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By Kevin Glynn
When searching for something online recently, I came across a headline titled, “What is hazardous energy?” The term is used to describe the energy potential of electrical or mechanical equipment and the danger it poses, especially when being serviced. Working with dogs, it made me think about another type of energy. Thermal energy, which is shared by people and dogs, and all living things for that matter, also has the potential to become hazardous. When we walk our dogs, the goal should be to have them walk calmly beside us on a loose leash. One of the topics we cover in detail during free consultations deals with walking. Does the dog walk on a loose leash? Does the dog pull constantly, or only when first starting out? Does the dog pull when it spots small animals? Does the dog pull when you come across other dogs? When people aren’t able to control their dogs on the walk, their energy potential - reacting to something you encounter - can become hazardous. The handler can be dragged to the ground. The dog can get loose. The target, especially if it’s another dog, can mirror that aggressive or excited energy and also become reactive. The same is true of anything that the dog perceives as danger - someone at the door, loud noises in or out of the home, people or animals walking past the property. When dogs feel pressure, some will give ground or go into flight mode. Others will oppose the pressure, which could mean an aggressive reaction. With strong leadership and guidance, your dog can be trained to submit to it. Instead of threatening or attacking someone at the door, the dog will check in with the owner by making eye contact and will look for direction. Instead of presenting hazardous energy, the dog will then mirror your energy, which should be calm and confident. Being aware of and controlling your energy is very important, because otherwise you will not be able to influence the energy or actions of those around you. The next time your dog gets anxious or excited, take note of how you feel. Your heart rate will likely escalate and you will start taking short, shallow breaths. Your muscles will probably contract slightly so that you feel stiff. Your dog has influenced your energy and caused a change that is visible. This works both ways. The first step to influencing your dog is to be aware of how you feel, and then control the energy you are putting out. Panic and anxiety will cause the dog’s reaction to intensify. If you are calmly able to communicate to the dog that his or her reaction is inappropriate, you can affect change the same way that he or she has been affecting change in you. There is always the potential for energy to become hazardous, but if we are aware of possible triggers and learn how present our dogs with a calming influence, we can start to change the pattern of behavior.
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By Kevin Glynn
One of the first lessons I learned from Halfway Hounds president Carl Zive I still present to my clients almost verbatim: “Just because the door is open, it doesn’t mean you go through it. It just means the door is open.” There are several lessons that we can learn from doorways. They transition us from one space to another, so the way our four-legged friends go through them can create an association. Some transition to outdoor space, so door dashing comes into play. Doors are used in most cases to begin walks. If you crate your dog, they enter and exit through the door. This is the one that I like to start with. A dog’s crate is its home inside your home. It is a safe place to rest. It is a place for the dog to be calm. All of the 4Paws dogs are crate trained. Sometimes they are crated with the doors closed. Other times they go in on their own to nap with the doors open. In either case, they enter the crate calmly and of their free will. In much the same way, when they exit, they are entering my space and they are expected to do so calmly. Calm in, calm out. When many dog owners bring a dog home, they let the dog drag them through the doorway and then drop or unhook the leash and allow it to tear through the home. This creates an association for the dog. The doorway and the house are now a place of excitement. There are no expectations of calm and polite behavior. Once that association is made, setting up limitations can be difficult. Going in the other direction, we have the greatest potential for danger - door dashing. The dog runs out of the house without any restraints where is in danger of being struck by a motor vehicle or of getting so lost that it can’t find its way home again. When they are restrained, as they would be on the start of a walk, if you allow them to bolt through the door, you’re allowing them to dictate the terms of the walk - excited, unstructured, frenetic. The words - Just because a door is open it doesn’t mean you go through it. It just means the door is open - may be simple, but the meaning that doorways play in our dogs’ lives are plentiful. So take control of them. A brief pause goes a long way. If the dog does not associate doorways with excitement, it will be more likely to “check in” with its owners before running out into traffic. If the dog walks calmly behind you as you exit the house, it will be more likely to walk calmly behind you on the walk. And coming back in, it will be more likely to remain calm inside your house. Calm in, calm out. It’s a pretty good way to live. By Kevin Glynn
