How to train your human

I’ve known my share of “bad” dogs. My mental roster includes a robust Chocolate Lab that dragged whoever held her leash, a stubborn, overweight Golden Retriever that devoured a cellphone and a sausage of a Border Collie that never met a french fry she didn’t like. All are past or present members of the Winslow family.

Hailey & Barkley circa 1989

For years I’ve daydreamed about adopting the first dog of my adulthood, but I put off a serious search until this past autumn. By then, my husband and I had completed our “World Trip” and settled into our new West Coast home. So I told Matt I wanted a dog addendum added to our lease as my birthday present. He made it happen. And then I got to work. I signed up to become a “Dog TLC” volunteer with the Peninsula Humane Society in Burlingame. I researched online and borrowed library books on canine behavior. I took a part-time position with Benji’s Backyard, a small business that shuttles dogs from the Silicon Valley suburbs to Fort Funston in San Francisco for 3-hour romps on the beach. And what did I learn? All that exposure to dogs and dog experts essentially boiled down to one universal truth: Most “bad” dog behavior is not the fault of the dog but the two-legged creature at the other end of the leash. Consequently, it is with great humility that I recognize my contribution to the legacy of delinquent Winslow dogs.

My family had three dogs and three cats for most of my childhood, and although my sister and I were extremely fond of all our pets, we were selfish and lazy when it came to training them. It was our mom who singlehandedly housetrained Barkley, Jackson and Charlie, and she did an admirable job molding them into loving, loyal family members. They were still turds.

Scene of the crime

The first Winslow turd was Barkley, a miniature schnauzer mix my family adopted when I was about 6 years old. According to legend, my mom selected Barkley -- of all the dogs warehoused at the Broward County Humane Society –because he had the shrewd sense to jump into her arms as she entered his kennel. We named him for a “Sesame Street” canine with similar shaggy gray hair, and he demonstrated the appropriateness of our selection through his favorite pastime, which, of course, was barking.

The quintessential Barkley story involves a houseboat and a jet ski. In Barkley’s pea-sized brain, jet skis were roaring, menacing demons intent on destroying the sanctity of water-related excursions; his burden was to keep them in line. And so our 20-pound mutt exhausted countless hours of his 18-year life chasing jet skis up and down beaches, his frame morphing into a gray blur as he reached warp speed and all four legs left the sand at once. He barked and he barked and he barked. There was no calming him. His hatred for personal watercrafts was legendary, even comical. Yet none of us anticipated how his mania would culminate into sheer madness one weekend afternoon in the late 1980s.

Barkley in his golden years

In those days, it was customary for the Winslows to spend at least part of the weekend on my grandparents’ houseboat, the Loggerhead. On that particular weekend, the Loggerhead was ambling down the St. John’s River when a jet ski pulled up alongside. Enraged by this noisy interloper, Barkley began racing across the second story of the houseboat. Upon reaching the bow, he took a flying leap and belly-flopped 12 feet into the water below. He did not surface until passing beneath the entire length of the 55-foot boat.

My dad was not particularly fond of Barkley, but he did not hesitate to dive in after him. Somehow, Dad managed to swim back to the boat with the half-drowned dog flailing in his arms.

Barkley didn’t slow down until Hailey and I were in college. By then, cataracts had claimed his sight and advancing age had scrambled his brains. He often “stared” into corners and barked at nothing at all. He coughed up puddles of phlegm, presents Matt never failed to step in, and, if not monitored, would walk straight off second-floor landings (He did so on at least two occasions and, miraculously, suffered no discernible injuries, a clueless Mr. Magoo of a canine.). 

Charlie: The best dog I've ever known

Barkley, that incessantly howling, mailman-biting, phlegm-spouting, pee machine, was definitely on my mind as I conducted my search for a four-legged best friend. As much as we all (excluding perhaps Dad and Matt) loved that dearly departed dog, I was not in the market for another Barkley. And I happened to be in a unique position to be choosy; I met and interacted with adoptable dogs during each volunteer shift at the humane society. I also carefully observed the Benji’s Backyard dogs I took to the beach.

“Jack Russell terriers are too hyper,” I said to Marie, Benji’s Backyard owner. “And I’ve met some sweet pit bulls, but I don’t think I’d ever adopt one. They seem unpredictable.”

I certainly didn’t have the energy for a boxer like the giant, high-strung beast I walked most days. Tommy* can be awfully sweet but he barks incessantly to demand I throw whatever I happen to be holding in my hands. He has a habit of torturing the overturned crabs that wash up on the shore, and his favorite game is lunging to rip legs off those I’m holding aloft to toss back into the ocean.

“We are not getting a male dog,” I repeatedly told Matt. “They have too much aggression and pee on everything.”

I knew what I wanted: a calm, mid-sized, adult female dog, preferably of the Border Collie variety. And it had to be a rescue. That got along with our cats.

Dad & Jackson (before he ate the cellphone)

“Do you eat kitty cats?” I asked Keesha as I took her picture for the PHS adoption website. The Queensland Heeler seemed to smile, and I took that as a favorable sign.

But as with every major decision I’ve made in life, I erred on the side of caution and waited. And waited. And waited. Months went by. Keesha the Heeler and Catorina the Dachshund and Phi the Australian Shepherd all went to other homes.

“I don’t know how you go to the humane society each day and not come back with a dog,” my mom would say whenever I called her during my drive to PHS.

I reminded her of all the canine troublemakers my family has sheltered over the years. Inevitably, Scrappy’s name came up.

