New Jill Wylie book launch

Book launch

Double Bill

Dan Wylie: Raven Games: New and Selected Poems

PLUS

Jill Wylie: Barefoot & Pawprint: A Kenya childhood

WHERE:  National English Literary Museum

Worcester St, Grahamstown. 

Tuesday 5 December, 17.30 for 18.oo.

All poetry and animal lovers welcome. Both these books make for wonderful Christmas Season gifts.

The Training of Tawny - Part 7

Grooming, performed regularly, is the best possible way of developing trust between you and your animal - and essential in working dogs to find ticks, treat hidden wounds, and so on. And it's a good moment to reinforce some of those important basic commands.

 “Look!”

At six weeks old a puppy is intensely curious. “Tawny, look!” I would call, poking my finger at anything of interest within reach of her nose: a bone, a fallen bird’s nest, an insect, perhaps.

            Before the first day of doing this was done she came snuffling up to see what I’d found as soon as she knew the word. (She’d forgotten it by morning but remembered it again after breakfast.)  Actually it was my hand I wanted her to notice more than the word, for this was the first step in learning hand signals.

            Soon she learned to follow my finger to the object of interest when I described a small arc  in the air on the way.  Then we moved  to objects not on the ground, gradually to arm’s length left and right. Pointing straight up still foxed her.

            When she was eight weeks old I could call her to look  without pointing and she would stare at my hands, waiting for an indication, and by that I judged the lesson learned well enough for the present. Later this could be extended to other forms of finding and searching.

“Sit!”

Like all very young puppies Tawny sat down every few moments throughout her waking hours. It seemed a shame not to take advantage of this stage, which soon passes. Virtually all I had to do was teach her a word for it.

            I watched for it and tried to coincide my command with her action; better still, anticipate it. I did this a great many times and after a week or so she seemed to have got the connection without even realising it. There was something rather vague and automatic in her response, but it was a start. By then I was also ready for formal grooming during which this command and the next (“Lie”) would be taught anyway.

            At first Tawny was not easy to groom. She wriggled and rolled, chewed the brush and my fingers and tried to turn the whole exercise into a game she didn’t really want to play. I gave her a cloth to play with and merely stroked her with the brush, making soothing sounds. Very soon she began to like it and then had to be taught to take her turn and not interfere when I was grooming another animal. This would seem a small matter but it was very important for Tawny, for there were going to be times when I’d have to give my full attention to another animal – one that was injured, say – and I didn’t want to have shut Tawny away every time I did so.

            Formal grooming followed a routine procedure.  The same time every day, and in a sequence that was regular and predictable. First Tawny was given a good rub over with the brush and fingertips to loosen any dirt and stray hairs. Then she was required to sit while her head and chest were groomed and her ears, eyes and mouth examined.

            Because of the groundwork already done the Sit was now hardly a problem. Occasionally when her mind was on something else, Tawny needed a little physical assistance. Then I placed the palm of one hand against her chest to prevent her moving forwards and with the other hand over hips and tail-head, slowly push her down into the sitting position, giving the command several times and praising her calmly when she was sitting securely.

            It is a crazy feature of training a puppy: you manhandle her into the position required, then praise her as if she’s achieved it all by herself!  But it works.

            Tawny was not being trained for obedience competitions and so was not required to sit exactly so. As long as she was sitting where I wanted her to sit, it didn’t really matter if she sat a bit crookedly or something.

            My hand signal for Sit is slapping the palm of one hand against the fist of the other where the thumb and forefinger join.  This is not a convention signal; I evolved it simply because it resembles no other. Tawny was a year old before I got her onto this. I could have taught her as early as eight or nine months old but at that time she was learning many things and this particular hand signal was a lesser importance.

“Paw”

The next step in Tawny’s grooming routine was to have her forepaws brushed and examined, especially between the toes for grass-seeds and such like. Once she was sitting, I wanted her to lift each of her paws in turn when asked. “Paw,” I said, “Give me your paw!”, lifted it myself, praised her and groomed it. Then the next one. Because I wanted her to stay sitting I spoke softly.

            After a while I noticed that she shifted her weight off the paw I indicated even before I touched it. I increased the praise and soon she was putting her paw into my hand, though with no great enthusiasm. She much preferred to lie on her back, a position she felt was so irresistibly endearing as to solve any problem she might encounter, and give me both paws together.

            This is another lesson that is more easily taught when the puppy is around six weeks old than later on: if she is to learn to shake hands now is the time to begin, because puppies of this age naturally bat their paws at each other and at anyone else, especially someone who will bat back, Occasionally, as I batted paws with Tawny, I would catch a paw gently in my hand and say, “Oh paw! Clever girl!”

            I could have speeded up her learning considerably if I had done this with her often. As it was, the lesson was mainly confined to grooming time once a day.

            Confusion can arise, though, at this early age,  - for example, this puppy was also being taught not to jump up with her paws.  That’s why I confined the lesson to grooming time, and always thereafter insisted that Tawny be sitting down before presenting a paw.

******

The Training of Tawny - Part 6

I've run out of Tawny pics, so have to repeat ...

‘Outside’

At first, as we’ve seen, this command pertained only to toilet-training. Not until that problem had been overcome was its use extended to other circumstances.