Years ago when my wife and I were still dating, she bought me a game called “Man Bites Dog.” At the time we were journalists. The game was actually a newspaper headline game where you constructed silly headlines. Years later, now that we’re dog behaviorists, the name of the game actually has more meaning for me. One of the most common mistakes I see when I’m out walking the pack or training comes from fenced properties (electronic or conventional) where the dogs are left unattended. As we walk calmly by, the dogs on these properties can act aggressively. Some are just frustrated. Others are actually inviting play. But at times, I’ve seen some of the dogs redirect on each other due to the frustration of not being able to get to us. The owners feel understandably helpless. There is no way for them to calmly call them off, and they can’t physically overtake their dogs, who are now running laps along the property line. If they do anything, they usually resort to yelling commands at the dogs, who by now are so excited that they cannot hear or process any of the commands. Owner: “COME! STOP THAT! NO FIGHTING! I SAID COME! RIGHT NOW! LET’S GET A COOKIE!” What the dog hears: “WOOF! WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF! We started with a dog who was excited and began barking to alert others, and we wind up with the owner following the example set by the dog. The barking owners are actually reinforcing the bad behavior and the dog’s position as pack leader. And to top it off, once the threat of the walkers has passed, the dog can run back to the house for a reward! Trying to control an unleashed dog on a large property is no easy task. If there are multiple dogs on the property, the problem can become exponentially more difficult because each will feed off of the others’ energy. This is really a two-part problem. The first part is learning to control the energy of the dog. If the dog becomes too stimulated, it will not be able to reliably respond to commands. The second part deals with recall and obedience. If the dog is calm enough to hear a command, has his or her recall been reinforced effectively enough so that it will come back to you when called? If you have a dog who reacts to passersby, you need to simplify the exercise if you are going to change the behavior. Start by practicing your recall in a small area without any competing stimulation. Increase the distance as you realize success. Once you have a 100 percent success rate, work with the dog on leash as people go by. Then work off leash in a small confined area where the dog can see you as people pass. Then, in the same small area, stand behind the dog and practice calling it to you as people pass. If you offer treats as a reward, wait for the perceived threat to be gone and for the dog to be calm. If you offer a reward to an excited dog, it will snap the treat out of your hands, run back to work, and then come back for more. Be patient and work your way up to larger areas. If there are any setbacks, move back to a smaller area. As always, your commands should be short, simple and serious. Say “Hey!” loudly enough for the dog to hear you and wait for an acknowledgement. If you don’t get it, you need to move to where the dog can see you. If you get the acknowledgment, tell the dog to “Come.” If the dog acknowledges you but doesn’t listen, you need to practice your recall without any competing stimulation. And remember - never yell at or otherwise punish a dog when it comes to you. If a dog is going to be punished for listening to you, it won’t follow direction very well. Whatever you do, don’t bark commands at the dog. At best, you will reinforce the unwanted behavior. At worst, you will make the dog think that you cannot effectively lead the group without him or her.  By Kevin Glynn
When my wife, Erin, was in labor with Baby Nora, most of the dogs with us at the time wanted to keep their distance. They knew she was in pain. Zoe, however, much to my surprise, turned into a free labor monitor and therapy dog. I was working in the kitchen for part of it with our formerly food aggressive pooch watching. Before my wife had a contraction, she would leave me, calmly walk over to Erin, and put her head in my wife’s lap. Erin would pet Zoe’s head during the contraction, and when it was over, Zoe would get up and return to me. The pattern repeated for hours. In the hospital, monitors can detect contractions before the mom-to-be can feel them. At home we didn’t need one. We had our dog, who could sense the change in the energy and find the source before anyone else. A few months ago I took the dogs out for last call, brought them up to bed, and we all settled in for the night. At some point after we were all asleep, Ellie sprung from her bed and ran to the doorway. She would cry, turn and run part of the way back to my wife and me, and then back to the door, stomping her feet all the while. She was pleading with us to come with her. I got up and opened the gate, and Ellie ran into the adjacent bedroom where we keep our bird Simon, an English Budgie, and Sophie, a Dumbo Rat. We found Simon on the bottom of his cage. It wasn’t entirely unusual. He will occasionally fall from his perch when he is sleeping. I watched as he tried to climb back up and saw that he was struggling. Our little Budgie seemingly suffered a stroke. He stopped talking for weeks and had some