From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

The week of July 20 was a pivotal week. Tod left for Chicago on Monday. I wasn’t looking forward to handling Venus and Zeus on my own for 5 days.

When he called from the Denver airport my surliness must’ve surfaced because he said, “I’m concerned that the dogs seem to be dominating your life.”

“Ja think?” I snapped.

Admittedly I was feeling some resentment that he was getting a break from them and I wasn’t. I did the math and realized that I had not been apart from Zeus and Venus for more than a few hours since November 2007.

Do I need a vacation from my dogs?

Probably.

But I also realized the plain and simple truth – I’m addicted to the challenge. Even though I have my moments of frustration with Venus, I can’t quit her. Her genetics, her breed mix, her obsession and anxiety – her dis-ease – none of it is her fault. Most of the time, like 99.9%, she is affectionate, intelligent, strong, sensitive, calm, sweet, and obedient. After 3½ years, I know her soul. I love her. I believe I’m the only person who truly understands her and is capable of helping her. She needs me.

Apart from her disappointing lack of judgment on June 20, when she attacked Zeus, she has shown no other signs of aggression. She hasn’t attacked any other dog besides Zeus for more than 9 months. She is not aggressive toward humans. Dog aggression is not a predictor of eventual human aggression. There’s no reason to be concerned that she will become aggressive toward humans. We’ve seen just the opposite. She has become more self-confident, less defensive, and friendlier toward humans and other dogs.

Although I’m certain if another human or dog attacked me, or Tod, or Zeus, or any other member of her “pack”, including our grandchildren, Venus would be a force to contend with, as would Zeus under the same circumstances. I have big dogs for a reason. They protect me and my home and family. When Tod is out of town on business trips, I am a woman living alone. If a stranger makes unwanted advances or enters my home, I can’t predict what Venus or Zeus would do. I will never know the dangers their very presence has averted. I need them as much as they need me.

And so, as the week began, I looked upon the 3 of us as a team. The 3 amigos. Sort of. We all had our jobs to do. Fresh from a weekend of running wild at the lake, Venus’s job was to practice calm behavior. After bravely enduring the Boy Scouts’ gunfire, Zeus’s job was to relax. As team leader, my job was to feed, exercise and discipline them. I knew I had become too emotional so I made an effort to keep my emotions out of the mix. But Venus changed all that.

Even though we had been opening the stairway gate occasionally, my plan was to keep them separated – upstairs dog and downstairs dog – which was how it played out on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon Venus came inside and slept in the hallway outside my office while I worked. A thunderstorm rolled through and Zeus wanted in. I showed him where Venus was lying. He plopped down about three feet away from her. I wasn’t too keen on the arrangement but I had vowed I would trust Zeus to know when she could be trusted again indoors. So I let it happen.

From that afternoon on, a “comfort zone” developed between them, which I observed closely. I may be team leader but Zeus is my guide. During the week I looked to him to signal me when he was comfortable with Venus. Whenever he constantly glanced over his shoulder at her or circled and wouldn’t lie down, I checked out Venus. Her beady brown eyes were boring a hole through him. It was oddly comical, yet fairly serious.

I developed a body language. When I notice her starting to fixate on him, I move in and distract her, move her to a different spot, or send her downstairs (or upstairs if Zeus is downstairs), leaving the gate open. Zeus wanted that stairway gate open the previous week. He had been sitting by it often and casting beseeching looks in my direction. He was sick of the upstairs-dog-downstairs-dog game. But I wasn’t ready to open the gate until that Tuesday afternoon.

For the rest of the week the gate stayed open, except when firecrackers exploded. There again I relied on Zeus. With my deaf ear I don’t always hear the firecrackers. Zeus has adopted a habit of retreating to the bedroom when he hears the pops so whenever he did that, I knew to listen for them. Then all I had to do was put a gate up at the bedroom door.

We had been keeping them separated in the house during the night since June 20. I had planned to keep that up. Instead Venus-the-guardian opted to sleep outside. So I let her. I was concerned she’d bark and I wouldn’t hear. But she didn’t. She kept watch. I love that about her.

Over the past month we’ve also been training Venus to leave Zeus alone. She’s not allowed to sniff him, touch him, or stare at him indoors. “Leave it” or “leave Zeus alone” are the commands we use. And it’s working. The more we enforce the behavior the more Zeus likes being around her. We are defining our spaces. Creating a circle of trust.

