Heart Dogs
Kathy Lorentzen
While I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I read a remarkable new book entitled Merle’s Door, Lessons from a Freethinking Dog. The author of the book is Ted Kerasote, an outdoor writer who lives in Wyoming in a very small town named Kelly. Mr. Kerasote has written numerous books and articles on living in and connecting with nature and the wildlife with which we share the planet. He travels extensively to research his subject matter, and while on one such trip in the Utah desert, he was found by a young male dog of indiscriminate pedigree who appeared to be living completely on its own in the wild, yet was neutered and friendly so he obviously had belonged to someone as a youngster and had either been abandoned or lost. Something ‘clicked’ between the author and this dog, and thus began a remarkable relationship between them that lasted 13 years. This book is Mr. Kerasote’s tribute to Merle, the dog that became his ‘heart dog’. The book is the true story of the journey they shared.
When I first picked the book up at the book store, and read the jacket notes and the ‘advanced praise’ for the book on the back cover, I wondered if there might be a hidden animal rights agenda involved, and I bought the book with some trepidation. Am I ever glad that I did. Ted Kerasote is no animal rights activist, not by a long shot. Instead, he is a gifted writer, a hunter and an outdoorsman who was blessed with the love and companionship of what turned out to be a very special dog. During their years together, Ted’s natural curiosity and talent for research enabled him to explore why the dog-human bond is so intense and how people and dogs can communicate with one another. He discovered a way to create a healthy, self-reliant and extraordinarily social companion through a process he defines as ‘sharing leadership’ with his dog, rather than being its alpha.
Controversial? Undoubtedly, especially in this age of Caesar Milan and his ‘you must be the pack leader’ principle. Ted’s methods and process were nearly 180 degrees opposite Caesar’s. (And I found out after reading the book, when I visited Ted’s website and listened to a radio interview, that he did not read or watch Caesar Milan until after he finished writing Merle’s Door, because though he had heard of the ‘Caesar method’ he did not want to be influenced at all in his writing by anything Caesar said or did.)
Ted’s dog was not without boundaries and rules, but rather he lived a life that Ted called ‘freedom with boundaries’. Few of us are fortunate enough to live in a place where we can allocate such freedom to our dogs and still keep them safe, and Ted acknowledges that in the book, yet there is so much we can learn from the insight that Ted shares in this heartwarming and beautifully written book. I highly recommend it to all.
My Own Heart Dog
Reading this book, I found myself thinking a great deal about the dog that was my heart dog. Those of us who live our lives surrounded by and immersed in dogs have all had that super special one. While reading about Merle and Ted, I had a lot of what Oprah calls ‘Aha Moments’, because there were so many parallels between their relationship and the one I had with my dog.
My heart dog came so early in my career that I almost didn’t recognize what an incredibly special dog he was. I had grown up with Golden Retrievers and Brittanys and the occasional Weimaraner and Shetland Sheepdog, but this dog, whose name was Herbie, was my first English Springer Spaniel. He blew into my life like a windstorm when I was twenty years old, and he changed the course of my future in dogs because it was his presence that made me realize that Springers were the path I would pursue in dogs for the rest of my life. Thirty-five years later, my commitment to the breed has never wavered, and I continue to try, as an artistic and creative breeder, to re-create the essence of that special dog.
I was young and naïve when Herbie came along. I was recently married, had a Golden Retriever and an Afghan Hound at home, and I tucked this seven-week-old black and white puppy inside my jacket and took him home without anything that you might refer to as a ‘game plan’ for his upbringing. Not that it mattered. From the minute his feet hit the floor he had his own master plan, and as I look back, I realize that I probably never spent one minute actually in control of our relationship for the eleven years I was blessed to have him! He was a dog with an innate sense of who he was. Throughout the course of his lifetime, I went through a number of transitions, and he was the one constant in my life. He slept with me, went everywhere I did, never on a leash, and though he never met a person or a dog that he didn’t easily get along with, I always felt 100 percent certain that he would have protected me valiantly if necessary. He rode shotgun in the front passenger seat of the van his entire life, ever watchful.
As the years passed, Herbie coincidentally became a rather outstanding show dog and a popular and useful sire. He lived for two things: me, and the show ring. I never trained him to be a show dog; he figured it all out himself at his first puppy match when he was five months old where he promptly went Best Puppy in Match. From that day on, I simply held on to the end of his leash and wore the armband, while he did the rest. He spent his days at dog shows loose on a table, meeting and greeting what became an ever growing group of friends and admirers. He wore a leash at dog shows only because the rules said he had to - he wouldn’t have needed one.
As the number of dogs in my household grew, it became apparent that Herbie was the benevolent leader. He ruled with a raised eyebrow, literally. At one point, I had six intact male dogs, three of which were actively used stud dogs, and they all slept in a heap together in the kitchen. Without issue, without argument, and though I knew Herbie was the reason, I rarely ever heard him so much as growl, though on rare occasions if he was really ticked off about something, he would ‘mutter’ under his breath at the offender and that would be that.
He also absolutely loved baby puppies. This supposedly macho super show/stud dog was daft about baby puppies; he couldn’t wait for each successive litter to get up and out of the whelping box so he could take them on walks around the yard. Even when he was very old, I would just turn him out in the back yard with an entire litter of six-week-old puppies, and he would entertain them for the afternoon. And while this was commonplace to me, because it was how he had always been, fellow breeders who came to the house would stare out the window with incredulity as they watched this stately dog slowly march the perimeter of the pasture with half a dozen babies hanging off his ears and tumbling under his feet. It never occurred to me to think he would harm them, no matter what they did, and he never let me down.
I nearly took this dog’s remarkable character for granted, because he was my first Springer, and at first I just figured, what the heck, it’s a great breed, they must all be like this. I soon found out that this was not the case, and began to cherish the special relationship he and I shared. I have come to realize that our bond was based upon complete trust, unconditional love, the ability to communicate with one another, and to some great extent, equality. I can tell you with some certainty that I was never that dog’s alpha leader. Our relationship was ‘me and you, kid’ and it stayed that way throughout his lifetime.
No doubt, the memory of the life I shared with Herbie is one of the reasons that I found Merle’s Door so wonderful, because in reading about Ted and Merle’s relationship, I could look back and remember having something very similar with a dog of my own. I lost Herbie in 1984, and to answer your question, no, I’ve never had another dog like him, though I’ve had many of his descendents in whom I could see pieces and parts of the best of him. I’ve gone through stages where I yearned for another intense relationship like that with a dog, and others where I told myself I never wanted another like him because his loss was almost unbearable.
But right at this moment, I have a black and white Springer who has eleven crosses to Herbie in her pedigree. She has a depth of understanding in her eyes, and those eyebrows that go up and down as though they are tapping out Morse code. There is something so comfortable and familiar about her that I don’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified of the opportunity to once again share my life with a heart dog. I’ve decided to give myself up to it and see where the possibility leads us.
Correspondence is always invited at vincefan@centurytel.net
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