The Education of Will
Page 22
It takes determination to stay quiet in the emptiness that remains, to stare at the rolling hills and spiky grass with nothing but the jazz riffs of a bluebird to accompany you in your sudden sense of isolation. But willpower is not enough to keep you waiting alone in the emptiness. It takes faith that your dog will do his work without you beside him. It takes forgiveness if you haven’t yet brought him up to the task.
And so you wait, forcing yourself to stay still, to let what happens happen, eyes straining for the sign that the sheep have been found and are gathered together, moving back toward you in a semblance of order. You stand and you wait, feet shifting, eyes focused on the point where you think they should appear.
Finally, much later than you think it should be, you see the top of a woolly head, and then a nose, rising up from behind the curve of the hill. And then you see them all, the leader’s ears flicking forward and back, chin up, eyes wide and alert. Behind them is your little dog, steady and true, focused on nothing but bringing you the flock, easing them toward you carefully, lest they panic and dart for the woods. Closer and closer they come, and now they are closer still, right beside you, their eyes deep and round, so close that you can almost touch them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments can be hard to write. Whom to include, whom to leave out, where to start? But in this case, my job is easy. There is only one place to start—by expressing my gratitude to Jennifer Gates, my literary agent at Zachary, Shuster and Harmsworth. I wrote an entire book, and yet I don’t have the words to thank her for all she has done for me. Unless you are lucky enough to have one, you might not know that a great literary agent is an editor, adviser, cheerleader, therapist, and friend. This book would never have been written without Jennifer’s encouragement and coaching, and I guarantee that whatever good it contains, much of it is due to her compassionate guidance.
Thanks are also due to everyone at the agency Zachary, Shuster and Harmsworth who has been there for me since long before my first book, The Other End of the Leash, came out. A special heartfelt thank-you goes to Esmund Harmsworth, who, first off, is as charming as his name, and whose feedback about earlier drafts of this book was essential in its eventual restructuring. I am ridiculously lucky to have Jen and Esmund in my pack of friends and advisers, as well as all the skilled and hardworking people at Zachary, Shuster and Harmsworth, including Lane Zachary, Todd Shuster, and Chelse Heller.
Speaking of lucky: What a lucky woman I am to have had Leslie Meredith as my editor at Atria. Leslie was the editor for The Other End of the Leash and went above and beyond in her efforts to turn a well-intentioned but somewhat sloppy manuscript into a solid book. She taught me as much about writing as anyone ever has, and I was thrilled when Leslie and Atria asked to publish the book you are now reading. Along with being a devoted dog lover (kisses to her corgis), Leslie is the editor every author wants and needs but rarely gets. Lucky me. I am grateful to all at Atria for their efforts and support, including Melanie Iglesias Perez for her reliable assistance, publisher Judith Curr for her belief in the book, and Peter Borland, Paul Olsewski, Yona Deshommes, Jackie Jou, Benjamin Holmes, and Albert Tang.
Sincere appreciation also goes to another Leslie—Leslie Wells, whose editorial guidance saved me when I was floundering with a manuscript that readers loved but that mired them in the murky waters of the Great Memoir Swamp. Her advice and encouragement (“Less is more, unless it’s about your mother”) was instrumental in refining and improving the manuscript. I hear her voice often now when I’m writing, and if I ever do become the writer I would like to be, the Leslies in my life will deserve much of the credit.
It takes a village to write a good book, and I am amazed at the generosity of friends and colleagues who took the time to read and comment on earlier drafts. Meg and Randy Boscov stand out as especially dedicated readers, and I can’t thank them enough for their insightful advice. David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) took it upon himself, with a generosity that stuns me, to critically evaluate two early drafts, and to teach me everything he could about writing in a couple of months. I learned more from him than I can say, and I hope my efforts here reflect at least some of his skill and generosity. Author Cat Warren (What the Dog Knows) carefully read earlier drafts and made excellent suggestions on formatting and structure. I am indebted to her for her insightful suggestions and our continuing cyber- and canine-related friendship.
I am grateful also to Gail Caldwell (Let’s Take the Long Way Home), who give me essential feedback on an earlier draft, and whose exquisite writing has inspired me ever since I sat transfixed by her first memoir, A Strong West Wind. It is the bravery of writers like her, as well as Cheryl Strayed (Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things) and Brené Brown (Daring Greatly, Rising Strong), who gave me the courage to stop being afraid of being afraid. I am especially lucky to have a real writer in the family, Wendy B. Barker (One Blackbird at a Time, Nothing Between Us), whose support and feedback are always like a rain shower in a drought. I drink them up, full of gratitude.