Scrappy is the demon dog my mom adopted under the pretense of fostering him for her own local shelter. Three years later, he is still at her side and wrecking havoc daily: perfuming himself with carrion, lunging at much larger dogs, decorating the interiors of new cars with footprints, snagging sausage links from the kitchen table, running from his owners as they attempt to leash him in front of beach patrol officers. He is, however, pretty cute, an oddly proportioned terrier mix with pointy ears and wiry hair that somehow floats into most meals my mom cooks. Scrappy resembles Alf, that wisecracking extraterrestrial from the 1980s television show, and Mom wishes she had had the foresight to switch his name to “Alf” long ago, as she believes his original name inspires mayhem.

Ruby, Scrappy & Hailey in St. Augustine

Scrappy just might be Barkley reincarnated. His favorite pastime is perching on the bow of my parents’ Boston Whaler and angrily barking at -- and biting-- the boat’s wake. Unless leashed, Scrappy becomes so obsessed with eating waves that he plunges headfirst into the water. On one such underwater exploration in St. Augustine, Fla., Scrappy swallowed so much of the Intracoastal Waterway that he became sick the moment my dad plucked him from the waves. He expelled a terrific stream of diarrhea across the boat, causing its occupants, including family friends Michael and Diane Buchanan, to promptly became nauseous. (While video footage of that particular plunge is unavailable, here are clips of three other Scrappy boating incidents, including one in which Hailey pulled a "Dad" and dove in after him: "Scrappy Plunge, Part I," "Scrappy Plunge, Part II" and "Scrappy, a Slight Alteration.") 

Scrappy is a loyal dog that adores my mother and has become a never-ending source of comic relief for my family. But no, the Winslow Family dog roster did not need another wave-eating, dead-fish-rolling, Napoleon-complexed canine.

Sally, Scamp & Tess

Last Wednesday, I drove to PHS early to photograph adoptable dogs for the website before I began my shift in the wildlife department. I was a mere 10 feet in the door when I spied Scamp, a 7-month-old terrier mix tussling with his kennelmates. With crazy gray and black fur standing on end and a pair of floppy, antennae-like ears protruding from a tiny 6-pound body, he was easily the cutest of the four puppies.

But I don’t want cute, I reminded myself. I want smart. I want good. I want female.

Thanks to puppy mills and that ignorant segment of the population that fails to spay and neuter pets, San Francisco Bay Area shelters are flooded with Chihuahuas and pit bulls. PHS is no different. Young dogs that aren’t Chihuahuas or pit bulls are rare and highly desirable. Fluffy, white puppies are adopted so quickly the volunteer photography team often doesn’t bother photographing them; odds are, someone will adopt the pup before we have a chance to post his mug online. I’ve always scoffed at these puppy-obsessed adopters. Don’t they know all dogs grow up? Don’t they realize “cute” is fleeting?

The puppies in dorm AD 145 were brand-new arrivals. It was 10 a.m. The public wouldn’t know about them for another hour, when the shelter’s doors opened at 11 a.m. I felt an unfamiliar wave of frenzy wash over me. Now was the time. I had to investigate.

The Wolfman

Scamp was the only male dog in the kennel, so I asked an adoption counselor about the others, Sally, Cherry and Tess*. The behavior logs for Sally and Cherry flagged them as “nippers,” so I visited with Tess, a sweet, all-black terrier pup.

Selecting any pet, a new family member that will spend decades at one’s side, based on a 10-minute visit is a bit asinine. Most people wouldn’t select a human best friend within 10 minutes because it’s impossible to sufficiently judge character in that time. Yet I spent 10 minutes with Tess in the PHS “Get Acquainted” room and made the kind of snap judgment required in that situation: Tess was indifferent to me. So the adoption counselor brought in Scamp. He jumped into my arms.

“Scamp” is now Wolfgang, a tribute to his lycanthropic features. He has Barkley’s gray coat and Scrappy’s disproportioned ears. He eats leaves and dirt and howls when housed within his kennel.

“’We are not getting a male dog,’” Matt has said repeatedly, mimicking me.

My husband is absolutely right. Wolfgang is everything I didn’t want in a dog: male, adolescent and tiny. And, since adopting him, I’ve done all those ridiculous things owners of small dogs so often do: carrying him into Walgreens, purchasing a special purse for him to ride in, pricing tiny knit sweaters to keep him warm.

But will Wolfgang be a “bad” dog? That’s up to Matt and I and how much time we’re willing to invest in his training. A dog behaviorist I recently met demonstrated just how important such training is.

Wolfie & Matt

Robert accompanied Marie and I to the beach on Friday so as to evaluate Tommy and his relationship with Billy, a pit bull that frequently lunges and snarls at him. Within 20 minutes, Robert had taught both dogs a “settle” command and had bewitched them into interacting peacefully.

Dog training is difficult because it requires the dog to suppress its natural instincts, Robert said. For example, a dog in the wild would starve if it wasn’t able to chase a darting rabbit, but domestic dogs are taught to ignore such a distraction.

Robert’s current big assignment is with a Mountain View beer garden; He’s been hired to teach the owner’s Bernese Mountain Dog to pull a cart so as to deliver drinks to customers. So far, the pup can comfortably haul 120 pounds.

I don’t see cart pulling in tiny Wolfgang’s future, but basic commands are forthcoming. He came “pre-programmed” to fetch, and Matt taught him “sit” within a single, 30-minute training session. It’s a start. Just to be safe, I’m thinking our next lesson should focus on perfecting “stay” in preparation for his inaugural Winslow boating trip.

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty