Canine Conundrums

One of the results of having spent a long time as an investigative reporter has been that I’ve come to understand human nature, good and bad, pretty well. So, having spent way, way more time with dogs than I have doing my job, you’d think there would be nothing I wouldn’t know about them. 

Well, think again. Because there are a multitude of things about dogs that remain a complete mystery to me.

This inability to understand some of the things that dogs do has not been for a lack of trying. And it’s not that I haven’t figured out some of the things that make dogs tick, as I’ve successfully shown, trialed and hunted with them for more years than I care to count. Still, there are lots of things about dogs and what they do that leave me completely befuddled. For example, how can a dog be absolutely flawless in training, then turn around and make just about every mistake in the book at a trial or test?

 Many times when I was running my dogs in retriever and pointing breed tests and judging all three types of hunt tests, I saw examples of this “quirk,” and a number are firmly etched in my memory. One of the many egregious examples qualifying for what’s known in the military as “FUBAR” (fouled-up-beyond-all-recognition, although that’s modified just a bit because this is a family publication) involved a Brittany, one of my favorite pointing breeds. I watched this dog regularly in training where she was simply perfect. I mean, she never put a foot down wrong. 

But on one occasion when I was judging, she committed just about every sin possible. She stole her bracemate’s point not once but twice, broke when a bird flushed, chased a wild flush, chewed a bird beyond redemption for the table, and not only refused to retrieve another bird to her owner’s hand but declined to even pick it up. It was a total disaster.  

I happened to be riding behind her owner as he was leading the dog back to the breakaway area of the grounds after this nightmare trip when his wife came along and asked how things had gone. When told “Godawful” by her husband, she said, “Well, maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.” 

Her husband, a Navy veteran, sadly shook his head, and his rueful reply was absolutely perfect: “Honey, saying Sal’s go maybe wasn’t as bad as it seemed would be a lot like the skipper of the Titanic getting on the 1MC and announcing, ‘Now hear this. We may be stopping near Newfoundland for a while.’”

I laughed all the way back to the breakaway.

There are other aspects of canine behavior for which I’ve never been able to uncover any sort of reasonable explanation. To wit: How can a dog that weighs 90 pounds on the veterinarian’s scale swell to 500 pounds or more when he’s asleep on your bed and you need to move him? It’s also incomprehensible how this same dog can hear the tiniest scrap of meat hit his dish on the first floor when he’s asleep the second floor, but can’t hear you screaming “Move” within two feet of his ear at decibel levels usually associated with jet fighter aircraft when you are trying to get him to wake up enough to shift his position?

Something else I’ll never understand is my dogs’ desire to use the Christmas tree as a toilet spot. There are more than 200 spruce trees in the two shelter belts that protect the building site on our property. The male dogs that have occupied home and hearth these many years have never used any of them as their bathroom area. But let me bring one of these trees into the house and these same dogs, which wouldn’t be caught dead using a mature spruce as a “marking post,” are overcome with the desire to put the same tree to that particular use the minute it is brought indoors and decorated with colored lights, bulbs and tinsel. That the mature spruce trees in the shelter belts could easily withstand the ammonia and other chemicals in their waterings has also been irrelevant to the dogs.

However, that is not true for the expensive ornamental evergreen shrubbery that decorates the front window area of my brother’s house, which cannot withstand these repeated discharges of liquid dog waste. The dogs, for reasons known only to them, lust after the arborvitae for use as their personal latrine while ignoring all the other conifers available to them. 

Admit it: That tree is tempting.

I can understand how dogs could be attracted to days-old roadkill and even rotten fish. It’s also easy to grasp why they might like to roll in this offal. I know part of this is because they are hunters, and one of the ways to sneak up on prey is by not being scented. But where this understanding breaks down is when I try to comprehend why they insist on bringing this carrion home and depositing it on the front steps or – worse, if I’m not quick enough to catch them – on the living-room carpet. It’s even harder to figure out why they insist on sharing the stench on their coats with me, as even the most aloof seem to be overcome by an overwhelming need to be loved when they are reeking of dead fish or some long-deceased critter even though I’m screaming, “Get away from me” and threatening them with grievous bodily harm if they come any closer than 10 yards. Then, being made to endure a bath in Odormute® so they can be just barely tolerated in the house, they act as though their whole world is crashing down.