Speaking of sisters, I count myself lucky to have two wonderful ones: Wendy Barker and Liza Piatt (another author, with her own beautiful memoir titled Dying to Live), each of whom has provided support and encouragement behind measure. The fact that we have each been simultaneously working on some version of a memoir in the past years says a lot about our family’s—especially our father’s—love of literature and the written word. My mother, Pamela Dodwell Bean, wasn’t as much a reader, but she was a lover of dogs and passionate about curiosity, adventure, and beautiful things, in that order. She supported my love of animals in every way she could, and I will always be grateful to her.
I thank my family for their loving support over the years. I am lucky to be the proud aunt of three amazing nieces—Wendy Piatt, Annie Piatt, and Emily Edwards—along with an equally amazing nephew, David Barker. My husband’s family has taken me in as one of their own, and I thank Zach and Sarah, Shane and Rachel, Doug, Roger and Kerry, and mother-in-law Maisie Billings from the bottom of my heart. Grandchildren Taylor and Quinne melt my bones every time I see them, which is never enough.
I also want to thank Julie Hecht (dogspies.com) for her friendship, support, and assistance with research. Along with being brilliant, funny, and inspiring, Julie is my “academic daughter” and makes me happy every time we talk. Lisa Lutz, detective extraordinaire, moved heaven and earth to find the facts behind “the man who fell,” and I will always be grateful to her. I am also in debt to the staff at McConnell Publishing, whose dedication, smarts, and hard work have allowed me the time to work on this memoir. Denise Swedlund kept the office functioning like silk for twenty-five years; Lisa Lemberger was and is instrumental in helping me run a business while making time to write. Katie Martz works with me to keep my official Facebook page flowing, which I appreciate every single day of the week. Karen London was the friend and colleague who showed up at my door with flowers when I was at my lowest, and I will always be grateful for that and for our continuing friendship. My friendship with other Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists, including Peter Borchelt, Crista Coppola, Daniel Estep, Suzanne Hetts, Ellen Lindell, Alice Moon-Fanelli, Pamela Reid, Victoria Voith, Camille Ward, John Wright, and Stephen Zawistowski, has been and will continue to be essential to my personal and professional growth. You’re my village, and I couldn’t have made it this far without you.
My academic mentors, Jeffrey Baylis, Charles Snowdon, and Tony Stretton, have forgotten more than I’ll ever know about animal behavior, and I owe them the moon for all that they have taught me, and for the support that they have provided over the years. Lon Hodge (In Dogs We Trust) and his noble therapy dog, Gander, have been instrumental in helping me understand the importance of dogs in the recovery of veterans suffering from PTSD.
How can I thank therapists Anne Simon Wolf and Mare Chapman? Working with them was like putting on glasses when you knew the world looked fuzzy but didn’t know why. I doubt I ever would have foun
d my voice without them. I wish everyone, no matter what they’re dealing with, had the opportunity to learn and grow from their insight, warmth, and skill. Yoga master Scott Anderson also played an important role in my recovery; I introduce him as the man who knows more about the body than anyone else in the world, and I suspect that I am not exaggerating. His combination of knowledge and compassion deserves to be known nationwide. Sarah Watts, my massage therapist for almost two decades, also deserves my sincere thanks for her magical hands, which healed my body and my spirit every time I saw her. I imagine that without Anne, Mare, Scott, and Sarah, I’d be curled up in a corner somewhere, licking my paws like a stressed-out dog.
I owe a great debt to several people whom I have never met. Nancy Venable Raine’s book, After Silence, did as much as any one thing to help me face the aftermath of being raped. I am deeply thankful for her courage and honesty. Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery also played a significant role in my understanding of all that had happened to me, and was an important part of my recovery.
My two ex-husbands also deserve thanks. You’ve read about my first husband, Doug McConnell, who taught me so much about enjoying life to the fullest. You haven’t read about Patrick Mommaerts, my second husband, and I hereby apologize to him for essentially leaving him out of this story. There were just too many narrative threads to include him, but he was an important part of my life for almost two decades, and I am grateful to him for all that he has given me. Both men are lovely people, and as always, I wish them nothing but happiness.