difficulty with his motor skills. We expected him to die, but over time, they all returned to near normal. I’m sure Ellie heard the commotion from our bedroom, but she’s heard it before - we all have - and she never reacted to it. I believe she reacted this time because she could feel the change in the energy coming from their room, just like Zoe could sense a contraction coming before it happened and other dogs can be trained to alert their owners before they have a seizure. When Simon died months later, it was Ellie who once again alerted us that he was lying quietly in the bottom of his cage. Thanks to her, we were able to be there with him in his final moments. People can sometimes sense when something is wrong, too. But we aren’t in tune with nature and kinetic energy the way that animals are. As far as dogs go, Ellie, in my experience, is more skilled than most. She is excellent at meeting other animals and at showing me if another dog is acting aggressively or just inappropriately. When she’s around a lot of high energy people, however, she loses her nerve a little. It has improved with practice, but the collective excitement generated by large groups still overwhelms her. While Ellie is extremely sensitive to emotion and energy, all dogs are connected to them and will react to it in some fashion. Some of what my wife and I do as behaviorists is to change dogs’ reactions to energy through repetition and desensitization. A dog that is reactive to other dogs is usually excited by the sights and sounds of them. The first step in helping them is to lower the energy level when they are around low energy dogs. The next, more difficult step, is helping them maintain a more even energy when in the presence of excited dogs. This all requires calm and confident energy from the handler and a lot of repetition. If you pay enough attention to the way a dog is behaving, you can get a glimpse of how its handlers are feeling too. People who ask for our help are usually honest about how they feel. Those who aren’t totally honest at first are usually lying to themselves about how they feel when confronted with a problem. It isn’t a problem. I just watch the dog - nature’s lie detectors - and I can tell pretty quickly what’s really happening. One of the most common mistakes I see with people is with the energy they provide when their dog is reacting to something. Instead of remaining calm, they become anxious. They repeat obedience commands quickly like it’s being pumped from a semi-automatic - Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit! All of that noise and anxiety combines with the elevated excitement and can eventually lead to aggressive behavior as the dog now works to help its handler maintain an even energy level. The cycle quickly spins out of control. We start with a dog who is overly excited to say hello and play, and we wind up with a dog who acts aggressively to try and remove the new energy that has aggravated his or her handler. The other common mistake I see with people handling excited dogs is the praise that they shower on them at the wrong time. The moment the dog becomes calm, the handler excitedly pets it and tells it how good it is. They shared a brief moment of calm and then quickly escalated the energy, once again reinforcing undesirable behavior. For that reason, I generally don’t tell my dogs when they are good, and I recommend to my clients that they do the same. While the intent of the praise is to reinforce calm behavior, they are actually causing and reinforcing inappropriate behavior. Whether I offer praise or not, the dogs I am working with already know they are good because they can feel when I am happy. Conversely, when I’m not happy about a behavior, a simple look in their direction is enough for them to know that I do not approve. As for the person trying to calm their dog down by telling it to sit, excitement is a behavioral issue, not an obedience issue. Once the dog is calm enough to listen to its handler’s commands, obedience may help, but you cannot solve behavioral problems with obedience alone. Only a calm, assertive presence can bring a dog back into a calm and even state of mind. So the next time you take your dog out for a walk, remember to not only remain calm and confident, but also quiet. Put your shoulders back, hold your head high, relax your arms, and walk confidently forward. Try to feel the calm energy shared between you and your dog. Whether you’re able to sense it or not, your dog can, and that’s the key to being the leader that he or she will be happy to follow. By Kevin Glynn
Whenever we become involved with a new client, there are a few common trends that typically develop. While we may be getting called in to help with one specific behavior, I know that there are probably multiple issues that will need to be addressed. More often than not, we wind up going for a walk. Walking is fundamental for dogs, so their people must learn how to lead it. When I see dogs making decisions about where to walk, at what pace, and where and when to stop and smell the roses, I know they are probably making other decisions that they are ill-equipped to make, such as how to handle perceived danger and who is permitted to come and go from their property. One surprising trend that we have noticed is that some people don’t actually want to fix many of these negative and sometimes dangerous behaviors. Once we discovered this, the cause and effect relationship became clear - sometimes the negative and dangerous behaviors exist because, on some level, their people want them to. Shortly after my daughter was born, someone asked me if my dogs had become protective of her yet. The question itself wasn’t terribly surprising. Dogs can become protective of members of their packs when their roles are not clearly defined. The “yet” dangling there at the end of the sentence, as though they should be protective of her, really made me pause, however. I simply told the person that it wasn’t their job to protect her. It’s my job. Another client first contacted us because they thought they had an aggressive dog. What they really had was a dog who was overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility she had. She would pace all over the house and couldn’t rest because she believed she needed to protect her family. We simplified things for her significantly at our Finishing School, teaching her that she was not responsible for guarding and that we only wanted her to exercise, play, rest, and give and receive affection. She learned very quickly because she never really wanted more responsibility to begin with. When we brought her back home, her people could immediately see the difference. As we started working with them so they could learn how to maintain the energy of the dog we were dropping off, they confessed that they liked it when she barked at strangers because they felt like she was protecting them. They had unwittingly assigned this job to their dog. They didn’t need to teach her to guard the property. She was aware of how they felt when she did it, and that was all the reinforcement she needed. Similarly, people who have a dog who is reactive when on leash usually become anxious when they see something that typically triggers this aggression. Their anxiety may not have caused the problem to begin with, but it is now feeding it - the dog sees the trigger, senses the anxiety in their handler, and then tries to eliminate the source of the anxiety. Before we can deal with the dog’s reaction, we need to deal with their handler’s emotions. And before we can do that, the handler needs to be honest with themselves about how they feel. Our sense of responsibility is really at the heart of all of this. Who is responsible for what, and when is it expected? While dogs are not children and need to be treated differently, we still need to take responsibility for them. We need to provide them with exercise, safe shelter, food and water, and affection. When you get it right, you will feel the bond between you grow. The message here is not to hold back. Be aware of how you’re feeling when your dog is reacting to something, and then ask yourself, “Whose responsibility should that really be?” Most dogs don’t want to take on the responsibility of the pack’s survival and will happily hand that job over to you once you make it clear that you can handle it. If you’re having trouble getting there, let us know. We will happily teach you how to communicate that to your dog. By Erin Glynn
One of the greatest lessons I have learned since becoming a student – and now teacher – of dog psychology and behavior is how to love. In the United States, how we love our dogs has created a crisis. We love our dogs as we love our children – applying all the same feelings and behaviors we express with human dependents in our care to our devoted canine companions. The problem is, however, dogs need us to love them as dogs. In today’s society, we identify being a true dog lover as pouring affection onto our dogs, spoiling them with toys, food and grand accommodations. The result? We have countless dogs who are frustrated and unfulfilled who act out as they struggle to take on roles we humans unfairly ask them to fill. I am as guilty as any – I too failed dogs in my life by giving them love the way I wanted to give it without thinking about how they needed me to love them. Yes, many of us have failed our dogs as owners because we have loved our dogs as we wanted to love. But as my mother and grandmother taught me as I was growing up, “when you knew better, you did better.” We cannot let past failures hold us back. We can only look to change our behavior in the future. And once I knew better, I did better and I still work each day to make sure that I love my dogs as they need and not as I need to love them. Our dogs need us to love them by providing structure and discipline, creating boundaries and exercising them mentally and physically. As Cesar Millan has tried to drill into all of us who have heard him speak, read his books or watched his show, the best technique for becoming a pack leader is to provide exercise, discipline and affection. When you practice exercise, discipline and affection – in that order – you will without a doubt find that this is a recipe for success and helps bring balance to your dog’s life – as well as your own. I love my dogs differently than I love my daughter. If I had become a mother 10 years ago when I was a dog lover without an understanding or appreciation of dog behavior, my answer would have been different. But I know better now and I give love as it is needed and not as I need to give it. That said, while I love my dogs differently than my daughter, it does not mean I love them any less. When my daughter cries, she needs me to pick her up and soothe her. She needs to be comforted physically and emotionally when she is scared, upset or