Our Changing Pack

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.

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By Kevin Glynn
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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.