What would a writer do without friends? Much of writing might be a solitary occupation, but without friends, I can’t imagine turning on the computer every morning. I am deeply grateful to friends Peg and Jim Anderson, Rick Axsom, Meg and Randy Boscov, Julie Cullman, David Egger, Donna Huntington, Harriet Irwin, Renee Revetta, Fredericka Schilling, Bonita Sitter, and Sandie Stanfield. They have been as important as food and water to me over the years, and I count myself a lucky woman to have them. And to the person, whomever you are, whom I remember to thank only after it’s too late to add your name: Thank you, and I’m sorry.
Another set of friends is equally dear to my heart, and their friendship and wisdom sustain me and my love for working sheepdogs. I offer my thanks to all my friends who compete in sheepdog trials, and to the good people of the Wisconsin Working Sheepdog Association, who work tirelessly to keep border collies true to their heritage. We all remind people, every time we can, that border collies are not happy unless they have a job to do and ample opportunities to use their brains in the way that they were intended
I cannot possibly omit thanking all the clients and dogs I have worked with over the years. They have taught me so much. They filled my life up with joy and heartbreak, peace and drama, for over two decades. All of them were an integral part of my life for so long that I simply wouldn’t be who I am today without them. To each of you, a loving hug or a thankful belly rub, depending on the species. I hope that the stories in this book will help others with dogs who behave as if they were traumatized, and emphasize that knowledge and compassion are necessary to help dogs whose behavior is problematic. It’s a rare dog who is aggressive because it’s fun—these dogs need empathy, not owners who try to impress them with their “dominance.”
And Willie? My Willie. My Silly-Billie-Willie-boy. Sometimes it breaks my heart that I can’t tell him in words how much I love him, but perhaps it’s better this way. All words, no matter how informative, have weight. Surely one of reasons that we love dogs so much is because our relationship is not burdened by the constraints of language. I tell Willie every day how much I love him in every way I can—with the tone of my voice, the touch of my hand, and the attention I pay to his needs. But I can never explain to him that it was his problem behavior that forced me to face what I’d been repressing for so many years. To say that I am grateful to him is inadequate, but I hope this book makes it clear how much I feel that I owe him.
If you have a dog like Willie, with serious behavioral problems, please don’t think of them as “dominance” issues. Dogs like Willie need help, not intimidation. You can find resources for troubled dogs at www.TheEducationofWill.com.
Just as these acknowledgments had to begin with Jennifer Gates, they can end only with my gratitude to James Billings, whose love and support are the best things that ever happened to me. I could never have written this book without him. Willie and I both adore him, and rightly so. He is loving and smart and kind and patient and makes me laugh and makes Willie jump for joy when he returns home, and if I were a dog, I would, too. I owe Jim the world, but all I can give him is this little book, along with my eternal gratitude.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia McConnell, PhD, CAAB, is an ethologist and Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist who has consulted with pet owners for over twenty years about serious behavioral problems, specializing in canine aggression. She taught “The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships” in the Department of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for twenty-five years and speaks around the world about canine behavior and training. Dr. McConnell is the author of eleven books on training and behavioral problems, as well as the critically acclaimed books The Other End of the Leash (translated into fourteen languages), For the Love of a Dog, and Tales of Two Species. Patricia and her husband live with their working border collies, Willie and Maggie, and their King Charles Cavalier spaniel, Tootsie, outside of Madison, Wisconsin, along with a very spoiled flock of sheep. For more information, go to www.TheEducationofWill.com, www.PatriciaMcConnell.com, or visit her blog at www.TheOtherEndoftheLeash.com.
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ALSO BY PATRICIA B. MCCONNELL
The Other End of the Leash
For the Love of a Dog
The Puppy Primer
Love Has No Age Limit
Family Friendly Dog Training
The Cautious Canine
The Feisty Fido
Way to Go!
I’ll Be Home Soon
Feeling Outnumbered?
Play Together, Stay Together
Tales of Two Species
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McConnell, Patricia B., author.
Title: The education of Will : a mutual memoir of a woman and her dog / Patricia B. McConnell.
; Description: First Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Atria Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016029198 (print) | LCCN 2016054491 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501150159 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501150173 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781501150203 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dogs—Behavior. | Dogs—Psychology. | Dog owners—Psychology. | Posttraumatic stress disorder—Patients. | McConnell, Patricia B. | Human-animal relationships.
Classification: LCC SF433.M337 2017 (print) | LCC SF433 (ebook) | DDC 636.7/089689142—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029198
ISBN 978-1-5011-5015-9
ISBN 978-1-5011-5020-3 (ebook)
Quotation on p. vii excerpted from Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs by Leonard Cohen. Copyright © 1993 Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of McClellan & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited.