Bones Would Rain from the Sky

by Suzanne Clothier

  DANGEROUS OBEDIENCE

  While cooking dinner one night, John and I were discussing the many positive changes in Badger’s behavior, especially a noticeable reduction in Badger’s tendency to use his teeth to communicate. We talked about the likelihood that in another home, this behavior might not have been understood as just that—a communication—and the unhappy and unnecessary end Badger might have faced as an “aggressive” dog. I mentioned how much restraint Badger had shown even when I slapped him, and I wondered with admiration for his considerable control how far he’d have to be pushed before he really did bite. I also said how guilty I felt for having lost my temper. John’s response rocked me back on my heels. “Well, he didn’t leave you much choice, did he?”

  Oh, how easy it would have been to step into the offered sympathy and soothe my conscience with the notion that Badger had somehow been the one to force me to get angry. But I knew that Badger didn’t start the battle of the bedroom. Badger wasn’t interested in fighting with me. He just wanted to do what felt good—sprawl out in bed—and avoid what he did not like, which was being confined in a crate. Had I crawled into bed beside him, he would have been thrilled, snuggled up next to me and drifted off to happy dreams, just as he often does these days with his handsome head draped over my shoulder. I was the one who let slip the dogs of war with my response to Badger’s understandable desire to be in bed. Though it was a good idea and a reasonable request to have him nap safely in a crate, how I set about making that happen was anything but a good idea. Although Badger told me again and again and then again how unfair I was being, I refused to hear him. I was the one who didn’t leave him much choice. The blame was mine alone. Badger was just being a dog with limited options in the face of conflict.

  Instead of maintaining a loving awareness of Badger’s limited response to conflict (chomp!) and doing what was necessary to help him work this through calmly and as gently as possible, I stubbornly focused on how cold and tired I was. I didn’t think of how painlessly I could solve the whole problem with a leash and a few treats—I only thought of how much I did not want to bother going downstairs again. And my selfish, emotional motivation for slapping my dog made this a more terrible cruelty than a calm, unemotional “correction” delivered by a trainer who believed with all her heart that she was acting appropriately and fairly. As willful cruelty does, this brief moment did more damage to my soul than all the countless moments where I acted far more forcefully but without any misunderstanding of how wrong my actions were. When I raised my hand in anger to Badger, I knew better, and I did it anyway.

  Right there, chopping the onions, talking with someone who understood how maddening it can be to make the time to work through another being’s issues and problems, I could have easily reconstructed the situation in my head and justified all of my actions as reasonable, characterized Badger as the stubborn dog and even excused slapping him as an unfortunate inevitability. It scared me, how easily cruelty could creep in uninvited and end up wearing the Great Seal of Justification. It horrified me that even my own husband would not question me, the professional trainer, if I announced that I had no choice but to slap a dog. The only safegaurd against the cruelty I am capable of is my willingness to constantly question my own motivations and actions. But I have known this for a long, long time. The responsibility for being humane lies strictly within our own hearts; we cannot and should not depend on external authorities to guide us.

  Like some readers, I have another responsibility far beyond my personal relationships with my animals. As a professional to whom others turn for advice and guidance, I need to recognize the power that I am granted in my role as “the trainer” (often spoken in quasi-reverent tones by those who are having trouble reconciling the bouncing Buck at their feet with the well-behaved dog who resides, at least for the moment, solely in their imagination). I need merely say, “I am a dog trainer,” and with that statement, I claim for myself whatever degree of expertise a dog owner might attribute to that title. If I want to drape myself in more authority, I might call myself a “behavior consultant” or “dog psychologist” or “behaviorist.” (It should be noted that there are no licensing or certification regulations for dog trainers in any state as of this writing. In sharp contrast, I could not cut someone’s hair or do their nails without a license, at least in my state. Caveat emptor indeed when obtaining the services of a trainer, behavior consultant or behaviorist.) Whatever I choose to call myself, the moment I step forward to offer advice—whether or not it is good advice, whether or not I am paid for giving it—I have wrapped myself in the cloak of authority. Sought and claimed or not, that authority is powerful and needs to be handled with care.

  BECAUSE I SAID SO

  There are quite a few old jokes that include someone—a child, a husband, whoever—asking semidefiantly “Why should I?” in response to some direction from an authority figure or evidently more powerful person. And the punch line, inevitably, is this: “Because I said so, that’s why.” And we all laugh, knowing that the would-be defiance evaporates and the instructed meekly goes ahead and does as told. In such jokes, we evidence an understanding of how deeply obedience to authority is ingrained in us. Defying authority is not something that we do easily. After all, the very coherence of society actually depends on the individual’s obedience to authority, whether that’s the red light at the corner or a federal regulation. But there is also a dark and disturbing side to how far this obedience can be taken.