            Tawny wanted always to be with me. Why should she go outside when I was inside? What was I up to? She viewed the whole idea with the utmost suspicion.

            To overcome this I made use of the pantry, which has only one door. The dogs are not allowed in there because it is a very small space and they soon realise that they get trapped in there and trodden on. When Tawny followed me in to the pantry I pushed her out with a firm ‘Outside!’  After about a week of this she came to realise that she couldn’t sneak out any other way; only then was she able to accept the command and wait patiently in the kitchen.

            Once that part of it was achieved it was no problem to use the command in regards to other rooms, and then to the outdoors – but only ever for good reasons.  One of the best reasons was to get the dogs to take their bones out of the house; they soon associated ‘Take it outside’ with the fun of chewing on their post-meal evening bone. Then one could use the command for any reason – always, preferably, quietly and firmly delivered rather than furiously, even if you are cross about something.

‘Down!’

‘Down!’ I use to mean ‘Don’t jump up’, rather than ‘Lie down’, which gets its own command.   There are few things more annoying, not to mention painful, than having a dog jump up on you just when, for a change, you’re impeccably dressed.  And if your dog does it to your visitors it’s embarrassing, the people standing in a clump while you skid around their hemlines slapping ineffectually at an exuberant dog.

            Many owners decide to slam this habit out of a puppy right from the start, but I consider such harsh treatment to be grossly unfair – a betrayal of the trust the puppy might just be starting to place in you, and thus ultimately counter-productive.

It is basic and natural behaviour for a puppy to greet her mother by touching noses and “kissing” her. In the earliest stages, naturally, this stimulates the mother to regurgitate whatever she’s managed to hunt for her brood; and to do this, the puppy must jump up. From this it has developed to puppy-talk for “Mum! Hallo!”  What then if “mum” turns on her and slaps her down?  This might happen later, when the pup is much older and should be hunting for herself, but not at this early dependent age. We expect our dogs to learn an awful lot of our language; I think we should make an effort to understand at least a little of theirs.

So I was quite gentle with wee Tawny when she greeted me this way. While greeting her enthusiastically in return I would bend down to her rather than have her jump up, just pushing her down at the same time. When the first wild moments were over, I gave the command “Down!” firmly, coinciding whenever possible with the moment when her forepaws touched the ground, for emphasis, and praising her calmly when she stayed down. I think she understood the principle of the thing quite early but was unable always to contain this exuberant and instinctive behaviour.

As she grew sturdier I grew firmer, and when she was ten or eleven weeks old I moved the lesson to Stage Two by meeting her leaps with my raised leg, causing her to lose balance, and giving the command sharply.  At the same time I was careful to keep my hands out of the way, behind my back or tucked in beside me,  This is I think of the greatest importance. I often see owners using their hands to push or knock the dog down; but this makes it harder and longer for the dog to learn the lesson. It is precisely those hands whose attention the dog wants, and as long as they are coming towards her, even crossly, she thinks she is being greeted.

Because I was pretty sure Tawny actually understood the command, her first few lessons in Stage Two were mild, and that was all she needed. For quite a while she still jumped up, but at a small distance: she’d prance on her hind legs, paddle her paws in the air, but was careful not to put them on anyone. Just once in a while, when she was quite beside herself with joy, there would be a bit of a slip.

The owner of a tough, older dog  would probably have to be a lot sharper on this than I was with Tawny. He’d have to be ready to bring his knee up smartly to the dog’s chest as he jumps up, knocking  the dog backwards, if necessary with increasing severity until the lesson is learned. But it is too easy to injure a young puppy by doing this: at an early age, you have to be gentle, and you have to use your hands.  A great many puppies learn the lesson right there, and never even have to reach Stage Two.

Provided the trainer is consistent, persistent and firm, I have seldom known this method to fail.   But here is the trick: if she’s jumping up in greeting, I knock her down with the knee, snapping the command simultaneously – and then immediately go down to her and greet her lovingly, so that she understands that it is not the greeting that is at fault, but her method.  If it’s excitement about going for a walk, again I give the command, but swing away and invite her to come and get on with the walk.

 'Mind'

Puppies have a way of getting underfoot that can be positively dangerous. Right from the start I took a whippy, leafy twig with me whenever I walked with Tawny.

            I first stumbled over her a couple of times to show her the hazard, saying “Mind!” sharply. Each time she got in the way after that I swished the twig at her, telling her to mind in the same tone. It took three days of countless repetitions for her to understand.  She was then just seven weeks old.

            When she was three months old I extended the command to mean that she should move from her position even when she was remote from me.  By this time she knew the word well, but only in relation to avoiding being trodden on.  The first time I tried the extended meaning was when she was standing too close to the wheels of a visitor’s car that was about to move away.  When I called her to “mind” she looked across to me and wagged her tail in acknowledgement, then looked all around as if to see who was about to trip over her. Her tail dropped a bit, she looked at me again, moved her tail apologetically and put her head on one side questioningly. I went to her and drew her away from the wheel, saying, “Mind, mind car!”

            Opportunities such as this didn’t occur as often as (nearly) getting trodden on, and it took another three months before she would readily move from her position on command, especially when she could see no reason to do so.  Again, consistency is the key: there always needs to be a reason, as she would always find out.  “Mind” remains one of the most useful and flexible of commands.