in pain. If one of my dogs is scared, hurt or in pain, I cannot apply these same soothing or comforting techniques because it will only reinforce these feelings instead of helping to soothe or change them. Our Coco came to us a shut-down dog. She was not only unsure of people, but of everything around her. The only thing she was sure of was other dogs – in particular, our Emma. While walking Coco, she would become so scared of things in her environment – whether a parked car, another person walking by, or even just sounds coming from someone’s backyard – that she would shut down and would be unable to move forward. If I had loved her as I wanted to love her, I would have picked her up, comforted her and carried her back home where she felt safe. But this would have only reinforced the fear she had in that environment. It would also have reinforced for Coco that I was a weak pack leader who was also fearful and lacking confidence. Instead, Coco needed me to love her by helping her to move forward and exposing her to the things that scared her little by little until she gained enough confidence to move past them without stopping. When she made progress or moved past something that previously would have stopped her in her tracks, she was rewarded with praise and affection. By the end of her short life, Coco was a different dog. If she had received love as we humans have become accustomed to giving it to dogs, the fearful, nervous dog she was when we first met her would have been the only dog she ever was. Instead, by giving her love the way she needed it, she became a confident, happy and balanced dog who brought us more joy than can be expressed in words. Loving dogs is easy – but loving dogs the way they need us to love them is a challenge. As I said previously, it is a commitment I renew daily. Even with everything I have learned and now know about how to love my dogs, I still struggle. Most recently, I found myself struggling to love Coco as she needed me to as she neared the end of her life. Her body betrayed her and by the end, she could no longer process food and she became incontinent. I loved Coco so much that I was prepared to syringe feed her and clean her and stay up with her all night for as long as she would survive. At one point, days before she passed, I even admitted that while Kevin was ready to let her go, I wasn’t quite there yet. Our decision to put Coco to peace arrived when I finally came to terms with loving Coco as she needed me to love her even in this most difficult of ways. I needed to wake up to her face, hold her in my arms, and continue caring for her because I needed to love her here with me for as long as possible. But my girl needed me to love her by letting her go. In her too-short life, Coco gave me more than I could ever have given her. I wanted to spend every second of the time she had left giving her everything I could in hopes it could be a drop in the bucket of gratitude I felt to her for everything she gave me. But there came a point when she didn’t need me to clean her, to feed her, to hydrate her or to warm her with blankets. She needed me to love her and let her go. I had loved her as she needed me to love her from the time she joined our family. I now needed to honor that commitment to love her as she needed at the end as well. The ultimate gift we can give our dogs is to love them as they need us to love them. Our dogs need us to provide exercise, boundaries and structure. Our dogs need affection as a reward for balance. Our dogs need us to love them as dogs. Loving our dogs as they need us to and not as we are used to is challenging and can be foreign. Many worry that their dogs will not know they are loved unless they let them sleep in their bed, lounge on the couch or receive constant treats and affection. I used to worry about these things as well. But I saw first hand how happy my dogs were when I loved them as they needed. I loved Coco as she needed and renewed the promise to always do so as I let her go. Did she know I loved her? I know she did. I truly believe that as Coco closed her eyes and slipped away from us that the one thing she knew was how much she was loved. By Kevin Glynn
Years ago when I was a student at William Paterson University, I had a professor who used to ask many of the English majors there the same question. I majored in Literature with aspirations of one day being a writer, but the majority of the students were there to earn their teaching certifications. “Why do you want to be a teacher?” he would ask. The answer to the question, as many times as I heard it asked, was always the same: “I love children.” “Loving children won’t make you a good teacher,” he would respond. “If you love children, you should be a parent.” The majority of students would bristle at his retort, but I always knew what he was trying to accomplish, and I sometimes wonder how many of those students reconsidered if they really wanted to be teachers. I grew up around dogs and was very happy when I started dating my wife. She came as a package deal with her Beagle, Audrey Four Paws. As I would soon learn, however, loving dogs is not enough to be a behaviorist either. You need to be able to see the world through the eyes of a dog and then explain that behavior to their adoring people. If anything, loving dogs gets in the way of that due to people’s affinity for humanizing animal behavior. The concept of being a “pack leader” has received a lot