibly, show him what needed to be done—placing a hand on the floor for "lie down," gesturing here and there for him to "come" and "stay"—while generally letting him learn from the world around him, and he'd respond like the clever being he was.

  Blinded by my rapid success—and not considering that I'd found a smart and compliant dog who hadn't been seriously tested—I took a bike ride along the foothills of the Gros Ventre Mountains. It was a hot afternoon and we went through the rolling sagebrush on an abandoned jeep road. Merle loped a few yards ahead of me, mouth open, tail streaming, ears flapping. We came over a small rise and saw twenty Black Angus cows. My perfect dog didn't hesitate. Going into hyperspeed, he rushed them.

  "No!" I yelled.

  It was like yelling at the space shuttle to come back. The cattle, thoroughly frightened, also went into overdrive as Merle dashed among them and cut out one of their calves. Downshifting, I raced after him.

  We must have been quite the sight: the panicked cattle, the pursuing dog, and the man on the bike, shouting, "Merle, no! Merle, no!"

  I continued to yell, to no effect. I was terrified. The rancher who owned these cows had a reputation for shooting dogs who chased them, and I could see the ranch house approaching in the distance. I could imagine the rancher, or his manager, lining up a scope-sighted .270 over the hood of his pickup.

  That gave me the adrenaline burst I needed to accelerate up to Merle's tail and dart between him and the calf he was chasing. I kicked him in the ribs as I went by and yelled, "No chasing cows!"

  Startled, Merle looked up with a "Huh?" expression. Talk about being hardwired! He hadn't even heard me. Furious, and frightened that I'd lose him, I went into hardwired mode as well. I jumped off the bike, rolled him over, held him by the ruff of his neck, and snarled in his face, "No!"

  He cringed and whined, trying to escape my grasp. I let him go. He immediately jumped to his feet, surveyed the scene, saw the cows in the distance, and galloped after them. I couldn't believe it.

  I leapt on my bike and chased him down, swerving in front of him and flying off to tackle him. This time I hit him soundly on the butt, ranting in his face, "No, no, no, you're gonna die!"

  He cried out in fear and shock. His eyes were wild. His world had come undone. The one person he had trusted had betrayed him. And I felt shoddy and demeaned for having struck him.

  Putting on his collar and leash, which I carried in my fanny pack, I said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's go home."

  I picked up my bike, got on, and set off. He trotted alongside me, breathing much harder than the pace warranted, for he was very upset. As was I. In fact, I was shaking.

  On the drive back to Kelly, I watched him in the rearview mirror. He looked withdrawn and somber. Nor did his mood improve with dinner. He ate it and curled up in the living room.

  I petted him before going to bed, but he wouldn't acknowledge me, staying curled up nose to tail.

  Lying in bed, I wondered what to do. Clearly, I had been mistaken. For one set of behaviors, voice reinforcement could change his behavior. Since he was one of those highly social dogs who respond so well to praise, he listened to what I said. Watching me closely, he also imitated what I did. In short, he wanted to please me. But for other behaviors, those fixed-action ones such as chasing cattle, talking to him was like trying to speak to someone who is deaf.

  This particular hardwired characteristic of the canine personality—chasing prey that runs—was compounded by the fact that Merle had probably received tremendous positive reinforcement for capturing calves in his early days on the San Juan River. Killing such an animal would have produced huge benefits for him—life itself. That sort of reinforcement was going to be hard to break, but I needed to break it, for I didn't want a dog who couldn't roam freely, especially in a rural place like Kelly.

  As I mulled this over, I heard him stir and come into the bedroom. He put his chin on the bed, his nose just touching my arm. Taking his face between my hands, I kissed his forehead. "I am very sorry I hit you," I said. "I was so worried about you. I will never do that again." I could feel his head move as he wagged his tail.

  "Come here," I said and patted the bed. He leapt up and I threw an arm around him. He put his head on my shoulder, wrapping a paw around my neck. Looking at me, he waited. Regarding him tenderly, I made a smooching noise with my mouth. He gave a relieved sigh and his body relaxed. Within minutes, he was asleep.