******

The Training of Tawny Part 5

 The collar

In keeping with tradition, when Tawny turned 8 weeks old she was given a collar – the softest, lightest one possible. It was, in fact, an old one rubbed soft with white wax floor-polish and worn by many puppies and several fawns.  It had been clipped short so that just a fraction protruded beyond the buckle. No matter if it wasn’t strong enough to hold her: its only purpose was to get her used to the feel of it.

            She jumped and rubbed and scratched and moaned as if she felt a string of grass-seeds strangling her. I took her immediately on an interesting ramble to take her mind off it.  By the next day she hardly noticed it, just as one stops noticing the feel of a wrist-watch.

            Several days later, when the collar no longer meant anything to her, I took it off again. Thereafter I put it on when we went out for a walk, and took it off as soon as she got home. In this way she soon connected it with an exciting walk and welcomed it.

            At least two weeks went by before the collar was used for any form of control, and then a very light lead was attached to it for her first lesson in walking to heel.

            Living in the bush one is faced with the dilemma of whether to leave collars on the dogs permanently or not. If they go off hunting on their own, will they get hitched up on a branch or on the horn of a buck they have bayed? Would the tusk of a wild pig get under it and break the dog’s neck? On the other hand, many dogs caught in wire snares around the neck have been saved from strangulation by their collars. Once one of my dogs, leaping between me and a cobra we’d disturbed, took the full force of the snake’s strike and was unharmed.

            My dogs, thank heavens, never leave the house without me and in the bush are always nearby. So a dog in training has her collar put on to go out and removed when she comes home. If one of the dogs is fierce or bouncy and I’m expecting fragile visitors sometime that day, I leave the collar on after the dawn walk and remove it after the evening exercise. I never leave a collar on any dog when I go out without them; I always feel that if there was any trouble between the dogs and the labourers or intruders I’d rather the dogs were not too easy to grab.  A young dog I once helped to treat had been caught by the collar and brutally beaten with grass-slashers over every part of his body, while his owner was away.

The lead

Once Tawny was used to wearing a collar she was shown the lead, a light leather one to start with. She was allowed to smell it and play with it for several minutes while lying down before it was attached to her collar. Gentle tugs were then made in a playful way; after which, with the lead on, I played with her in the house.

            In spite of these preliminaries, thrice repeated, she was like a fish on the end of a line the first time she went out on the lead. I let her pull long enough for her to realise that it wasn’t going to break but not long enough for her to panic, before sitting down and calling her into my lap for a hug. Each time she began to jump around on the lead I distracted  her attention in some way to bring her in closer to me and only then trying a few more steps forward.

            On the third time out I could see she wasn’t jerking on the lead in fear but in fury. I put a lead on well-trained TellMe and placed Tawny on her own lead between us.  On command TellMe walked soberly to heel and in no time at all Tawny saw what it was all about and more or less resigned herself to the task.

            Now I could change her light lead, which really wasn’t strong enough for control, to a nylon one with a length of chain at the clip end. I find with new puppies the noise and weight of this short length of chain, although very slight, tends to worry them too much to be the first to use.

            Like many pups, Tawny thought of picking up the lead about six inches from the clip and carrying it. In this way, although she still had to come when told, she felt she had some control over the exercise. It’s a pretty sight to see a little dog trotting alongside her owner with a loop of lead in her mouth, but it doesn’t allow for fine control over the dog. I aim to have my dogs as sensitive to a touch on the lead as a horse is to the rein.

            I use several types of lead – the light leather thong for beginners; the nylon cord with 10 inches of light chain attached to the clip end with a swivel clip; another fashioned in the same way but a quarter again as long; the slip-lead – a strong leather strap of standard lead length ending in a metal ring through which the hand-hold can be passed to make a choker less harsh than a choke-chain; a smart all-chain lead with a leather hand-hold loop for town wear; and a 15-foot training lead of light nylon rope.  Bay is so tall that her collar is at my waist, making a standard-length lead unnecessary when she is walking to heel. So for town wear, when she has to stay at heel all the time, she has a very short chain lead with a leather hand-hold. The chain-work on all these leads, as with choker-chains, is all of flat, smooth, flexible links. When I exercise or work the dogs in the bush I usually take only the all-leather slip-lead because of its versatility. It can be collar-cum-lead as it is supposed to be, a lasso to catch and hold a calf, a halter for a horse, a rope to help me climb a tree, a tourniquet, and heaven knows what else.

The choke-chain collar

Sensitive, light-boned Tawny proved easy enough to manage without resorting to the choke-chain, but I use them for the other dogs.  If used intelligently the choke-chain can be a useful aid in controlling a powerful animal, or in teaching a strong, stubborn puppy exactly where she should be when walking to heel – because when she is in that position you relax the pull on the lead and the collar becomes completely slack, not merely less tight as with an ordinary buckled-on collar. Most puppies soon learn which the most comfortable position is, and that deviating from it brings an immediate tightening of the collar.

            I am totally against the practice of leaving a choke-chain on a dog in place of a buckle-on collar unless the ends are tied to de-activate the running-noose action.

            There is often some initial confusion as to the correct and safe way the choke-chain should be worn.  Here it is, step by step:

           1. Attach the lead to one ring of the choke-chain, thus ‘identifying’ one ring.

            2. Feed the entire chain through the other ring to form a circle.

            3. With the dog at your left side, facing the same way as yourself, put the circle over her head.   The chain of the collar should travel straight from the lead across the back of the dog’s neck and round her throat. (If it goes from the lead under the throat, it can tighten with a vicious turning motion which can be very damaging to the dog’s throat.  If you try to put it on when facing the dog, it’s easier to get it on wrong.)

*******

The Training of Tawny - Part 4

Tawny and the bantams

At dawn bushbuck and duiker browse through the garden.  Bushpigs dig over the compost; mongooses fossick in the flower beds after mole-crickets, beetle grubs and other delicacies. The fruits of the great wild fig, mimusops and quinine trees shading the lawns, as well as those in the orchard below, are gleefully gorged upon by somango monkeys, sun squirrels and every bird from hornbill to bulbul, and at night by bushbabies, tree civets and genets. Buck, bushpigs, civets, mongooses and the dark glossy chongololo millipedes, some of them nine inches long, gratefully pick up the fallen fruit dropped by the wasteful tree dwellers. ‘Tornado’, the great snail, antenna’s his way across the lawn. Clearly the use of any insecticide is out of the question.  Hence I keep a small flock bantams to help control the insects.

            Predators abound.  I lose quite a few bantams to them, and would surely lose them all but for the dogs.  At the first squawk of alarm from the bantams they rage out to chase off the attacker. When all is calm we go on to reunite the scattered chicks with their anxious mothers, sniff out any that are missing and, perhaps, if we haven’t been able to get there fast enough, find a pathetic bundle of bloodied feathers.  Shout ‘Hawk!’ or even say it in the softest whisper, Tawny races out to search the sky.  If she sees one she runs below it, preventing it from coming down, until it gives up and goes elsewhere.

            Some of the smaller hawks, however, come through the dense tree-tops, hop by cautious hop, drop and snatch a chick before anyone has seen them.  If it is raining, civets, normally nocturnal, sometimes venture out and under cover of the noise of the rain creep up on the flock unawares. Others are bolder. Crowned eagles tumble in the sky, yelping musically and giving their presence away. In a parasol tree on the edge of the garden where the thick branches grow out from a crown like a giant umbrella blown inside out, an eagle began to build a nest, in good view of the bantams’ range – a flat above the restaurant. Furious that she couldn’t reach it, or prevent it building there, Tawny nevertheless fumed at it so constantly that it lost its nerve and moved its nest site further into the forest.

            Hens will sing about a new-laid egg, take to the air shrieking ‘Freedom!’ when they leave the broody nest for a meal or a dustbath, scream ‘Rape! Rape!’ hysterically as the cock chases them, trying desperately to keep his upright stance, wings stiffly at his side, which is so impressive when he’s standing but ridiculously awkward to maintain when running; and sometimes a hen will take to crowing herself.  Tawny will barely flick an ear at all this nonsense. She pays more attention to the cock.

            Among his extensive vocabulary is a special sound that means he sees a danger high, high in the sky, and everyone must keep dead still.  It even sounds a bit like ‘Freeze!’ Another sound means a bird is flying low – a sudden flash of wings.  Yet another means something is walking on the ground. Tawny understands these warnings and takes careful note, although, as they are quite small sounds, she is not always within earshot. The cock’s full alarm cry, of course, is unmistakable and Tawny can rush to his aid, hurtling over the stonewall contours of the steep garden faster than any of us could without breaking a leg.

***

The pretty legend about tiny chicks scuttling under the mamma hen when alarmed certainly doesn’t apply to my bantams. Instead the hen leaps up flapping and squawking, making a fine target and distraction of herself, while the chicks dive under the nearest cover and crouch motionless, sometimes for hours, until she clucks them out again. Sometimes she doesn’t know where they are and is so distressed that, instead of giving reassuring clucks to bring them out of hiding, she goes on shouting as if she thinks the predator must have got them all, and the chicks stay hidden.  Then Tawny is called to nose them out one by one and reunite them with their anxious mother.

            I give her a fairly free hand in this. The chicks are so tiny and well camouflaged, hiding under a dry leaf or a bend of grass, that I could easily step on them.

            One evening when we were looking for a day-old chick, with the dark almost upon us, I noticed her lying down with her chin between her paws, her eyes swivelling as she watched me searching carefully through the grass. This was quite unlike her. Usually she works with such enthusiasm I have to sometimes tell her, ‘Gently, slow down!’

            ‘Come on, Tawny,’ I called, ‘what’s wrong with you?’

            Minutes later, when she hadn’t moved, I went over to her. ‘On your feet, woman! Work!’ I urged, gentling back my impatience. ‘Find kip-kip!’

            Without lifting her head from her pawns, her eyes turned up to my face, she slowly opened her mouth and out tripped the missing chick like a gently bowled marble, quite unharmed. The tip of Tawny’s tail flipped apologetically: she isn’t allowed to take so much as a fallen feather in her mouth, let alone a live chick. She must have fished this little mite out of its hiding place and then not known quite what to do about it.

            More than once I have scolded her for apparently abandoning the search and going way off on her own. Then she shames me by coming back with a missing chicken, patiently nosing it through the grass and bushes to rejoin the others.

