August 18, 2006
Alphie is an ongoing project; I read the book, “Caeser’s Way” which is the writing of the Dog Whisperer, and found it to be quite enlightening because he was able to define “dog” quite clearly. One of his concepts is that a dog will be happy only if it is clearly the leader or the follower, or part of the pack, and the dog owner must be the leader or be in a constant struggle with the dog. At 100 pounds, Alphie is not to struggle with, and following the concept that the dog senses the mood of the owner more than the words spoken, before I deal with him, I arrange my thoughts accordingly. An interesting feature of dogdom is that one is not to meet the eyes of the dog, so I go out in the mornings with my cap down over my forehead, my thoughts all about “Don’t you jump on me, you miserable creature or this lovely tidbit for you to eat is history” and it has worked! He does not jump on me, and I can unfasten him for the walk without difficulty.
I also feel that by bringing Alphie into the house for periods of time, he will become more domesticated, or something like that. I broached the concept of having him come in overnight once the weather becomes colder, saying to Charles, mistakenly, to be sure, “I can’t see what damage he might do in the house.” Charles said, very slowly, “You can’t see what damage he might do in the house,” then he said it again, and finally he commented, “I can’t believe you said that.” By then my mind had Alphie upturning all the plants standing about, eviscerating the sofa and chewing through the leg of our Steinway, so I hastily retracted the statement. It remains a plan that requires a good deal of thought.