  Psychologist Stanley Milgram devised an experiment to test “how far a person will proceed in a concrete and measurable situation in which he is ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.” The experiment consisted of a “teacher” (the actual subject of the experiment) and a “learner” (actually an actor), and a simple memory test of word pairings; an “experimental scientist” supervised. The teacher believed that the experiment was an exploration of the effects of punishment on memory and learning, and also believed that the learner was a genuine participant in the experiment as he was. During the test, the teachers believed that they would be delivering electric shocks of ever-increasing intensity for any wrong answers by the learners. In fact, no shocks were delivered, though the actors participating as the learners offered convincing performances of discomfort, fear and pain.

  Before conducting the experiment, Milgram asked a wide range of people for their predictions regarding the results; all predicted that nearly every subject (except a tiny lunatic fringe of disturbed individuals) would be unwilling to obey instructions to inflict pain. The actual results were nothing short of chilling. When an authority figure (an experimental scientist) insisted that the experiment continue despite protests and pleas and even screams from the learner, apparently normal people from all walks of life were willing to obey. Of the Yale students participating in the first study, more than 60 percent of the subjects were “fully obedient,” which is to say that they obeyed to the point of delivering the most potent, extremely painful shock available—450 volts. These experiments were repeated with subjects drawn from all walks of life in New Haven, and the results were the same. Repeated further at Princeton, and in Italy, South Africa and Austria, the results were more disturbing, with a higher level of fully obedient subjects, as high as 85 percent in a Munich study.

  These subjects were not sadists who enjoyed inflicting pain. Some did protest; some wept or grew increasingly anxious as they delivered greater-intensity shocks. Others were concerned but when assured that they would not be held responsible for what happened to the learner, continued on. Some, Milgram noted, displayed only minimal tension from start to finish; the responsibility for the learner lay with the scientist, not with them—they were only doing as they were told. And some refused to obey. (This “defiant” group fascinated me—what inner qualities or resources did they possess that enabled them to refuse? What could they teach us? Were there common elements in their individual philosophies that served to anchor them firmly in their se
nse of what was right and humane so that even the pull of authority could not break them loose from their moorings?)

  In considering the ramifications of Milgram’s work, we need to keep in mind a key fact: The authority figure in the experiment had no particular psychological leverage over the test subjects. Refusal to cooperate with the experimental scientist would not result in lower grades, failure, financial loss, physical pain, harm to a loved one—no tangible consequences, in fact, attended a defiance of authority. And yet, the subjects were unwilling to perform poorly, disappoint or, as Milgram notes, “hurt the feelings” of the scientist in charge of the experiment (this despite the fact that they could hear the protests and screams of the learner whose feelings apparently carried less weight in their mental equations!) In order to stop the experiment and answer the uncomfortable proddings of conscience, the subject had to make a break with authority. And they were by and large unable to do this, even in the presence of another human being’s suffering, even when no real consequences attended a refusal.

  In his Harper’s article “The Perils of Obedience,” Milgram concluded, “This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: ordinary people… can become agents in a terribly destructive process.” Not because they are inherently evil or aggressive or pathologically disturbed, but largely because they were unable to defy authority. As Milgram stated, “Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

  Aside from offering an unpleasant look at the human psyche, how does this apply to our relationships with our dogs? Seeking guidance from dog trainers, behaviorists and obedience instructors, we may find ourselves in a real-life experiment when these “experts” tell us what we must do to our dogs in order to train, correct or punish them. Even when our senses tell us that we have stepped past the bounds of what is right and humane, we may find ourselves more concerned with what the teacher or trainer or expert thinks of us than we are with what is happening to our dog. If we are not aware of our very human tendency to obey what an authority tells us to do, even when we are uncomfortable or even horrified by what that may be and the effects it has on our dogs, we may end up far from where we hope to be.

  With unhappy regularity, I meet dog owners who deeply regret following the advice of someone who was “an expert,” an authority figure who instructed them in how best to train or “correct” their dog. Believing that what they understood about dogs and training was nothing compared to what the “expert” must know (define expert as you will, but it’s rarely warranted in any field by but a tiny handful), these folks ignored the protests that rose up inside them, bit back the questions that they wanted to ask and, in misplaced faith, treated a dog in a way that made their hearts grow a little harder. And always, the question these folks ask is this: “Why did I listen to them?” And when they ask, they are not asking me. Their gaze is turned inward, and they review the past as if watching a distasteful movie sequence, and sadly shake their heads before adding yet another straw to their burden of guilt: “I should have known better.”

  It is always an immense relief to such people to know that they are not a minority group of careless, thoughtless or callous folk, but that their response to an authoritative direction is quite typical. This does not excuse our behavior, but it does help explain it and offer us an opportunity to embrace this gift of understanding of how easily we are led down in ways that shrink our souls and leave us regretful. If we understand that being human includes weaknesses and tendencies that pull us toward the dark, unlighted corners, we then can choose deliberately to move toward the light, and thus continue to grow. Our power remains authentic when we refuse to give it away by surrendering to the illusion that others know more than what our hearts tell us; we endanger the relationship, and due to the potential for cruelty that exists in the animal/human relationship, we may actually endanger the dog.

