by Jacki Skole
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“Dog, you get dumber by the day.”
I lift my head from my book. Kevin
is standing in the middle of our backyard talking to Galen. She is several
yards away on a small island of black mulch that circles a tree near where our
yard ends and our neighbor’s begins. Galen’s purple ball—it looks like an
oversized kettle bell—rests on the ground in front of her. She picks it up by
its handle, shakes it furiously, then returns it to the earth.
“Bring the ball,” Kevin says for the
third, maybe fourth, time. I watch the scene unfold from our deck—my
husband and my dog are infinitely more interesting than the story I am reading.
Galen stands her ground. At this,
Kevin turns and walks toward the back of our property, which stretches for two
acres. Galen darts after him.
Kevin and Galen are engaged in a
tug-of-war of sorts over the rules by which the game of fetch should be played.
Kevin would prefer the traditional rules: Human throws ball. Dog retrieves. Dog
returns ball to human. Galen prefers a more complex version of the game:
Human throws ball. Dog retrieves it and runs to the mulch (or to a mound of
wood chips, remnants of a tree that once shaded the deck). Human approaches dog
and repeatedly tries to kick ball out of dog’s mouth as dog raises her hips in
the iconic downward-facing dog posture, all the while refusing to release the
ball until the human says, “Drop it.”
Interestingly, Galen isn’t our first
dog to refuse to play fetch the way the game was intended. Gryffin, too, had established
his own rules, which called for a stick in addition to a ball. In Gryffin’s
version: Human throws stick. Dog retrieves it and waits for human to throw
ball. Then, with stick in mouth, dog chases and then pounces on ball. Human
walks to dog, grabs stick, then ball. In neither Galen’s nor Gryffin’s fetch
does the dog return the ball to the human.
I often wonder how it is that Kevin
and I raised two dogs who can’t play a traditional game of fetch. Sometimes I
like to think it’s that we raised our dogs much like we are raising our two
daughters—to be creative, independent thinkers for whom we provide the
parameters within which they are permitted a large percentage of freedom.
Mostly, however, I concede that our
dogs trained us better than we trained them.
Back from their walk, Galen grabs
her purple ball by the handle and runs to Kevin. He pets her, heaps praise upon
her. This is how the game is played, he tells her. Then he hurls the ball
across the yard. Galen retrieves it and runs… back to the mulch. She shakes the
ball and looks at Kevin expectantly. This time it’s Kevin who stands his
ground.
I smile. It will be only a few
seconds before Kevin walks toward Galen. You see, she is the more stubborn of
the two. And she’s no dummy. She knows she’s trained him well.
Jacki
Skole is an award-winning journalist and
adjunct professor of communication. She launched her journalism career at CNN,
first as a news writer, then as a producer in the network’s documentary unit;
she’s also produced programs for Animal Planet and HGTV.
Jacki lives in New Jersey with her husband and three
daughters—two human, one canine. It is Galen, Jacki’s canine daughter, who
inspired the journey that resulted in DOGLAND.
About Dogland
Soon after Jacki Skole brought home an eight-week-old puppy from a New Jersey rescue organization, she wondered how such a young animal could have so many idiosyncrasies—so she set out to find an answer. Dogland, an extraordinary mix of memoir and investigative journalism, follows Skole’s journey to trace the origins of her newest family member.Along the way, Skole interviewed dozens who work in the world of animal rescue—from shelter managers to animal rights activists—taking readers from dilapidated county-run shelters in the South to strip malls in the Northeast where rescue groups seek homes for homeless pets, and from rural and urban “vet deserts” to the very heart of the South’s complex relationship with companion dogs.
Amid the serious issues facing shelter dogs in America, Skole found tireless animal advocates and humble visionaries who believe their ideas and their passion can save canine lives throughout the South—and the entire United States.
Helpful Links:Twitter @JackiSkole
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