Pride Goeth Before a Fall

While most people are familiar with the old adage “pride goeth before a fall”, I would like to propose a corollary: “and pants rippeth afterward”, based on a recent adventure I had with my dog, Rosie.  Although Rosie is not fearful, she has proven to be an excellent source for experiences whose lessons can be applied to fearful and non-fearful dogs, alike.

Rosie and I have worked very hard at loose leash walking, and “graduated” to a 15’ lead attached to the back of her harness for parts of our walks in the local park and woods.  Rosie can be very distracted by woodland critters, so we work at recall on leash and moving as a team, unless it’s safe for her to forge ahead to sniff.  As long as her leash is loose and I am alert for potential triggers, I think it’s fair for her to be able to move as she chooses in safe environments.

Although I was tired from camping out with my Girl Scout troop the night before, Rosie was desperate for an adventure, so against my better judgement, we set off. Our walk started out as many others: check for loose dogs on the way into the park, unload in a quiet parking lot and walk the perimeter of the fields near the forest.  Everything was fine, until Rosie started to round the corner of a dirt road we were traversing, and caught sight of something small, furry and fast.  In less than a split second, she took off at full speed, dragging me behind her down a rocky incline.  The pitch of the path combined with her head start and weight made stopping an impossibility.  In fact, we were picking up momentum so fast that I only had two choices: drop the leash or fall and act as an anchor.  In a moment of clarity so strong that I can still recall my exact thought process, I decided that it would be over my dead body that I would drop the leash, but instead “chose” to fall, with the hope that my combined inertia and will of steel would stop Rosie’s forward progress.

Let me be the first to tell you that there is no such thing as a controlled fall.  The logic behind it was flawed from the beginning, and whether one “chooses” to fall or falls accidentally, the ground is just as hard and pain is just as bad.  I also didn’t take into account that Rosie wouldn’t come to a halt upon my impact with the ground.  In fact, she continued to drag me behind her for several feet over the rocky terrain. The good news was that throughout these horrible few seconds, I actually did keep hold of the leash.  My fear was so great that she would run off into hundreds of acres of woods, never to be seen again, that it kept me clutching at the leash until Rosie finally turned to see me prostrate on the ground.

I called her back to me and asked her to sit while I assessed the damage: lost hat and glasses, hand sliced open, favorite pants ripped, knees bloody and swollen and scrapes from shoulder to shin on one side of my body.  I was shaking from the drama and Rosie was shaking from the adrenaline rush of pursuing a small woodland creature.  My tears of frustration and pain just added to the sorry mess, and after sniveling for a few moments, we got on with the task of retrieving my miraculously intact glasses and trampled hat. Some tissues staunched the flow of blood somewhat, and I switched Rosie to a shorter leash clipped to the front of her harness.  What I wanted to do was limp back to the car, go home and give Rosie away.  What I actually did was finish our walk so we could both calm down and finish on a positive note.  

Hindsight is 20/20

It would be very easy for me to blame Rosie for chasing the unseen animal in the first place, not stopping when the leash grew taut and ignoring my calls.  I could easily call her stubborn, willful and disobedient. It would certainly be easy to place blame and call names, but it would be unfair and untrue.  When looking at the scenario with a critical, unbiased eye, I couldn’t have set us up for failure more perfectly.  

I was tired when I did something that demands my full and complete concentration.  Rosie is a challenging dog for me.  She is physically very, very strong and easily aroused by the presence of local wildlife.  Although we work successfully on our connection in challenging environments, I wasn’t mentally on top of my game.

Equipment matters, and I stacked the deck against us by clipping the leash to the back of her harness instead of the front.  The physics of clipping the leash to the front of a harness allows the forward momentum of the dog to be turned a bit to the side in an emergency, to slow the dog down.  The back clip does nothing except keep the leash from getting tangled in the dog’s legs, and actually allows the dog to pull harder, not slow down. I clip the leash to the back only if Rosie is sniffing in high grass in a contained area, but I wasn’t thinking when I was walking her.

A long line allows the dog more freedom, but it also allows the dog to accelerate faster and gain momentum, often before the human brain realizes that there is a problem.  Without extensive practice and leash handling skills, long lines can often be more of a hazard than a help. Clearly, it was hazardous for me that day.

I know better than to let any dog round the corner of a building, car, clump of trees, etc. while forging in front of me. Really, I do.  I want my eyes to be the first to assess what’s around the corner and make the decision whether to go forward, stop or turn around.  My dog, if given the chance, may make a very different decision than I, as did Rosie, when she was 12’ ahead of me. I usually call her back to my side when approaching a corner, or ask for a sit so I can catch up, but I just missed it, and paid the price.

We talk a lot about a dog shifting from the thinking/ learning part of her brain to reacting on instinct.  It didn’t matter if I was waving a side of freshly butchered beef in the air once she started chasing that animal.  At that moment, nothing existed for her except the need to hunt and catch her prey.  The hard truth is that I am not competing even a little bit with her instinct, because we never trained for it.  Sure, I’ve worked hard at using behavior modification and teaching incompatible behaviors when she sees squirrels/dogs/cats/deer.  But our work has always been at a distance, never with the trigger exploding from the brush under her feet. And if I’m being brutally honest, I may never truly compete in this situation, even if we trained for the rest of our lives. 

Time Heals All Wounds

Time has gone by, and I have some fading scars and a crooked pinkie finger to remember our adventure.  It acts as a powerful reminder to me to be thorough in my preparation when taking my dogs out in the world, to review what they each need to be successful and to be mentally present and engaged. I have been concentrating on refining Rosie’s (and my) skills on a short 6’ leash, but the other day, in the safety of our back yard, I decided that it was time to try the long line again.  There were no distracting woodland creatures lurking about and Rosie was able to follow some simple cues that I asked of her.  As I praised and petted her for her listening skills, I found myself thinking of our misadventure, and remembered a favorite quote by Walt Disney: “Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk.”