            Jack built the bantams a super house – stronger than the cracked and ancient house we ourselves live in – that even a honey badger, who could dig you out of a maximum security prison if he had a mind to, cannot break into. Bantams mostly like to roost in trees, out in God’s own fresh typhoon, where they fall easy prey to predators.  But get the cock to go in the house and the hens usually follow.

            Tawny makes sure they do. She rounds up the loiterers and hustles them in, then follows, looking around the roosts and the nesting boxes, for all the world as if she is counting them.

            The hens don’t care to sleep long in the nesting boxes, for reasons of heat and hygiene, and often before their chicks are really big enough to hop up the ladders to roost, flap upstairs, clucking encouragingly for the babies to follow. I let them try for a while and if they can’t make it, either lift the hen down and tell her to go to sleep in a box for a few more nights, or lift the chicks up to her.

            They are difficult to catch, being worried and feeling very small and abandoned down on the floor. So I crouch down and cup my palms low to the floor, and very gently Tawny noses and nudges the cheeping little chicks into my hands.  Before long they learn to hop in by themselves, as taking-for-granted as office workers stepping into a lift.

*****

The Training of Tawny Part 3

Praise

I would be expecting some enthusiastic work from Tawny when she was older; therefore praise for work well done or a command swiftly executed would necessarily be enthusiastic. If I were to give her nothing but low-key or minimal praise, she would eventually give me only low-keyed work.

This principle would not apply to matters of discipline, or any other situation where Tawny, having come under control, would be required to remain controlled. In such situations praise would always be genuine, but not so wild and lavish that the sense of control would be lost.

Take, for instance, the incident of the sitting-room chair.  Tawny so wanted to be in that chair but, with a big prick from her conscience and little guidance from me, she controlled her desire and lay down on the floor.  She wanted to curl up and sleep and now she was in the correct place to do so. Had my praise been other than subdued she would have got up and come to me, pleased and playful, and would have to start all over again with deciding where to sleep.

She certainly deserved some praise. She was a very young puppy among people still strange to her, yet she had stopped to think about what she was going to do in relation to my wishes, had correctly interpreted and obeyed my response to her questioning gaze. A loving expression and a soft ‘Clever baby!’ quite sufficed.

For some reason my dogs seem to think that the exclamation ‘Good girl!’ means the end of the lesson or the end of the job and they start fooling around again. ‘Clever girl’ hasn’t the same effect.  I don’t know why this should be; perhaps because ‘Good girl’ or ‘Good dog’ is used by everyone, including visitors, and means to them only that the humans are pleased with them, in a general way, which of course makes them feel free and bouncy.  So ‘Clever’ is their praise word for use within working or training situations.

Table manners

In the evening the cats and dogs are fed at the same time in individual dishes on the floor of the small kitchen.  While I’m preparing the food they all hang around, hintfully licking their lips and dribbling. The dogs who can fit under the kitchen table sit there on sack-covered boards. Bay, who can’t fit, waits in the doorway. The cats are allowed anywhere but on the table.  There must not be a hint of a whimper nor a mutter of miaow, or a damp cloth descends from nowhere, splat. If a bit of food falls on the floor no one may snatch it. I put the dishes down 2 by 2. They all know their own names and places and wait their turn. When the last animal is served Bay walks in untold to her plate, which I hold for her sitting on the stool, keeping a watchful eye on the rest.

            Some eat slowly, some fast.  No one is allowed to snitch from another’s plate. One cat might feel there’s a need, just today, to be fed with the fingers, and sits and waits patiently until I can come to the rescue. The big eaters stare hard at the leftovers until, if I can spare it, I tell them they can clean up. The dogs then get a bone each and take them off to favourite spots to avoid any fighting. Afterwards they may come back to ask for soup or milk. They ask only with their eyes.  The cats sometimes ask for milk, too – they are permitted a pip of a miaow if their eloquent looks don’t get my attention.

            The routine is unvarying, predictable and trusted. That’s discipline.

            It’s easy to enforce. The proprietory right over food is a very strong law amongst carnivores. I am their pack leader and my rulings on ‘the kill’ are respected. New puppies, transgressing, get a growled ‘No!’ and are pushed firmly into their places. Cats get hissed at: ‘S-s-s Fable!’  (for this reason, I don’t name cats with names beginning with S). Sometimes in the early stages they have to be pushed off their line of robbery with a palm against their noses, or plopped with a damp dishcloth, which is perfectly harmless but hateful.  If they are too young to understand, less than six weeks, say, they are fed in another room.

            At six weeks old Tawny couldn’t understand. At seven-and-a-half weeks she was allowed in the kitchen with the others. Two days later I could turn my back on her without a worry.  Each new generation copies the behaviour of the established incumbents with the minimum of guidance from me.  I just had to invoke existing hierarchies.  When Tawny was still small her attention would sometimes wander from her evening bone, and Bay or TellMe, liking to think it was entirely abandoned, would pick it up. ‘No,’ I’d remind them, ‘That’s Tawny’s bone.’ And they’d spit it out regretfully and amble off.  Quite marvellous.

Discipline

I am sure that you will agree that if a child or an animal is to be comfortable in, and totally accepted by the society into which Destiny has dumped them, they must know the rules and stick to them most of the time.  In our home, there are probably more strictly enforced rules than in most households.  The fact that this place is a wildlife sanctuary, and wild animals can’t really be disciplined, lays a further burden of good behaviour on the domestic animals -  and the humans.  To offset this a great deal of time is lavished on play, praise and loving.