of negative attention lately from trainers who believe in using positive training methods. I also believe in positive training, and I can’t imagine anything more positive than learning to become the pack leader that your dog wants you to be. When people think of pack leaders, most think of anger, force and aggression. Most of us have worked for someone who used fear and insults to motivate his or her employees. It probably worked to an extent. Employees stay in line due to fear of losing their jobs, but there is no loyalty. Most employees under those circumstances spend an inordinate amount of time online searching for a new job. The leaders that we want to follow, that we follow of our free will, unleash their inner ability to inspire. They seem to effortlessly lead, and people follow, not because they are afraid, but because they want to contribute to the success of the group. As I said earlier, anthropomorphism - humanizing animals - is a problem for many people and causes many behavioral problems in dogs, but I believe that genuine leadership is universal. When a problem arises, a genuine leader finds a solution to it and then reflects to make sure it never happens again. Leaders that we are forced to follow get angry because they are afraid, and that fear clouds their judgement. Small problems become bigger problems. The fabric of the group begins to unravel because no one wants to put their trust in someone who is afraid and angry. Those who lead using aggression or anger are not leaders at all. Many believe that aggressive dogs act that way because they are alphas, but the vast majority are just afraid, which can lead to anger and aggression, just like with people. Being the pack leader that your dog needs will help your dog, strengthen the bond between you, and probably make you a better person. I believe it made me a better person, and while I’ve never asked my wife, I think she would agree. So if your dog has behavioral problems, start to rectify them by learning how to lead the walk. Stop leaving food and bones laying around for her, and become a provider. Show your dog that you can take care of your home and loved ones and that you don’t need him to take on guarding responsibilities. And at the end of all that, when your dog is comfortably relaxing because he doesn’t have to worry about being the pack leader, call him over for some affection to reinforce the good behavior and further your bond with him. Sometimes turning that corner isn’t so simple, so if you need help getting the ball rolling, we can teach how to become the pack leader that your dog wants you to be.  Emma and Ellie grieve following the loss of Coco. They laid on Coco's favorite blanket for several days together after she passed. The experience helped bring the two of them closer together. By Kevin Glynn
Changes in your pack are easy to see when there’s an addition to it. A new dog or person can have a big impact. There is a new energy. Roles change. I’ve always enjoyed watching how my own dogs are affected by bringing in a foster or a board and train. Coco was a natural at welcoming new dogs. She managed to do everything in that high-energy Coco way without any problem. No dog ever mistook her excitement for anxiety or aggression. She was always the first to make friends and start that new addition on the road to rehabilitation. It was a gift. Emma is our go-to for helping low-confidence dogs. She likes to take it slowly with most dogs, but she has a perfect energy for leading around a fearful dog and showing him or her that life isn’t so scary after all. Zoe is our working dog. She lives for human interaction and listens the most reliably when working with stressed-out animals. When she feels stressed, the first thing she does is look to me for guidance. We use that to help dogs who need to be ignored for a while until they realize that no one here is a threat to them. None of our dogs are perfect, and each acts differently depending on what type of dog we bring in. Each acted differently when we first brought our daughter home. They all looked to my wife and me for direction, and we demanded that they all give her space. In short time, they learned to be calm when she is near because that is the only way they can get access to her and whichever one of us is holding her. When she isn’t calm, they now bring their calm energy to her to try and help. They rarely fail to bring a smile to her face. We’ve experienced these changes many times over the years, and while it certainly wasn’t a surprise to see a change when Coco left us, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Things were simpler when our beagle, Audrey, passed. We had Emma, but no others. Emma wasn’t really ever able to play with Audrey because she was diagnosed and grew quickly ill right after we brought Emma home. Once she was gone, every morning Emma would check every corner of our house looking for Audrey, but when she couldn’t find her she would simply redirect her attention to us. With Coco, our pack was larger and more complicated. Emma and Ellie mostly grieved at first. They played less and slept more. Zoe was calmer and also played less. It became clear to me that Coco bonded our little group of misfits together. When Coco played with any of our dogs, the others would happily join in. But the others rarely played with each other unless Coco was involved in the action. It wasn’t very noticeable because Coco was always smack dab