Following up from yesterday, a good blog post on why dogs bite:

All dogs, whether they are defined by owners or behavior professionals as “reactive,” “aggressive,” and yes, even “friendly”? can and will bite. A service dog or therapy dog can and will bite. The goofiest dog you’ve ever seen can and will bite. The dog that allows young children to climb all over him and pull his ears or tail with seeming aplomb can and will bite.

During yesterday’s chat, the following dialogue took place:

lovemydog:
I have an elderly dog who has always been leery of strangers. Is there a kind way I can convey to people we see during our nightly walks that I’d prefer they not pet him when/if they ask? He’s cute but cantankerous and has had some health problems recently. I don’t want to sound rude in any way.

MissConduct:
Position yourself somewhat between the dog and the person and say, with a regretful smile, “I’m sorry, but he’s old and a little cranky and unpredictable, so I try to keep him away from strangers.” People will understand. I have to do that with Milo, too, sometimes.

McDinkus:
I’d just say, “Careful, he bites”.

MissConduct:
No, then people can get all flippy on you about having a dog who bites. Besides, as a dog owner, you feel bad when you libel your dog like that.

I realized today why the “Careful, he bites,” recommendation bothered me. It’s because I don’t like to encourage people to think of dogs — either individual dogs or breeds — as categorically “dangerous” or “safe.” For the same reason, a few weeks ago, I criticized parents who forbid their children to be around pit bulls:

The pit bull ban is remarkably stupid and short-sighted, and not likely to protect the kid at all even if pit bulls were more dangerous than other dogs. Children should be taught the signs of danger, not the corollaries of danger. Tell your kid that she can’t be around pit bulls and she’s going to take away not only the message that pit bulls are a menace, but that other breeds aren’t. The fact is, all dogs can bite, and all dog bites can do damage. If you want your child to be safe around dogs, you teach them proper dog etiquette and how to recognize a dog’s aggressive intentions. Crude profiling techniques don’t keep individuals safer; paying attention to what individuals (dogs and humans) are doing, and developing a good sense of intuition, do.

No, I’m not cavalier about the prospect of children being savaged by pit bulls, as the Misreading Brigade among my commenters seemed to think. But there will always be some breed that tops the “most bites” list, and thinking that dog safety begins and ends with avoiding that breed is like thinking that auto safety means never riding in whatever make of car has been in the most accidents. Saying “he bites” about Milo is as accurate as saying “it crashes” about my car. I’m not really concerned about libeling my little guy*, but I don’t like sending the message that as long as you avoid the bad dogs, you’ll be safe. All dogs are potentially dangerous, and all dogs — like all people — have moods, and circumstances, in which they don’t act like themselves.

*The dog’s self-esteem is not a problem. As a friend of mine said today, “Milo never doubts that he’s the lead in the movie.”

I hope you can end your workweek with the satisfying feeling of concrete accomplishments. If you can’t, perhaps you can derive vicarious satisfaction from this video of a dog (who looks like Milo but isn’t) destroying a fleet of balloons:

Happy weekend!

Mr. Improbable was out of town this week, so as usual I took the opportunity to catch up with some of my girlfriends. Friday night, two friends from synagogue came over for pizza and vodka whipped cream and general silliness. We made it a slumber party because I didn’t want them driving home, and they had a class near my neighborhood in the morning anyway.

Erika and Molly are a lesbian couple who have been married for five years or so. And here’s the thing: Milo figured that out. He immediately realized that these were not two separate people, these were a PACK. If one of them told him to do something he didn’t want to do, he’d look at the other to see if she really meant it. He spent most of his time sitting in between them, and was happiest when he could be touching both of them at the same time. If they weren’t close enough to do that, he’d at least manage to be able to watch them both at the same time.

That’s not how he acts with any two people, even good friends. That’s how he acts with me and Mr. Improbable. That’s how he acts with a pack.

God knows I am not one to sentimentalize dogs or their innocence or insight or capacity for teaching moral lessons. I find that an insult to both philosophy and dogs. But Milo has no politics. He has no ideology. He only knows what his senses tell him, and what they told him is that my friends Molly and Erika are one.

My dog can recognize gay marriage. I hope the rest of the world catches up with him soon.

Milo is a good liberal who respects all treat-bearing people equally and recognizes nontraditional families. He ain’t no damn hippie, though. When Erika pulled out a guitar and started singing folk songs to him, he totally flipped a nutty. Good dog.

If you’ve been on the internets at all in the past two weeks, you’ve probably seen the amazing merengue-dancing dog. If not, do check this out:

I’ve seen some good canine freestyle dancing, and Milo and I have rocked it out to the soundtrack to “8 Mile” once or twice, but this is different. This dog actually has natural rhythm, which I didn’t know dogs were capable of. As a friend of mine described it:

I didn’t just marvel at how long the dance was, and how many different sub-routines there were, but how darned well the dog just plain moved. There were times when I’d all but swear Carrie was wagging her tail in time to the music.