  But apologies didn't solve the problem of his chasing cattle, and, to make my anxiety worse, two dogs were shot within the next month for chasing cattle near Kelly. This was before electric shock collars were readily available. In fact, though it's hard to imagine life without Google, that search engine didn't exist in 1991—you couldn't answer virtually any question with the click of a mouse. So I asked friends and vets what to do, and many of them recommended a choke collar.

  The problem with a choke collar, however, was that Merle couldn't be on a leash. To duplicate the behavior that I wanted to terminate, he had to be running full-tilt. One person recommended throwing cold water on him while he chased cattle. That was how he had broken his dog of chasing cars—by throwing a bucket of ice-cold water on him from the passenger seat. But I didn't think cows would let me ride them. This person had the right concept, though. To counteract the huge positive reinforcement Merle had gotten for chasing cattle, he'd need to be given a large and unpleasant deterrent—one that I hoped he wouldn't associate with me.

  Distracting him and then rewarding him with a treat and praise—the sort of training that gives something coveted as a way of pointing a dog away from disagreeable behavior—didn't seem to hold much promise. How do you distract a dog who is far away from you and deep in hardwired mode?

  After sleeping on it for a few nights, I reluctantly bought a choke collar, slipped it over Merle's head, and set out on the same two-track where we'd found the cattle. As luck would have it, they were still nearby, and Merle, despite having been rolled over by his supposed alpha, took off after them as if he remembered nothing.

  I had attached fifty yards of light climbing rope to his choke collar, and, as he sped away, I braked the bike while letting several coils of rope unravel from my hand.

  "Merle, no!" I yelled and jerked the rope.

  He came to an abrupt stop, shook his head like a fighter who's been punched hard, and looked around in perplexity. I pedaled forward as fast I could as he took off again, making straight for the fleeing cows.

  "Merle, no!" I yelled, jerking the rope and wrenching him to a stop.

  He shook his head. He caught sight of the cattle again. Off he went at a dead run. This was too painful to watch. Could he really be this hardwired?

  Once more, I yelled, "Merle, no!" and snubbed the
rope.

  He tumbled into the sage, shook himself, stood up, and caught sight of the cattle. But this time he paused and slowly sat down. Staring at them, he trembled with unabated eagerness to resume his chase.

  I pedaled up to him, crouched by his side, and said, very quietly, "No. You can't chase cattle."

  He gave a small whine and his body shook—not in fear, but with pent-up longing.

  "No," I repeated.

  At the word, he turned and looked at me. Our heads were at the same level, and his eyes were bright and glowingly alive. They had cattle written all over them.

  "No," I said. "You can't do this anymore. You'll be shot and killed. And I will miss you terribly."

  He took a deep breath and glanced back at the cows, who had with excellent sense come to a stop a hundred yards off.

  "No," I said. "Never again. No, no, no."

  His posture visibly slumped, his shoulders sagged about half an inch, as if he were losing one of the greatest fortunes a dog could own.

  "No," I repeated.

  Stoically, he stared at the cattle.

  "No," I said, and very slowly took off the choke collar.

  I waited a moment. He sat, watching the cows.

  "Okay, let's go."

  I coiled the rope, got on the bike, and began to ride. Come on.

  Reluctantly, he started after me as I deliberately rode parallel to the cattle. They jerked their heads up and began to gallop away. Merle was trotting by my side and I repeated, quietly, "No, no, no. No chasing."

  He trembled violently, but he stayed alongside me. I stopped the bike, reached into my fanny pack, and gave him a biscuit. "Very good," I said. "Very, very good."

  Taking it without enthusiasm, he held it in his mouth while staring at the departing cattle. What more could a dog say about his priorities?

  "Good," I repeated. "Well done." And I patted him lavishly.

  Still, he stared at the cattle.

  "You can eat that now," I told him.

  Turning to me, he sighed.