            So of paramount importance is no chasing or barking at cats or any other animal.  In this respect there are some lessons that are more quickly and soundly learnt by a puppy if she thinks the subsequent happenings are purely the result of her own action and not that somehow she has displeased someone.

            When crippled Fleur and Tawny first came face to face I stood guard, a flyswat secretly at the ready.  My small hope that they would kiss and make friends was still-born. At the first quick movement forward by Tawny the flyswat stung her ears.  The next time it was harder.  Puzzled, she looked up at me, but I was looking up at the ceiling.  A few experiences of this convinced her that Fleur was equipped with a secret weapon and was better left alone.  This translated to the other cats and the lesson was learned before the second day with us had passed.

            Barking at the other cats, a problem not needing such an instant solution, brought a sharp, ‘No!’ from me with a loud clap of my hands, backed up if necessary with a quick grip and shake of her scruff, as a wild mother dog would do to discipline her puppy.  As she grew, Tawny  would have to learn that she was allowed to really bark, as opposed to wuffing or growling, only as a warning of the presence of strange dogs and humans.

            Very soon, when the cats no longer ran away, the fun went out of baiting them – and anyway, why worry about that when there were bantams to chase.

            On this score I said nothing at all for there was a far more efficient teacher than myself.  This was old When (White-hen) who had two small chicks that I knew she would defend with the ferocity of a hawk – and so she did.  She leaped on Tawny’s back and rode her, shrieking, down the terraced garden, the yelping puppy bucking like a bronco.  Tawny’s conclusion: bantams are all right for looking at but not for chasing, really.

            Had When not been available I would have had to take Tawny on a lead, small as she was, and walk her among the hens, sit down among them with her in my lap, and every time she showed an active interest, tell her firmly, ‘No!’ grasp her muzzle and give it a small, single shake inwards towards her chest. I might have had to do this so often it would have become thoroughly boring.

            As it happened, a few days later she walked, by accident or design, close to another bantam with newly hatched chicks. There were fearful shrieks and Tawny fled for the house screaming blue murder.  Dan and I were in the kitchen and quickly turned our backs and chatted loudly as if we hadn’t noticed. Tawny pressed against our legs, crying, but we ignored her. After a while she went to the door and watched the bantams from a position of safety.

            Now it happened that a little earlier Bay had snapped at Tawny for tampering with her bone; I had rushed to snatch up the yelping puppy and comfort her – though I didn’t chastise Bay for asserting ‘pack discipline’.  Bay, Tawny and I now belonged to the same ‘pack’ and at this early stage Tawny could expect a measure of protection and sympathy from her ‘mother’ or ‘pack leader’.  In the case of the bantams, this was not forthcoming; the lesson was learned.

            To reinforce this I took Tawny with me for a while to the hen-house early every morning to let them out to free-range for the day.  They flew from their perches, squawking and clucking through the door, the cock trying to chase all the hens at once, while I held Tawny firmly in my arms.  Eventually she lost interest.  In time she would learn to correctly interpret all the sounds the bantams make and react accordingly.

More on bantams in the next post.

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The Training of Tawny Part 2

Come

The next most important word for Tawny to learn was ‘Come’. Come-for-food, come-for-romp, come-for-grooming... never Come-and-be-admonished. She learned that in a day or two.  Even then she hesitated, reluctant to leave what she was doing, I kept the command joyful and inviting.  If she still hesitated I would prance away, patting my lap, or else pick her up with a firm but gentle command to come. I suspect most dogs learn this word quickly but are not always keen to obey.  When they are old enough for a collar and lead one can be more insistent.

            I once took in a young dog, slightly older than this easy small-puppy stage, who had never been stroked or patted.  She had no name; the only communication she knew was an abusive shout.  Her survival strategy was Grab what you can and run.  At first I spoke only one word to her: Come, softly and gently and always when close to her.  Come-for-your-food, Come-outside-with-me, Come-to-your-bed... The puzzled expression on her face as she tried to understand this human sound that seemed to be directed at her was sweetly comical.  I kept this up for a full week before coupling it with her name – RainShadow.

            

Seeing Bay and TellMe react so gladly to the word must have helped her understand, just as their obviously relaxed contentment must have helped her trust me.  On the third day with us I saw the worried alert look beginning to leave her eyes and the trembling lessen, and soon she was over her bad start in life and in time became a useful member of our little animal rescue team.

            But back to Tawny.

            When she was good at ‘Come’ I introduced the first hand-signal for it – patting my thigh in the usual way while calling her.  In a couple of days she had grasped that combination, and I then substituted as often as not a whistle instead of the word.  When she was older she learned another signal for Come, where I held my arms straight above my head and parted and crossed them several times while calling.  This was for use when we were far apart or in long grass when patting my thigh wouldn’t be seen.

            Another signal useful in thick bush or thickets where movement is restricted, is an inward beckoning with the hand such as one would use with a person, and this in time could be reduced to crooking a finger if Tawny was close enough to see it.  These two signals were easily taught by combining them with the ‘Come’ whistle until they could, if necessary, be used on their own.

