Greeting a dog.

I did not know how to greet a dog.Well, I knew what people told me, hold out your hand to let the dog sniff it, and then go ahead, pet away! If the dog shies away or snaps/growls/barks - it's a bad dog. Sounds about right? Well, no. Not at all.

First things first - I had to learn that not all dogs want to be greeted, and more importantly, that that is ok. It does not make a dog unfriendly to not want human interaction right now.

Then, I had to learn that not all dogs want to be petted. What? All dogs want petting, petting is nice! Well, not for every pup, and not in the way you think, either. A nice pat on the head is actually rarely appreciated by a strange dog. Much better, assuming you have a dog that wants to be petted, is to pat on the shoulders or under the chest.

If I may personify it for a moment, of course it makes sense. Do I want every stranger to approach me? Nope. Do I want that stranger to put their hands on my head, and in my face? Hell no.

So how then do you greet a dog? Really, I wish everyone would learn some doggy body language. That's the best place to start. Look at the dog you're intending to greet from a safe distance. If the pup comes running up to you, tail wagging in broad, relaxed sweeps, mouth open a little, eyes soft, chances are this dog is keen to meet you.

If, on the other hand, you see this:

My parent's dog, Kira, the miniature pinscher, sausage dog, terrier mutt mix.

Stay away. This dog is scared. Her body is tense and leaning away from me. Her face is turned away, but she's too worried to take her eyes off me - so you see the whites of her eyes, also known as whale eye. Her lips are clamped shut, she's puffing out her cheeks, her ears are pinned back. To my great shame, I know that approaching her regardless of her abundant warnings (desperate pleas?) to stay away has her rolling on her back, exposing her belly. She's not asking for belly rubs, she's saying:

"please don't kill me"

And then I go and put my hands on her. She would remain perfectly still - maybe if she doesn't move she can still avoid death.
Were this another dog, I could well have had my hand bitten off! This is not an idle threat she's giving here.

Now that I know what I was doing, I feel horrible. I won't do it again, that I promise to you, to myself, and to her. Sorry, little pup, for not knowing any better!


I propose a new way to approach dogs, a five step program, if you will, but with only three steps.

1. Ask if the dog wants to be greeted.
I wish I could place this responsibility on the handlers/owners/trainers of dogs, but I can't. (Do ask them, though, it's only polite). Very few people know dog body language or their pet dogs well enough to be a good judge. What you need to do is take a loot at the dog. Please don't stare at it, but see if the dog is relaxed or tense, fearful or happy. Don't think a wagging tail is a happy tail - use the whole picture. A low, slow wag with a direct stare from the dog who is crouched low (never approach this one) or a high, stiff wag with tense eyes and face are both wagging tails, and neither is friendly. If in doubt, don't greet the dog. It's kinder to a dog to not stress it out, and much safer for you.

2. Don't approach the dog.
In stead, let the dog come to you. Crouch down, turn your head away, and wait. This makes you non-threatening, and turning your head away from a dog says very clearly "I don't want to fight". If you have any reason to believe this dog may be agressive, walk away. Don't crouch down - you may be saying "I'm not a threat", but that does not mean the dog is not out looking for a fight. I repeat, if in doubt, don't greet the dog.

3. Don't pet the dog.
If the dog is pressing in to you, well, by all means, rub that shoulder. Very few dogs will want a hug, so don't even go there. But if the dog is now sniffing you, or is simply near you, don't touch it. Some dogs are very friendly, but don't like being touched. They'd much rather check you out well, and then bring you their ball or tug toy, or even, satisfied that you are indeed a non-threatening human, to leave you be. That's ok - pat yourself on the back, you've successfully greeted a dog!

If your dog is like mine, all of these questions are irrelevant. Once she's checked with me that it's ok (ideally, at least ... ) she will run up to and dance around you in happy circles. Does she want petting? Not on the head, no, but luckily, she's too excited to stand still enough for that. Her dancing and jumping and prancing is luckily amusing in itself, granting her a pardon for not letting them touch her head.

