BAD Behavior NOT Reactive

Close to 14 years ago now, my Pluto died. He had come to live with us in August of 1987. I know that date because it is the year we moved into our little house, and that little black and white puppy, six weeks  old, became ours because the other person who wanted him did not have a fence.  That fact changed our lives; Pluto’s mother was a cocker; his father was a border collie. Pluto adored me more than I deserved. Ten years later, Mac was born down the road—the dog of a lifetime, and he looked like a mini-me when walking beside a lumbering Pluto. In March of 2001, Pluto died, over 13 years old, and I learned what it means to lose your heart. A few weeks later, Millie came.

Her first owners named her Millennium Noelle—they got her for the children, Christmas in 1999—Millie for short. Though she came with ABCA (American Border Collie Association—the working border collie group) papers, they had never sent them in, and though I kept the Millie, I just didn’t think she seemed like a Millennium Noelle kind of girl. Eventually she was registered as Pluto’s Millie, starting a tradition of putting the previous dog’s name in front of the new dog’s name in registering them. Whisper, the object of this blog, is Millie’s Whisper.  Sometimes their similar behavior makes it eerie.

This family was a really nice family with a beautiful home. Both adults worked. By the time we met them, the children were two and four years old, the mother was pregnant again, and Millie, very, very sweet, had run a path around the fairly small, fenced back yard. I worked with border collie rescue at the time, and I was checking to see if we could foster her for awhile.  She was 16-months old, with all the energy a big ole gallumping border collie puppy has, she was big for a border collie, had a rather unusual, though not unheard of, chestnut-tri coat, and greeted us, um, enthusiastically. We had brought Mac with us. Mac, who had been with us since he was eight weeks old and had lived since that day to please us, was, to say the least, horrified at her behavior. She ran around the path she had worn in the yard. She jumped on us. She jumped on Mac. She jumped on her family. She ran some more.  All the while, she smiled…..

We agreed to give it a try, which her original family took to mean we would take her and they would never see her again. I truly believe they loved her, but they really had no idea what to do with her. As the mother emailed me later, “I think we got the wrong breed.”

Christmas puppies are very often a bad idea; border collies for pets are often a bad idea. Put two bad ideas together, and you get, 14 months later, well, Millie.

They gave us her dish, a crate, a tie out stake (which I threw away), a tennis ball, some food….that was it, all she had. On the way home in our little Carolla I sat in the back seat with her. She LUNGED (imagine a big dog lunging from one side of a small car to another) at the passing cars, barking. Mac scrambled to the front seat and got under the dash, mortified at her behavior. He looked up, worry wrinkling his beautiful face. “She’s not STAYING is she?”

But, we made it home, and she settled down in the house. Of course, she later jumped on the neighbor’s dog as fast as she could. I had asked her previous owner “Is she okay with cats?” since we had one. “Oh, yeah, she’s fine with cats.” They really were tired of this big puppy’s antics. And, so, my cat lived behind the dresser in the bedroom for three months. At night, I would crate Millie. As soon as the crate door closed, Snoopy, the cat (my five-year-old son named all our pets back then) would slink from behind the dresser and slither in front of the crate, flipping his tail back and forth, tormenting Millie as she barked from inside her crate, unable to chase him back behind the shelter where he stayed during the day.

She thought, “Millie, come!!” meant turn and run away as fast as you can. I did not want her crated all day and all night, so I left her out with Mac during the day. She tore the drapes off the sliding glass door—twice. She pulled food off the counters. NO ONE liked her.

And, yet….she was this sweet, sweet dog, if you could get past her behavior.  She had these amazing amber eyes—my husband called them “Betty Davis eyes.”  And, unlike my current reactive dog, it was obvious that her behavior was not beyond control; no one had ever taught her how to behave.

And, so, I set about teaching her what proper behavior was. As my husband said one time, “That is a lot of dog.” She had a strong will, and she was not afraid to use it. But, little by little, using treats and repetition, she learned. After a few months we took a class to get a CGC. To my amazement, Millie was the star of the class. I don’t mean I was pleasantly surprised, I mean I was drop-jawed gob-smacked.  At the end of the class, she did get a CGC (Canine Good Citizen) certificate. Later, she got another CGC, as in those early years she could forget she was a good citizen.

We went to work sheep, which sent her joy-o-meter way out the top. Listening to commands was not an option. Finally, I just let her go where she wanted, and when she had a poor sheep penned in one corner of the field, she looked back at me, tongue to the ground, happy, and for all the world looked like, “Now, what do I do?” After that, the herding instructor always did work with her on sheep; she was too much dog for me there, but she did compete and did succeed there.  We sent her for one week of sheep camp with the instructor who she knew and liked, and that week of steady sheep work made a big difference for her.

With all the work and classes and instruction, she calmed down and became consistently the sweet girl we knew she was. During these years, I had the first of many surgeries on my feet….and we enrolled in therapy dog class. Millie rocked there.  She developed an ability to sense when someone was ill or weaker in some way. She was great when we went to Alzheimer’s patients because she was a big, sturdy dog, and they could pound her head as she smiled at them. She was magic with children.

I could give example after example of Millie giving comfort to those who needed it. But one stands out. I worked with a man who got a diagnosis of a rare, frequently terminal cancer. He and I both came to work on a Saturday, and I brought Millie with me, not knowing he was there. When he saw her, he got on the floor with her, and she was so gentle with him, letting him pet her, and she comforted him.

On December 7, 2012, we lost Millie, one of the hardest days of my life. She had a tumor, and we had to make that decision all those who love their dogs dread. I held her as the doctor gave her the shot, and I felt her heart stop.  I miss her every day still.  Though I invested a lot of time and money into making her a “good” dog, she gave back much, much more than I ever gave her. She was the gift, the best kind, the gift I never saw coming.  I am so grateful her family decided, wisely, that they were not the best fit for her; I am so grateful that my husband kept saying, when potential adopters would apply for her, “they aren’t good enough for her,” and we finally adopted her. 

After each of Millie's accomplishments, each certificate she got, each title or step she took, I sent copies to her first family as long as I was able to keep contact with them. Eventually, after they moved or changed jobs, or both, I lost contact. But I wanted them to know that this dog they had spent a not inconsiderable amount of money for, and that they had done their best for, had a good life. The wife said to me once, "You were an answer to prayer." They sought a group they believed would do best for their dog. They realized this dog was not right for their family at this time in their life. And, certainly, I will forever be grateful that we are the ones who benefited from that choice.

Until Whisper, no dog I had ever had, as special as they were, as much as I loved them, had needed me as much as Millie did. Now, he does, maybe more. Millie showed me how much a dog can change. Whisper and I will work together, as Millie and I did, to get past his problems. His issues are very different--I don't know that I will ever be able to trust him in every situation as I could eventually trust Millie, and I don’t think he will be a therapy dog; but he doesn’t have to. That was her job, her joy. We will find his own place. And, because of Millie—and Pluto and Mac and Trey and Jenni, I believe we will be okay. We won’t be the same, but, eventually, okay.

Just not sure what okay is yet.