What is a Relationship?

There are times when I feel a special call to help a dog.  I have often thought it to be God’s way of showing me just one more aspect of dogs that I need to explore in order to answer some of the questions that I wrestle with.  One more clue to help me fit the pieces of the puzzle where they may belong.

So a week ago, Trey arrived. The phonecall is like the same call that I get several times a month. Someone has a stray dog that they can’t keep and can’t find a home for. These folks were looking for a referral for a Border Collie Rescue. Unfortunately, the nearest on of those is more than an hour away. I replied that the only closest alternative would be the county Animal Control, but that if they did not want to do that………….”just drop the dog off here at the gym and I’ll figure something out”.  WHOOPS! I said it without even pausing to think.  Somehow in my gut, I knew the dog was supposed to come here.

In my training, I emphasize the importance of “relationship”. I push my students to examine the kind of relationship that they have with their dogs. I talk “teamwork” in my agility classes. I evaluate new training students by observing the quality and quantity of “relationship” that they have with their dogs. I work with so many people on improving their relationships with their dogs.  I look for moments when I feel dog and handler “connecting” and in my own dogs I work harder on relationship than any particular training issue or training concept. I want the dog to want me and want to be with me, and want to be involved in what I am doing.

There are trainers who debate the relationship issue. Some argue that you must first have a relationship with a dog in order to train it, while others say that, with any dog, your training is where you begin and relationship with the dog will follow after that. While I lean toward the former, I have tried the latter on occasion and have seen where it can work.  

I’ve always counted relationship, be it good or bad, to be a part of any of our interactions with dogs.

But I have now encountered a dog who I believe has never experienced any relationship at all, I think, ever, with any human. He’s not feral or wild, as I would expect, and I know he’s been around people. It is just as if he lacks an opinion and lacks a preference when it comes to people.

When Trey came here a week ago, he’d never been leashed, and he could only crawl along the floor and look for anything to hide under or inside. He did not cringe in the back of his kennel and try to warn off anyone who approached him, which is what I expected with a dog who seemed so afraid. Trey just laid down by the gate and would not move or look at me. I could approach and touch and stroke Trey and he would not move away. In another day his tail would wag softly when I approached, but no other change was evident.  He accepted my presence without trying to escape, but nothing more.

Trey did not know how to take food from my hand. He would not look expectantly at me for food nor approach me to be stroked. If I tossed food on the floor, he would eat those bits, then wander to a corner and lie down, never expecting that I’d offer another bite. I could guide him toward me with a leash and then stroke him, but after I stopped stroking, he would not ask for more. Trey did not appear to be afraid of me and he will accept whatever I give him, but Trey expects nothing. Nothing at all. 

I don’t believe that Trey has ever been abused in the sense that we think of dogs being beaten or kicked. I just don’t get the sense that anybody ever made an effort to have a relationship with this dog…….for good or bad……..

Trey is the perfect picture of a working sheepdog. Black and White, smooth coated, pricked ears, and a blaze. He has funny big feet. Trey is underweight but has terrific muscle tone. He should, as he’s spent at least the last 3 months hanging out at a horse farm, running horses. I wonder if he was ever someone’s farm dog and if perhaps he was simply used for simple chores and then put away in the barn. Maybe that’s my romantic dream anyway.

It’s been a week since Trey got here. He gets excited when I go down to the kennel now. He will take food from me easily now and has learned “sit”. He finds security in his run and when he is unsure of what to do, he will go back to his run. He has never wanted to spend any time outside. I can barely convince him to stay out long enough to potty. Trey will follow me around a little bit inside the kennel, but trots back to his run frequently. Today was the first day that he asked me in a subtle way to keep stroking his neck after I’d started stroking and then took my hand away.

   I brought a couple of people into the kennel to see him yesterday, and he did what I anticipated………..

Trey immediately regressed as soon as he realized there were strangers with me. We were right back at day one behavior. While Trey bounced back quickly after the strangers left, his response makes me wonder how much, if any, real and sustained changes I can make in Trey’s outlook on life.  I suppose only time will tell.

I think, if anything, it is the drastic contrast I see when I compare other untrained dogs to this untrained dog. The others seem to always come to me with at least an opinion about people, whether good or bad. I cannot ever recall when I’ve experienced a dog who exists in a completely relation-less world.