in the middle of the action. She was the positive to everyone else’s negative, and without her in the middle, the other three almost seemed to repel each other. Emma, Ellie and Zoe are now learning to play with each other in Coco’s absence, but the same level of trust isn’t there. They are more reserved and pause more frequently to send each other signals that they are, in fact, still just playing. They are communicating extremely well, and those skills are the ones that allow them to help other dogs so effortlessly, but the quick subtle communication cues that Coco used to use with her partner almost made play time seem like a choreographed dance, and it was something that I had started to take for granted. Coco had come a long way since we brought her home, but she never lost her high-energy approach, no matter how much exercise we gave her. She learned to follow our commands, even when she was so excited that it looked like she might explode. Most dogs have difficulty processing their handlers' commands when they are too excited. Coco could still function on a much higher level than most others. The energy that she put off, however, drove Zoe crazy. It was more than she could handle, and she would frequently seek her own space. This increased as Coco got sicker and sicker. Zoe can be particularly challenging because she wants to help us do everything. She pays close attention and is a quick learner even when we don’t intend to teach her anything. She just watches, and once she figures out what we are trying to accomplish, she tries to lend a paw. She’ll bark at the others when they don’t do what they’re supposed to right away. It’s not a job that she is well-equipped to handle. Without Coco’s high energy, Zoe has become much calmer. She doesn’t try barking orders at the rest of the pack as much. She is happier resting with the group instead of going off on her own. She tries to initiate play with Emma, and occasionally, we’ll find the two of them cuddling. She’s less stressed and more coachable. There are times when I know something would have set her off into a barking fit a couple of months ago, and I now find her looking at me instead, waiting for me to tell her what to do. The way dogs experience the energy around them is something to marvel at. I now often wonder how much Zoe’s behavior toward Coco changed over the last year or so because she knew she was sick a lot longer than any of us did. I used to joke that to Zoe, Coco was a cancer, but maybe she was just affected by a dog who had cancer. Every change that life presents us with affords us a new opportunity to learn about ourselves and those we love. That is never truer than it is with the addition or subtraction of a new energy. When it comes to our four-legged friends, these are also opportunities for us to show our dogs that we can handle anything life throws at us and that we are the leaders that they will want to follow for the rest of their lives.  By Kevin Glynn
My wife and I first met Coco in 2013, a few months before we started volunteering for Halfway Hounds. It was New Year’s Eve, and she had just arrived at Park Ridge Animal Hospital for an initial checkup after her Freedom Ride. Erin and I happened to be there donating some old crates to the non-profit. She was unsure of herself, understandable for a dog just pulled from the shelter, but my wife was immediately enamored with her. I was drawn to another dog, Zoe, with whom she was rescued. We wouldn’t see either of them again for months, and neither of us had any idea that we would adopt both of them before the end of the following year. Coco came into our lives again thanks to Halfway Hounds president Carl Zive. He called Erin to ask how we were doing with Emma, our first Halfway Hounds rescue, and to see how we were coping with the loss of our Beagle, Audrey, who died from Lymphoma several weeks earlier. After catching up, Carl told Erin about Coco. She was emotionally shut down. She hid in her crate or under tables for most of the day. She couldn’t be walked by her foster family. Her anxiety put her into a constant state of flight whenever she was out of the house. When she went to adoption events, she would completely shut down and just lay there, oblivious to anything happening around her. After dinner that night, Erin told me that we needed to talk about something and then excused herself from the table. She returned with her laptop and proceeded to show me a PowerPoint detailing all of the reasons we should bring Coco home. I don’t remember all of them, but I do remember one -- my wife had so much love to give that she needed her. Through all of our experiences together, especially with the dog rescue, I’ve learned to never doubt my wife’s compassion or her ability to love. And as it turned out, we both needed her. There are few things in this world that I will ever find as beautiful as watching Emma help turn Coco back into a dog. She began working the second she met her and continued, almost without rest, for days. Emma would lie in front of Coco, inviting her to play with high pitched barking. She would roll on her back, play bow, kiss her face, pick up a toy and toss it across the room. Through it all, she would bashfully glance at her, hoping for a reaction. But Coco steadfastly ignored her. Hours passed. A day. Then two. And then something amazing happened. Coco started paying attention to Emma. At first with just a glance. Then a gaze. And then