  At the moment we set our intention to walk the paths that we believe will lead us to the deeper connections and more profound relationships we need and long for, we have begun to shift our world. Embracing the dog as more than mere object to be shaped to suit our needs, more than mere subject who must heed our every command, more than just a helpless creature in our caretaking, we open ourselves to a new awareness. We can no longer discard as unimportant or meaningless the subtleties of tail and ear and eye, but as we do with any beloved, we thirst for a greater understanding, and so we enter each moment with our dogs in a new state of awareness. If we are diligent in doing the work of relationship, bringing our curiosity and empathy and joy to the journey with another, our awareness blossoms into knowledge. And with knowledge comes responsibility. Finding the authentic power in ourselves and in a relationship means accepting responsibility for our own actions and its effects on others.

  Some of Milgram’s further experiments offered additional food for thought. In one variation of the experiment, it was left strictly up to the teacher as to how much of a shock they would deliver for wrong answers. Under these conditions, the overwhelming majority chose a level well under the minimal level where the learner showed any discomfort at all. This gave credence to a fairly often heard comment in the original studies, “If it had been up to me… .” Real-life message? Remember this: It is up to you. See the dog.

  If we are aware that the responsibility is ours for being fair, humane and quite unlike the majority of subjects in Milgram’s study, then we can no longer lay the blame for what we choose to do at another’s feet by saying, “I was just doing what I was told to do.” We have to learn to listen to what our hearts have to say. Our own degree of comfort and joy, sureness and confidence comes from within, when we are acting in deep accordance with our true selves.

  The relief of knowing that we have acted in all-too-human ways is compounded by the sensation of authentic power and freedom when we accept that the future need not mirror the past. If we are willing to make conscious choices, we can create new possibilities and reach new levels in our relationships. But then, following close on the heels of such relief and freedom is a snapping, snarling mess of guilt. Even as we project ourselves forward into what we imagine for the future, the tangle of our past pulls us back and begins the retroactive replay. It is a peculiar human tendency to flail ourselves with how it might have been if we knew then what we know now. And the moment we begin to look at our past using a light we acquired only recently, things get distorted. We can only accept the responsibility for what we know; it is unfair to look back and assign our then-unknowing selves responsibility for what we did not understand. To do so is as foolish as looking back on our childhood and thinking that if only we’d been able to read at age three, we might not have drawn on our mother’s quilt using a marker clearly labeled as “permanent.” Even if we destroyed a family heirloom, we cannot hold ourselves accountable for such unknowing actions.

  It is both understandable and common to feel regret for the mistakes made when we saw things differently, when we did not understand or know what we do now—even if our understanding or knowledge is but moments old. And generally speaking, we are most horrified by the distances we were capable of moving from the true north of our soul’s compass. If the worst thing I had ever done in my lifetime was slap one dog on one cold morning for no good reason and many selfish ones, it might be fair to say that my soul’s course hadn’t deviated too terribly. It was a brief derailment, an error examined until as much possible wisdom and grace had been wrung from it and a mistake that has served to heighten my awareness since that dark moment. But my experience is long and my memory is good, and I know that countless times, I have stood in a place diametrically opposed to the path my soul would have me take. And for this, I have had to find a way to forgive myself. The only way I was able to do this was to make a list of all the animals I could remember who had been on the receiving end of my mistakes, and to ask their forgiveness and thank them for what they helped me learn. While unable to change the past, I could—and did—make a vow to change the future, so t
hat all dogs and animals who touched my life would (hopefully) benefit from what I had learned sometimes at the expense of the dogs who had come long before them.

  We cannot be held responsible for what we did not know. But we are deeply accountable for what we do know—knowledge entails responsibility. And this is where I’ve found the greatest difficulty in forgiving myself. It’s easy to review my life and understand that given what I knew at the time, given the examples set all around me, my choices were the best I could make. For these moments, forgiveness for my younger, more foolish self is easy. But as with all soulful work, I have found that the line between knowing and not knowing looks sharp and crisp only from a distance. Up close, there is a blurring that occurs as we near that line, a knowing that is not yet a knowing but more a prickling in the soul that says something is wrong. The first inklings of awareness come with a sense of discomfort, unease, a protest that dies unspoken on your lips. Seek these pricklings, hunt for them, coax them out of hiding and ask, “What is wrong?” Do not fear these, but honor them. Ruth Renkel wrote, “Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.” These uneasy pricklings, these shadows that darken our inner landscape, are the soul’s guardians and warn us when we have gone astray. When we turn away from a willingness to be aware of these warnings, then we are guilty with cause—we knew, but we chose to act as if we did not.