She has nature on her side when it comes to focusing on her dance partner, but those two move delightfully well together on the dance floor, just like truly good dancers do. It’s something human and dog are doing *together*, for each other. It’s clearly not one-sided, not dog performing for human, but dog and human having a blast together, and on a dance floor at that.

Exactly. Look at Carrie’s face:

No, you’re not anthropomorphizing; that’s a smile, and a proud one too, of a dog who is interacting with her pack in what she knows is an appropriate way. Clearly, she is loving the attention and the knowledge that she is good at what she is doing. (If you have a dog, and its face doesn’t look like this at least some of the time when you are training it, check out a different training technique. This is how they ought to look. The Milo version of that face is on the last photo of this article.)

Dancing together, whether you are leading or following, requires a solid understanding of your partner’s mind. The extent and nature of this understanding in dogs is what the Canine Cognition Lab (which I wrote about here) is trying to tease out. The social sciences have traditionally had two approaches: idiographic and nomothetic. Idiographic means the study of the individual as distinct from all others; nomothetic means the study of populations and groups. Both have their place. The idiographic approach is better when highly exceptional individuals — savants, children who have been raised in isolation, people with specific kinds of brain damage — can be studied to teach us about the boundaries of the human (or canine) experience. It can also be useful when we simply don’t know enough about a population to even begin to figure out how to test them.

The clever reader has probably figured out what method I think would be best to study dogs, at this point in our knowledge.

I’m going to be participating in the opening of Petco’s new boutique store, “Unleashed,” next Thursday (June 17) from 6-8 pm at the new Wellesley store at 165 Linden Street. Here’s what the press release has to say:

Unleashed by PETCO, a community pet store iintroduced by leading pet specialty retailer PETCO, invites Boston dogs and their owners to join the Animal Rescue League of Boston for a special benefit and celebration of the human animal bond kicking off June 17, 6 – 8 pm at the Wellesley, MA store. Complete with a green carpet and “pawparrazi”, the VIP event for pets will launch a four-day fundraiser and adoption event …

Open to all Boston-area pet owners, pets will receive star treatment during the June 17 fundraiser launch event with “pawparazzi” photos of dogs strutting the green carpet, pet swag bags, bartenders serving treat bar snacks, a pet-friendly ice cream social, and giveaways. Pet owners will also be treated to hors d’oeuvres and refreshments, such as the “Cat’s Meow” and “Hair of the Dog” fizzes. In addition, the Animal Rescue League of Boston will bring over 30 adoptable pets via the Mobile Animal Transport (MAT) to meet with potential new parents and will host adoption and education events at select Boston-area locations throughout the weekend.

I’ll be doing a brief reading from the pets chapter of Mind over Manners, answering your questions on “petiquette,” and introducing some of those adorable dogs up for adoption. And yes, Mr. Improbable is really, really hoping I don’t come home with one.

I hope to see some of my fellow dog-loving readers there! (You won’t get to meet Milo, alas. He is not quite ready for prime time.)

Last week, I was immensely sad to read that Jorge Garcia’s dog Nunu died: “as we were preparing to all go to the airport Nunu was struck by a car as she crossed the street. She died in my arms,” Mr. Garcia wrote.

Poor Jorge! He loved that dog. His life must feel so strange now, with “Lost” over, living back on the mainland, with Nunu dead. This is one of the pains of the death of a pet — not only the loss of a companion, but the end of an era. We often get pets at times of transition in our lives, and when those pets die, that chapter in our life feels even more definitively closed. Mr. Garcia has shut down his “Dispatches from the Island” blog and started a new blog, for this new phase of his life. The Nunu years are over. Have you ever had a pet whose lifetime coincided with a particular phase of your life, whose passing seemed to be the end of one chapter of your story?

Before we all leave the island for good, I suppose I should reassess my earlier criticism of how Hurley’s alternative universe was played out. Since the alternaverses were only mental constructs, or purgatory, or a bardo, or some damned thing or other, the emphasis on Hurley’s weight in his alternate-universe story reflected his own insecurity, not the writers’ fat prejudice. I think there’s still room for criticism — was Hurley’s primary reason for insecurity really his weight? He seemed to not trust himself because of his earlier bouts with mental illness and his lack of education and acknowledged leadership capabilities — but I think a lot of character development got sloppy toward the end there, so I don’t feel Hurley got a particularly raw deal.

Summer is here, fellow dog lovers, which means it’s time to start packing a water bottle along with the poop bags when you take your little friend out for a walk. (I don’t mean that in a “Scarface” kind of way.)

The straight-up best water bottle for dogs I’ve found are Water Rovers: light, one-piece, and relatively dripless, although that latter depends to some extent on how drooly your dog is. (Milo is part African basenji, so he’s relatively dry-mouthed. Owners of Newfoundlands may have a different experience.)

I’m not getting any sort of kickback from Water Rovers for this, mind you, and I paid good cash money for mine. If Water Rovers decides to send me a bunch of free samples, though, my dog-owning friends are in luck!

UPDATE: Some ongoing technical difficulties prevented me from posting a picture of Water Rovers, so I’m trying it now as an experiment:

Yep, that worked!