suddenly, as Emma walked across the room with her favorite toy in her mouth, Coco got out of her bed, walked over to her, and started gently playing tug. They quickly became inseparable. Coco was still very unsure about her new humans, but my wife and I were so moved by her spirit, her capacity to love, and the bond that she and Emma had formed, that we accepted the fact that this dog may never bond with us. We would provide her with whatever she needed for as long as she needed it and never ask for anything in return. And we never did. As responsible owners who wanted her to have a full life, we asked her to do many things, but everything was for her own good. Shortly after we made that promise, my wife and I were lying on the couch watching TV when Coco got out of her bed, tiptoed over to me, sat down so that I could pet her, and then lied down on the floor in front of me. Our patience paid off. We had earned her trust, and within weeks she was providing us with more love than we were ready to handle. For those of you who don’t know Coco, once she finally came out of her shell she gave everything she had no matter what she was doing. She ran long before she could walk. As Yoda, from the Star Wars saga said, “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” Coco never tried anything. She either did it, or she didn’t do it. She played as hard as she could for as long as she could. She chased down balls and frisbees like she was hunting down her very soul. She played keepaway from the other dogs with endless energy, athleticism and grace. She loved to run next to me on a bike. And yes, she even learned to stop trying to run back home and to walk calmly on a loose leash. When my wife and I started working with dogs as volunteers with Halfway Hounds, and then for our own clients, Coco was a natural. She welcomed all types of dogs to her home. She taught them what it meant to trust; what it meant to live; what if meant to love. And for any humans paying close enough attention, she taught them the same. Many dogs led us down the path of training and rehabilitating dogs. But Coco is the dog that made me want to be a better pack leader. She needed us to be strong and confident so that she could grow. Once we were strong enough, she blossomed. In many ways, Coco is everything that I want to be. She lives every day to the fullest -- Work. Play. Love. Smile. Rest. Repeat. While I and the rest of the pack were trying to do things, Coco was doing them. If she did the wrong thing, she would do something else -- with everything she had -- until she got it right. I said earlier that I would never expect anything from Coco, that I would never ask her to do anything for me. I meant it, but I now find myself struggling to keep that promise. She’s not even 4 years old, and my sweet girl was recently diagnosed with intestinal Lymphoma. So now, more than anything, I want to ask her to try to live. I know that she can’t, but I want her to try. And then I remember -- Coco doesn’t try anything. She either does it, or she doesn’t do it. And I know that she’ll keep giving us everything she has, just like she did from the moment we brought her home, until she has nothing left to give. That is her gift. And we’re all better for it. ******************************** Erin and I met Coco three years ago today. It has also now been three weeks since we said goodbye to her. I’ve been around dogs my entire life, and I’ve had to say goodbye to many. But it was very difficult to tell such a young dog who fought so hard, if only for a few weeks, that she didn’t need to fight anymore. The day before our goodbyes we played frisbee with her for the last time, and she was just as determined and athletic as ever. That morning she played with the pack. Her digestive system failed her, but the cancer could never defeat her spirit. That will live on in my memory for as long as I’m around. There have been many changes in our pack since Coco passed, and I’ll detail that in future blogs. Many of them are related to grief. Some are due to the restructuring of our pack because of the loss of her energy. But at least one change has been positive. We brought two of our dogs who were close to Coco with us to the vet that day so they could join us in providing Coco with comfort, and so they could say goodbye and grieve with my wife and me. When it was over, I looked over at Emma and Ellie, and I knew how important Coco had been to them. They had bonded with her in ways they have never bonded with the dozens of other dogs they have spent time with, including each other and Zoe. I promised them that day, along with my wife and daughter, that I would give them and all of the dogs I work with a better version of myself -- I would be more charismatic, more patient, and more determined -- not because they weren’t getting the attention that they needed, but because life is short, and those we love deserve the best that we have to offer. Coco gave everyone her best every day that she was with us, right up until the end, and she paid it forward by helping other dogs. We’re mourning now because that energy has left us, but I know her short life is one that we will celebrate for many years to come. And I know that other dogs will benefit from everything that we learned from her. Erin and I, along with the rest of the pack, will keep paying it forward. That’s what Coco would have done. |
Erin &
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