Teaching An Old Dog

And Learning, Too

“May I lunge him?” she asked.

I had just arrived for a short stay with my new love. My 90 lb. Doberman came along. He was still in the car. I did not know what “lunging” meant, but I trusted her.

I did not trust my dog, though. He pulled on the leash terribly, and in six years I had never been able to correct him. Thousands of walks, and I was angry with him on every one of them. She has no more than 25 pounds on him. I worried that this would end badly.

She knew all this. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Just give us a few minutes.”

I unloaded my things and waited. I couldn’t see exactly what they were doing over the tops of the other cars in the lot, but it seemed she was changing directions quickly. Less than five minutes later, she walked up with Dominic, my Doberman, walking right beside her, the leash slack; and when she stopped, he sat.

“Whose dog is that?” I had to ask. “And what did you do with Dominic?”

She explained. She had established a connection with him and, by being unpredictable, gave him the incentive to attend to her. Whenever his attention wandered, she changed direction. Dominic was free to do his own thing but it was uncomfortable to do so. She was decisive and consistent, and she did not get angry with him or praise him unconditionally. She simply stayed connected to him. Unless he wanted to be pulled in a new direction, he had to stay connected to her. It didn’t take him long to choose to pay attention.

The bigger surprise was that he seemed to enjoy it.

Dominic is my second Doberman, but I did not know much about the breed beyond my own experience, which was completely different with my two dogs. I would describe my first Doberman, Hanno, as intuitive rather than obedient: he seemed to know what I wanted him to do, and he (usually) did it. I forever compared Dominic, who was neither intuitive or obedient, to Hanno, and Dominic forever fell in the balance. I even suspected that he was deficient in some way, perhaps genetically. Somehow I had gotten a lemon. He was mine, but he was a disappointment.

When my beloved began to praise Dominic as “responsive” and “intelligent,” I had to face the possibility that I had…

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