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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