Things changed significantly toward the end of the week. Early Thursday morning Mrs. Bully left town with her boys. Except for the “vicious dog attack” complaint on June 10, we haven’t had any major problems with the Bullys. Just that constant barrage of negative energy I’ve mentioned before. It’s palpable. Tod and I sense it. Ema senses it when she’s here. It feels like we’re being watched.

When Mrs. Bully and her boys left that morning, the feeling disappeared. They’ve been gone for several days and ever since Venus has calmed down to a whole nother level. Tod noticed it immediately when he returned home Friday night.

“Wow. I can’t believe how calm she is,” he said. “Usually she goes nuts when I get home.”

“Mrs. Bully left town with the boys,” I told him.

She rarely barks and when she does there’s no anxiety and she calms down quickly. She wants to be outside all the time. I’ve always known their hatred and negative energy affects her. But watching this near metamorphosis in her right before my eyes has been no less astonishing.

Something else happened which also surprised me. Thursday morning at Dogland one of the dogs charged up to Venus and she snarled at him, which is exactly what Zeus does when he wants Venus (or any other dog) to back off. So her reaction was both learned behavior and normal dog behavior. But I caught some flack about it and another dog owner told me to put Venus on the leash, which of course I did. The next day a dog owner, who just recently started coming to the park, confronted me about the “incident”. He had also been at the park the previous morning.

He stopped me on the trail. “What was wrong with your white dog yesterday? She snarled at another dog.”

“Nothing. Venus exhibited normal dog behavior,” I told him. “Zeus does the same thing when he wants a dog to back off.”

“I guess my dog must be perfect,” he said. “He has never behaved that way.”

“That doesn’t mean what she did was wrong,” I said.

He looked skeptical. “You never know. Maybe that could’ve ended up in a fight.”

I rolled my eyes. “But it didn’t. She didn’t attack the other dog. Nobody got hurt. Nothing happened.”

He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” I said. “I think you’re making too much of it, is all.”

“Well I think you need to keep her on a leash,” he said. “You don’t even know where she is right now.”

I looked past him. “She’s right behind you.” He looked startled as she stepped out of the thicket. While he recovered from his embarrassment I said, “It seems like my dogs are expected to behave better than everyone else’s dogs.”

“I think everyone expects all the dogs to get along down here,” he said.

“Well you’re talking about a lot of dogs and a lot of people,” I said. “Incidents are bound to happen. There’s no point in making a big deal about them.”

I leashed Venus and walked on. I suppose I could’ve said, “Do you know who I am? Without me and my dogs you wouldn’t even have this dog park.” But it never occurred to me until Ema pointed it out later. Instead I vigorously defended Venus, which surprised me. Usually I apologize for her behavior whether or not it’s necessary and feel embarrassed because my dog is mentally ill. As I reflected on my reaction I realized that it was a turning point for me.

Since then we changed our Dogland time to early morning when there are fewer or no visitors. The last thing I want is for Venus to make other people nervous. Nor do I want to leash her in the park. She needs that time to roam and perform her rituals. We don’t take our dogs to Dogland to socialize with other dogs. The purpose is to let off steam. And I don’t need the hassle.

On Saturday in our quest for new places to let Venus run wild, Tod took us to one of his favorite bike trails, a short drive from town. It’s an uphill road that leads to a ridge overlooking Harvey Gap.

Zeus loves hill climbs. He’s amazingly sure-footed and enjoys the slow pace. Venus loped along with us. I kept thinking any minute she’d drop back and slip away. But she didn’t. At the crest the land spreads out into rolling hills covered in sagebrush and pinion pines. Venus casually sniffed around. For a moment I wondered if I was wrong about her need to run wild. As if she read my mind, she meandered through the sagebrush, her nose dropped then she bolted. She knew. She knew why we’d come. She knew it was okay. I’ve never been so glad to see her go. She returned about 10 minutes later, tongue dripping from her wide grin.

At bedtime that night Venus trotted into the bedroom and lay down. For the first time in over a month, Zeus followed her and stretched out on the rug, as cool and smooth as a river rock. I got the signal. My own uneasiness vanished.

The uphill road reminded me that the journey is never about getting there. It’s about what we see and learn along the way – and what we learn to see. Venus will never be a perfect dog. The best we can do is to encourage her best behavior and help her find happiness on her journey – no matter where it leads.

Read the Crazy Bitch series. Or click on the handy links provided on the left.

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