            She seemed inherently sensitive to the sound of a whistle and reacted instantly, as if she couldn’t help herself, whereas she was often noticeably slower to respond to a call or a hand-signal which she knew equally well.

           Yet another signal to come she was quick to learn was an inviting toss of the head.  It may seem strange that a dog should find this very human gesture easy to pick up.  But if you watch a young dog trying to get another to come on and play, you see it moving its head playfully from side to side, its chin tucked in.  Basenjis do this in a very pronounced way, and recognise the similar action in a person immediately, without having to be taught.

           By the time Tawny was a year old I had only to give her a certain look and she would come.  I think dogs are a lot more aware of our facial expressions than most people realise.  For this reason I believe it is better not to train a dog while wearing dark glasses.

‘No!’

Because Tawny was a healthy and lively pup, of course the moment she settled she was up to every trick. ‘No!’ was the word she heard more than any other in those early days – so much so I worried a little she might think it was her name!  ‘No!’ was barked at her, snapped at her, growled at her, in both human and dog-language, and accompanied by a dark and threatening look.  In time, the look alone would suffice, without a word being said.

            At first she responded very well to this command. Later, when she had grown a bit and had thoughts of cutting loose from mamma’s apron strings, she sometimes got a cheeky look in her eye, tossed her little head and went right on with what she was doing.  Now I had to be sure that when I said ‘No!’ I really meant it, no two ways about it – it could be life-saving, when confronted by a venomous snake, for example. So sometimes the word had to be reinforced with a small slap or a sharp clap of the hands.

House-training

One thing that couldn’t wait for English proficiency, of course, was house-training.  For the first couple of days while things were still strange to her, I tried to anticipate a puddle coming and carry her outside to a designated spot in the garden.  I did this after every meal or drink.

            Our house is built on a narrow contour carved out of the steep hillside and has steps on all sides except the back, and these did present a problem to her until she worked out a way to tumble down them and scramble back up.  Another problem, common to all puppies, was that while the need to pass a dropping could be felt in advance, a puddle just came when it came.  When a ‘mistake’ was made in the house I slapped the floor hard beside it, saying ‘No! No!’ then ‘Outside!’ and carried her out to the spot in the garden.  If it was a dropping I scooped that up and took it out as well, if possible to leave it there for a while, as dogs have a natural tendency to use the same area repeatedly to relieve themselves.

           In such circumstances many people slap the puppy.  I fail to see any sense in this. The idea isn’t to teach her not to relieve herself, but not to do so in the house.  The action of slapping the floor beside the mistake and one’s stern expression and voice is quite enough to convey the displeasure.

            Within three days Tawny understood but couldn’t always make it outside in time.  The first time she achieved this and passed a dropping in the garden I saw her look at me worriedly.  I told her gently, ‘Clever girl!’ which reassured her instantly.  Even at that young age an intelligent puppy can read one’s voice, expressions and movements with amazing accuracy.  And undoubtedly Bay and TellMe’s graphic demonstrations in the garden helped Tawny grasp this important lesson.

           Still, it wasn’t long before I had to go into hospital for a foot operation, and Tawny went into kennels.  When I returned, all that Tawny remembered of house training was how absorbent was the sitting-room carpet.

            So we started again.  First thing in the morning and last thing at night, Bay and I took Tawny outside and gave her a small demonstration, if you know what I mean, and waited until she had done likewise.  This was not a popular activity when it was raining.

            When I discovered a mistake in the house at least I knew it was hers. I took her to it –  never calling her to it because that would soon have made reluctant to come at all – held her to it, pointed it out and slapped the floor beside it, then took her out, ‘Outside!’  If it was a dropping I’d take it out with her to her ‘toilet place’ in the garden; then sit with her a while and soothe and calm her. She needed reassuring until she grasped that it was not doing the dropping that was the issue, it was where she did it.

Bay wonders if she's accidentally squashed someone...

           Tawny was easy – not all pups are – and was quite reliable after another week. Before she could last out through the night I put down newspapers sprinkled with earth by the door and encouraged her to go there.  By the time she was 8 weeks old she could last from 10 pm to 5 am, unless disturbed.

            As with all the early lessons in good behaviour, reliability grew as she grew – and as they were praised.

(More on praise in the next post.)

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The Training of Tawny (1)

The Training of Tawny

Introduction

Jill Wylie often wrote of her tracker-dogs’ sundry achievements, especially the tracking down of lost and trapped animals, and many people asked how she managed to train them in such apparently extraordinary ways.  She would characteristically express bafflement at the question, as if she had never thought about her method, or regarded it as so instinctive and transparent it needed no explanation.  However, she did eventually begin to write something a bit more instructional than her usual stories, accounts, poems, books and reports. The Training of Tawny recounts in a sort of ‘biographical’ way how Jill went about training Tawny, a little Labrador-cross, to trust her, integrate with the menagerie of Wildwoods Sanctuary, and do the search work.

            The manuscript was never finished, but there is enough of it worth airing, which we will do in several parts.  In some ways, there isn’t anything extraordinary about Jill’s methods: as you’ll see, it all seems so obvious actually.  What was extraordinary was the ends to which she put that training – and because she had a purpose, and needed a woman-dog team to achieve it, she did end up with astonishing successes.  In the end, it is all founded on insight, observation, empathy and a pure reverence for life itself. - Dan Wylie

PART 1

She was an unsolicited gift from a distant friend.  Her mother was said to have been a yellow Labrador – more likely Golden Retriever – father unknown.  I thought I could detect a touch of Collie, more certainly Spaniel – in any case really just the sort of dog I would have chosen myself.  We already had two dogs: Bay, an enormous Great Dane-Irish Wolfhound cross, and TellMe, a Basenji-cross-Keeshond, but they were getting on in years and it was not a bad time to take on a puppy.