World at large, please - don't be like me. Greet dogs in a dog-friendly way. No dog should feel afraid for their life, or scared enough to bite, from a simple greeting - and the fault is all mine (or ours, if you will be included with me).

Treated like dogs.

As kids we had two dogs - Zakkie and Sessie - Zakkie, dense as treacle but just as sweet, and Sessie the sharp-as-a-whip fox terrier with fear and trust issues. Sessie died recently, she lived to be about fifteen or sixteen years old. She had a heart attack at my parent's home, dad carried her when he found her (since she did not come for dinner, odd for her) to where we were sitting, it was very clear something was wrong. She was breathing, but cold, and her heart rate was very slow. At the vet's they found out it was a heart attack and that she was dying, and they decided to put her to sleep there so that she would not have a drawn out period of suffering - it was possible for her to keep slowly deteriorating, disorientated, unable to move, cold, in pain, for another night or more. It was, by all accounts, very peaceful. The dog died with her people around her, comforting her. The vet was humane and caring. It was painless (you might even say 'pain relieving') and she was gone.

My grandfather died last year. He fell and hit his head, sustained brain injury, and was in a coma by the next day. Brain dead a day or so later, followed by the difficult decision to turn off the machines that could keep his body going indefinitely. Of course, turning off the machines that ensured he would keep going did not mean he would die. He was in the intensive care area, lying there, and we were waiting for his heart to stop. We waited, stayed, waited, came and went, each unusual bleep of the machine had us asking 'is this it now?'

It was horrible. Sad faces, empty faces. My gran, inconsolable. His large hands were cold and swollen. His face swollen. They had a breathing tube in his mouth (no one knows why) which forced my intelligent, dignified, gentle grandfather to lie there dribbling on his chin, with his mouth open, tongue pressed forward.

The injury to his dignity aside, probably the worst was the change that came over us as we waited. It changed from horrible sadness to a morbid desire for each drawn out beep to be the last one - for it to just end already.

We had long past given up any hope of recovery. It was clear from his face, his hands, that the man we loved was gone.


In every meaningful way, he was dead.

Nothing could be done until his heart stopped on its own, though, or it would be considered murder. But honestly, many of us were, by the end, mentally murdering him as each heartbeat sounded.

A week later he passed away, with no one there.

There is an expression, to treat people like dogs. In this case, though, how I wish I could have given him the same privilege the dog had.

Health.

Talos is an odd little pug. She has long, lean legs and a long, lean body, and she does not like having her head touched (especially not by strangers). She is cautious of new things. Most pugs, if you've ever met one, don't care where you touch them as long as you are touching them. They aren't scared, really, you wonder if they notice what's going on because they're so happy to be cuddling up to you in stead. They've got shortish legs, and a square, big boned frame.

My first pug, Zakkie, was a very typical pug. He was my childhood dog, and at the ripe old age of 13, deaf and going blind, he died. He was the friendliest creature, dumb as a rock (unusual for a pug, but that was ok, he was loved regardless), full off snuffly grunty noises. He was the most wonderful dog - except -

He could not make it half a block of walking without having to lie down. His breathing would become so laboured that he found the nearest cool spot in the nearest available bush and plopped down. He refused to move from that spot, and had to be carried if you want to keep walking. A recent visit to a pug rescue social event confirmed that most pugs are like that - generally happy if languid dogs. Not Talos. She runs with the terriers, climbs giant agility obstacles with ease and aplomb, and is pretty much always ready to get up and get going on one thing or another.

She's not crazy along the lines of the working breeds, mind you, if you were to imagine a very calm Jack Russel Terrier, that would be her.

This has me thinking of health, and what health would mean. Is Talos a healthier pug than Zakkie was?

Essential to this question is a matter of definition - what would health mean?
This is not a simple question, especially since I want to take it to a broader inquiry than just two little pugs. In medical anthropology, this question bugs us a lot. Let's look at a few definitions - firstly, the nearly instinctive one - feeling good. Then, there is the biomedical one - a body that functions normally. Then there's the 'alternative' medicine one - a person that can function within his/her given social context. These definitions are often at odds with each other.