On a related topic, just what is the attraction to spring cowplop when it is the byproduct of fresh green grass? My Brittanys were in love with springtime bovine excrement and seemed to relish a roll in it as much as we humans enjoy in a trip to the spa for a massage and a shea-butter body wrap. At any other time of the year, dousing a meadow muffin with porterhouse scent would not be a sufficient invitation to get them to roll in it, but the springtime stuff is irresistible. What’s more, they were downright insulted when they showed up anointed with this odious mess and the result was someone turning the hose on them to wash away the solid particles, followed by at least one bath and probably more in an effort to remove as much of the stink as possible.  

My dogs have all been all hunting dogs that barely reacted to the roar of a .12 gauge shotgun being fired practically over their heads, other than to either follow the flight of a bird or mark a falling one. In fact, they liked the sound of the shotgun and also the sight of it because they knew it’s a necessity for getting birds to where they could get them in their mouths. But those same dogs absolutely freaked out at the most distant rumble of thunder as they raced about the house, panting, shaking and whining. And they became totally unglued at the sound of tree limbs snapping and cracking from the cold on subzero nights, barking and whimpering at this terrible threat.  

There are acres of cropland surrounding the building site on our farm with much of it tilled for wheat and soybeans. Not only is it easy digging, but no one would notice if the dogs dug out two or three soybean plants or even a few feet of wheat. Nor would there be any appreciable economic loss if that’s what was destroyed in their apparent compulsive need to dig. Because of the ease of digging and their relatively close proximity to the buildings, it would seem logical that these areas would be prime digging sites. But logic, convenience and even ease of digging clearly have not been factors taken into consideration when dogs choose an excavation site, as crops and even the vegetable garden go totally undug. 

Instead, from the time they’re baby puppies, they’ve insisted on digging in the flower garden, where virtually every plant represents a major investment. Chemical dog repellents merely attract them. Catching them in the act of digging and addressing them in very blue language at maximum volume hasn’t fazed them. Even registering disapproval with a considerable amount of negative reinforcement only seemed to make them sneakier about fulfilling their desire to dig up the flowers. The only certain solution seemed to be erecting the kind of significant fencing that pretty much defeats the aesthetic purposes of a flower garden.

Despite many other options that afford easy digging, some dogs are unable to resist digging in the flower garden.

Another issue that has always puzzled me involves the dogs’ attraction to skunks and porcupines. There is an abundance of small, wild critters to chase in every rural setting – rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and even mice. I’ll admit that it requires a considerably greater expenditure of energy to catch a rabbit or a squirrel than it does to get within molesting distance of a skunk or a porcupine, but chipmunks and mice are not exactly furry Usain Bolts. However, my dogs have totally ignored rabbits, made only enough of a bluff charge with squirrels to get the critter to scamper up a tree or to make a chipmunk skitter into its hole, and they wouldn’t ever chase a mouse. In fact, the mice that invade the house every fall appear to be the dogs’ pals, as when one ventures into the living room during the evening hours, its presence has evoked no more response than a raised head from the dogs and apparently some polite conversation. Certainly nothing as gauche as actively giving chase – oh, good heavens, no!

Now, I’ll admit that part of the fault for this behavior rests with me because I yell “No fur” every time something without feathers jumps up in front of them. But skunks are furry, and, under all those nasty quills, so are porcupines. So why doesn’t the “no fur” training carry over to them? Being hit one time with CS gas while I was covering a protest demonstration was enough to convince me that it wasn’t an experience I’d care to repeat. Subsequently, when covering other civil-disobedience actions, as soon as it looked as though the authorities were about to use tear gas and pepper spray, I always exercised that proven effective military maneuver known as get the hell out of there. Dogs, on the other hand, will go out of their way to harass a skunk, even after skunks have sprayed them numerous times. You’d think a skunking would have had the same effect on dogs as tear gas did on me, but it doesn’t. In fact, it seemed to make their desire to get at a skunk even stronger. 

Dogs will go out of their way to harass a skunk even after being sprayed numerous times.

The same can be said for being quilled by a porky. I’ve been stuck a few times by porcupine quills, and it was definitely not fun – certainly not something you’d deliberately seek to do again. Not only do quills hurt, they burn, and if they’re dirty – as they always are – there’s also the risk of a nasty, painful infection. But having once been quilled by a porky never seems to deter a dog from any future encounters. Again, it seems to fuel their desire to get at one.

It is true that humans and dogs have been living side by side for roughly 15,000 years, and humans have been trying, without much success, during these many centuries to fully understand dogs. In the end, perhaps the only sensible explanation for why dogs do what they do is because they are dogs with their own peculiar desires, inclinations and instincts. And these behaviors, as exasperating as they may be, are just part of the price we pay for their love, companionship and not-inconsiderable assistance in finding and fetching game or helping us in our work.