            Her new home was Wildwoods Sanctuary, our wildlife, forest and conservation sanctuary in the Vumba mountains of eastern Zimbabwe.  She was about to enter a rather busy household, which consisted of the following:

            One husband (Jack);

            One 16-year old son (Danny);

            Two dogs: TellMe, surrogate mother to countless puppies, kittens and fawns; and Bay, 125 pounds of loveable stupidity;

            Five cats (Bounce, 17 years old and very polite; Drum, Siamese-coloured “tom-tom”; Fable, stocky Russian Blue with a crushed zig-zag of a tail; Yes-I-Am, Siamese orphan from the forest; Jungle, beautiful bottle-reared “show-tabby”; and Fleur, black-and-white long-hair, once paralyzed but moving well if shyly now;

            One genet, Whipaway, an orphan in process of rehabilitating into the forest but still paying regular visits;

            One duiker, Hillbilly, another orphan now free but regularly returning to share the chicken-grain;

            One small flock of bantams, including When, fierce 8-year old mamma hen.

Into this menagerie tumbled 6-week-old Tawny – so named for the shaded gold of her coat –  weary and confused after her long journey, but undismayed by the number and variety of her sudden companions.  There would be a great deal to learn.

She ran immediately to big Bay; maybe she looked something like her Labrador mother, magnified several times. Young Bay, who had never seen a puppy before, was wonderfully and unexpectedly gentle. She knocked her softly flat with her exploring nose, tried her best not to tread on her with her huge paws and took great care not to sit on her.  She never cared who else she sat on.

TellMe took time to look over the new arrival, accepted her and immediately demanded that she behave herself in her presence.

That night I put Tawny’s basket on the floor by my bed, settled her on her blanket with a hot-water bottle under it, to provide a warm and rounded bulk like a companion pup.  When she woke in the night whimpering for her mother and the security of her siblings, I could drop my hand down to her and she would know she was not alone.

By dawn she was rested but naturally still confused.  I gave her a drink of warm milk and took her out immediately onto the lawn to relieve herself.  I called her, Tawny Tawny Tawny – the first lesson she needed to learn.  When Jack had gone to work and Danny to school, I sat on the lawn again, took the puppy onto my lap and called her name over and over, in soft excited tones until she was happily dancing on my lap, loving this new game.  During the day I called her many times in the same soft tones, whenever there was something to show her or give her, and by evening she knew that this special sound meant her – and so did Bay and TellMe, who, when they heard that name, would instantly look around for her.  She was uncertain, though, when Jack and Danny returned in the late afternoon and called her in their voices.  It would take a day or two to realise the word ‘Tawny’, in any voice or tone, was meant for her.

Jill, Bay and Tawny

Trust

After that first playful lesson on the lawn I lay back and nestled her into my armpit, stroked and crooned to her and felt the tension run out of her.  There, with her head on my shoulder and her face next to mine, she gave me her trust, totally and unconditionally.  There is something about that position that seems to reassure frightened and insecure puppies.  I have used it many times.  It’s akin to when a small, troubled child puts their little hand in yours and you feel that awesome trust flow into your very soul.

Starting out

I like to start training a puppy when she is six weeks old.  This may seem very young.  I once thought so, too – until our Basenjis had pups.

            Basenjis, allowed to develop as they should, are as close to nature as are cats.  In fact they display many feline characteristics. When their puppies were six weeks old our two took them out and taught them – to mind from underfoot, to come, to wait, to keep quiet, to track, to observe, to obey. It is quite amazing how much a healthy, inquisitive puppy can learn at that early age. Reliability, of course, comes only after practice, maturity and self-control.

            To start training such a tiny puppy without confusing her or inducing negativism, I need to have a clear plan of what I am going to ask of her as an adult dog as well as at each stage of her development, and the vocabulary I will use. I need to know something of dog psychology and the origins of her instinctive behaviour.  I must be prepared to ‘think dog’ as often as I ‘think human’. To realise her potential and her limitations, I must be able to accurately read her expressions and her body talk. And I must train as a parent.  Later, when I want serious work from her, I gradually become something of a pack leader, as well as something of a big sister.  If at the same time I allow her to become something of a human, as she readily will if she trusts me, we will have a great thing going between us.

            The main thing at this very early stage is that one is hardly ‘training’ so much as reinforcing what is already coming naturally to the puppy, saying ‘Come’ when she is already coming, ‘Sit’ when she is already in the act on her own, and using the enthusiasm of her own curiosity more than anything else.

            I have read many manuals on dog training. The methods used for basic obedience are generally the same, while the approach to more advanced work varies considerably.  Some are rather insipid and shallow, many too unsympathetic and over-regimented for my liking.  Most are set for proper school conditions and many lessons call for the aid of an assistant.  Which I didn’t have.  And would never have in the real-life search situation in the bush.  I had to work rather differently.