There is a dog in our family we have named Scout. This golden retriever is a neutered, teenaged dog, who is typically quite attentive. So attentive is this dog that he even watches the television, just to see what the family is up to. Over the months, Scout has developed a relationship with television. If animals show up on the screen, he charges them. He barks and thrusts his chest at the screen just like a dog about to fight with a rival. When we yell at him to stop, he takes note of our pleas, but does not always refrain. His tail is usually up in the air as he walks around the house. He runs outside and barks around the edges of the fence for no apparent reason, but I think he's acting as a guard dog to his, and our, domain.
Sometimes I throw pillows at him to make him stop charging the television. In the past, I have physically prevented him from this behavior. I can understand his urge to tackle these would-be opponents, but I insist on his recognizing, as any dog should, that the animals on the screen are not opponents. I find Scout's behavior to be a bizarre display characterized by convoluted psychological systems.
Perhaps I should take the dog out for more walks, where I can physically police his interactions with cars and other animals. To date I have not done this. Why? Because, basically, everyone in the family understands that this dog is not my dog -- the dog belongs to my father.
Here's where things get interesting. My father originally found Scout's behavior with the television rather amusing. After all, this is the first dog we've had who identifies with animals on the television like this. Perhaps it's a sign of intelligence? At any rate, from the beginning it was something worth keeping an observant eye on.
Scout has been doing this every day, several times a night, for each of the seven months I have lived in this household with my mother and father. Typically, the dog barks and charges for about six seconds before someone attempts to either distract him or reprimand his behavior. More recently, the behavior has met with reprimands even earlier, sometimes prior to the onset of the initial charge. In these cases, often the person with the remote control will change the channel in order to stop the behavior. The dog turns in slow circles a few times, tail raised, growling as he walks across the kitchen and into the dining room, and back again.
The family takes note of how complex this behavior is, expressing amazement at what features of the television programming are triggering his impulses. I emphasize the subtle noises of the animals and of certain commercials that spark the behavior without featuring any animals. My parents think that the commercials that trigger Scout's ire in the absence of animals involve certain women (namely, the Progressive Auto lady) he simply doesn't like. This I think is exceedingly unlikely. They speak this way in jest, but when pressed, it is their best explanation. Nevertheless, the triggering mechanism is only the least of my interests in this phenomena.
The angle that prompted this essay into Scout's case was the lens it offers for examining the parenting style of my father, praise be upon him.
My father, praise be upon him, has a hands-off attitude toward pet ownership. He does not teach Scout tricks; this seems unnatural to my father. He feeds the dog human food in addition to dog food, because if my father were a dog, human food would illuminate his short life. He talks to the dog nearly continuously throughout the day in formulaic verse and consistent intonations -- "Scow-dee Boy, Are you okay Boy? You do funny things -- Scow-dee Boy, You do very funny things." He whistles to the dog when he wants the dog to return from guard dog behavior along the fence -- always the same whistle sequence, it's amazing. He plays with the dog, always crouching to eye level. He tells the dog when someone else returns from work, always in the same language -- "Scouty, Mom's Home, Boy. Scouty, You're Mom's Home, Little Buddy."
What's interesting is that, across the board, my father does not see fit to physically discipline his dog. If the dog charges the television, he proceeds without interruption until the barking and charging triggers an irritation response from a human. Sometimes the human is my father himself, in which case he will respond in a variety of intensities, depending on his mood. Sometimes softly -- "Scout, it's just an elephant, boy. ...Scout, come on boy, it's just an elephant." Sometimes more forcefully, on a scale to the point of anger, at which point my father's voice overpowers the barking in intensity, at which point the dog turns and scurries to its master's feet. Other times the human responding to the dog's interaction with the television is me, Cameron. My moods also range in intensity, although my irritation responses are typically different in style, but not in kind, from those of my father, may peace be upon him. I am the only member of the family who will throw pillows at the dog, although I do not throw pillows nearly as violently as I could! I will tell the dog I am going to throw a pillow before I throw the pillow -- again, typically.
In truth, I do not have the scholarly distance required to appraise my irritation responses to the dog's anomalous behavior. I will say that in the past I have attempted to put a stop entirely to Scout's rampages with the television, at least once. My method in this endeavor was to physically move the dog away from the television, with an intention to convey the message that I am not willing to allow this dog to behave in this manner. I tried this twice, if my memory serves me correctly.
Those were the early days of my stay with mother and father, interestingly.
Now, before I make the analogy between pet-ownership style and parenting style, I will point out a hinge-phenomena that acts as a segue into the explicit leap.