Let's look at the puggies to see why - Zakkie felt good for most of his life. He was simply too stupid to care, and I mean that in the fondest possible way. If he had food, snuggles and nap time, his life was complete (just please don't move the brick he used as a step to get into the house, or he'll have to be taught to use it all over again). So our instinctive, knee jerk reaction is that he's a healthy pug.

Biologically, though, we might have a very different opinion. His selective breeding that made him a bracycephalic dog, and his specific genetic make-up that made him a particularly stupid dog, are both causes for concern. Some even go as far as to say that breeding severely bracycephalic dogs are cruel, because they cannot run and play like other dogs can - it's like forcing a creature to live with asthma because you find the wheezing cute. The rest of the pug breed standard, cobbyness specifically, but the desire for a double curl tail and the resulting risk for malfomed backs are also 'to blame' for his inability to exercise with any stamina. He is clearly dysfunctional  -  and it is likely that if we ever felt it necessary that he would have been a candidate for surgery to 'fix' his breathing (reducing his palate, opening his nares, there's a whole host of options here - sometimes brilliantly successful, sometimes not).

Socially, Zakkie never had much contact with other dogs except the fox terrier he lived with, and much later a rescue my sister introduced. He and the foxie were very close, she mothered him as a puppy in a big way, but he had no skills interacting with dogs. The neighbour dog (an immense boerboel) was a constant reason to posture and fight. Could he function within his given social context as a pet dog? Sure, but only behind a fence.

Talos, on the other hand, is nowhere near as naturally content as Zakkie was. She's cautious of various things, and sometimes just plain scared - an emotion Zakkie only ever experienced once or twice in his life. She's clever, not just in the 'I can teach this dog things' clever, but in how she can figure things out (zips on bags containing treats, for example) and in how she tests her boundaries. She'd drag the brick over herself to get into the house. She's easily bored with an activity, I have to keep mixing it up or she loses interest. She can also focus wonderfully on a task, her ability to concentrate is A+. She also has a much easier time breathing, her longer, leaner frame giving her much less weight to carry per leg length. She'll never do well at a conformation show, though!

She's also fairly well socialised - yes, she's an only dog, but through puppy socialisation and regular interaction with dogs of every shape and size, she knows how to solicit play, and she knows when to back away from a grouch.

In summary, Zakkie would have been considered a healthy pug by people who met him, but not by vets. Talos, on the other hand, is likely to charm the vet, but not strangers so easily.

This extends to people as well - what is or is not considered health varies markedly. But more on that later :)

The curious sniffle?

Earlier this year, in one of those rare moments of insanity that works out well (so far), we got a dog. Not just any dog, though, but this little thing:

She was 8 weeks old and weighed 450 grams when we got her. She could literally fit into a shirt pocket:

In the intervening four months (almost, anyway), she's grown to a lovely almost 4 kilograms (with another one or so to go before she'll be her final size). She's also gone to puppy classes, which she's doing quite well in, and which had two fairly peculiar somethings happen to me. The trainer who heads our class asked me if I'd like to join them at their trainer training classes, and I've started having ambitions of doing dog shows. An obedient pug? Me, at dog trainer training? What on earth ...

But it's true, she takes to training like magic. She loves it, I enjoy it a lot, and it gets us out and about at the dog school. Also, it's a whole new world of things to learn. I like learning. Like my dog, I guess.


We're just out of puppy class and into dog school, my Talos and I. Here she is, sitting (and staying) next to her certificate:

(she's gotten big, hasn't she?)

Pug-loving isn't all I do, though, I'm an anthropologist in the making (although a little lost somewhere between a masters and a doctorate), and a keen fishkeeper. I've also got the greatest husband in the world, and some pretty neat hobbies besides these.

With this picture heavy post, I inaugurate my blog 'the curious sniffle'. Is it a pug reference? Is it because I have a cold? Does it have something to do with my anthropological interests? Or does it just sound cute?

I've been wanting to blog for ages, both the rambly writing-for-myself kind (like this one) and more focussed writing. So, here we go!