There is one situation in which the dog's dominance behavior is forcefully diverted by my father. Every Monday a pool maintenance company sends a particular technician to the house to clean the filter. The technician lets himself in through the side gate and walks across the backyard to the pool area, where he lets himself through a pool gate and toward the filter. The technician works for some few minutes and exits the way he entered.
The dog, of course, freaks out when he sees the technician; that is, the presence of the technician triggers a typical dog response. My father's response to this WEEKLY event is to close the little doggy door through which Scout enters the backyard prior to the arrival of the technician. In anticipation of this event, at the same time my father closes the doggy door, he talks to the dog -- "Scouty, the pool guy's coming today. Scouty the pool guy's coming. It's just the pool guy."
When the technician arrives, and the dog begins his behavioral response, my father raises his voice a little, holds the dog physically in the living room from where he sits at his computer desk, and says: "Scout! It's just the pool guy, boy -- Scout, It's Just The Pool Guy."
Every week.
My mother, for her part, six months ago, recommended that we put the dog on a leash and walk the dog outside on Mondays to meet the technician in my father's presence. My father has to my knowledge never taken this advice.
I myself, interestingly, had a chance one Monday to do this very thing. My father and mother were both away on business, and I was awake when the pool technician arrived. I was told repeatedly to close the doggy door until the technician had gone. This was the same occasion, six months ago, when my mother suggested, Why not just introduce the dog to the pool guy? My father was against this idea, and my mother in the end took a publically indifferent stance. I was interested in confronting the situation and, I would say, controlling the dog's response. When the time came, what did I do? I closed the blinds entirely, so the dog could not sense the pool man's presence. The pool man came and went without an explicit response from the dog, because the trigger mechanism never reached the dog's sense organs, never built to threshold. For my part, I expended a lot of energy thinking up this strategy and making sure it worked to the best of my ability. The dog DID at one point receive a brief signal from the patio of the pool guy's presence, but I was standing right there and simply motioned to him in a negative way that dissuaded the initial trigger from building to threshold. The incident passed, and I let the relationship between the dog and the pool technician up to my father. Incidentally -- and I emphasize the peripheral nature of "incidentally" -- that was the one and only time in seven months that my father has not been home on a Monday morning during the time period when pool maintenance is scheduled.
That being said, I hereby make explicit the tone of perplexity that has prompted this essay. Tonight, while the dog did not make any motions to the television screen, I found myself on the following train of thought:
Dear Dad,
To what extent does the way you treat Scout inform the way you raised Me? The dog is obviously an individuated, teenaged golden retriever. His tail is up, his mind and body are strong. Now, about this behavior with the animals on the television: this is really something! I don't know what the dog is thinking, except that he appears to identify creatures on the screen not merely as animals, but as animals suddenly entering his space. In a sense the dog responds in a way similar to the way we ourselves interact with television programming. The dog is interacting with the television at its full capacity to respond appropriately to stimuli in its environment. We use language, thoughts, body language, head movements, eye movements, and changing the channel. The dog is generally indifferent to the programming until it cognizes something that speaks its language. When something strikes the dog as relevant, the dog responds with little reservation.
My question, Dad, is: Why let the dog be just a dog? Why not teach it some human tricks, like recognizing the television content and not physically responding the way we would if the program were literally being acted out by actors in our home? If we see a murder on television, we don't call 911. If we see a train coming at us, we don't jump out of the way. Why, then, do we let our pet dog attack the television when it sees a lion, tiger, or bear on the screen?
I understand that the unfettered function of a dog's mind is interesting to watch. It's actually really complex the way he sees the screeen and identifies the content. It's funny; it's quixotic. Of course, you know it also gets irritating very quickly. In fact, as the months have worn on, there is a consensus -- I think -- among the family that the behavior is actually predominantly irritating and only peripherally amusing.
That being said, I value the way you handle the dog's behavior. You don't lay the heavy hand on the dog for its ignorance. You let the dog function like a dog, and when that function impinges on your serenity you deter his behavior until the next instance of the phenomena. The strange patience you show with the teenage mind of the golden retriever is really profound. Perhaps over the next ten years, or so, you will experience the dog's interaction with the television changing, and this change will give you insight into the nature of Scout that will enrich your appreciation of all minds. You walk a very interesting path in your relationships. Through watching you interact with the dog, and myself interacting therewith, I struggle toward more mature encounters with the world.
I don't have the inclination to change your behavior toward the dog. I see the dog as yours. I am my father's son.
What more can I say?
Anything less would be uncivilized!
