It's Not Me, It's You.

Three weeks ago, I reluctantly dropped my dog, a Siberian Husky/German Shepherd mix named Cal, off at the local SPCA. Standing at the intake desk with Cal on a leash, I answered various questions regarding Cal’s habits and tendencies. Cal happily sniffed and engaged passers-by and occasionally put his paws up on the counter to peek at the lady behind the desk while I explained how he was a happy, energetic dog, but very complex, very emotional. I had spent the past six months with Cal, and despite his very happy daily attitude, we had gotten in a couple tiffs over food. Dogs can sometimes get very possessive of their resources, to the point where they will growl at you when you bring your hand near their food bowl. Cal had this problem. This was not why I was giving him up, however. I was giving him up because I’m a selfish 24 year old who likes to travel a lot and can’t afford a dog, financially or emotionally. Anyway, when I say “tiffs over food,” what I mean is that Cal would growl when I fed him, at which point I had no choice but to take the bowl away (I had to win the argument), and being that he is about my size, this was a challenge - a couple times, it got quite ugly - but I always won. After I took the bowl, he would be very upset. He wouldn’t continue growling, but he was noticeably angry. He would sulk. He would give me dirty looks. If he could walk and talk, I know he would have probably cussed me out and slammed the door behind him on his way to bed. It would take him about 24 hours to start treating me normal again. He was incredibly joyful and friendly, but he was also the deepest, most complex dog I have ever encountered. I was trying to explain all of this to the lady behind the counter, but could tell by the rate of head nods and “uh huh’s” that she displayed, that maybe I wasn’t getting through. She had probably heard owners being grandiose about their dogs' abilities and quirks before, and I was just one more person ranting on about how "special" their pet is.

Well, it circled back around. This morning, I got a call from the SPCA. They’ve tried breaking him of his “resource guarding,” and it isn’t working. They had tried feeding him with a bowl and he reacted violently – to the point where she did not feel comfortable letting anyone at the SPCA interact with him: he was too scary. My heart sank, to say the least. In my head I was thinking that they should have been hand-feeding him, like I did everyday. I was thinking they should let him interact with dogs and people, like I did everyday, and they should never give him treats, unless he does something amazing, and even then, it can’t be an awesome treat, it has to be lame, because he has to constantly be in need. Feeding him in a bowl was the easy way, and Cal wants it the hard way—he wants to work for everything, and he loves a challenge. But as soon as he gets that sense of entitlement that comes with a neatly packaged bowl of food at his disposal, he says “to hell with the relationship!” and starts growling so you’ll bug off. He has to be trained to need you, all the time, everyday.

In the last two months that I had Cal, he never growled. He sat and laid down on command. He trotted next to me while I went for a run, without the aid of a leash. He can learn, he can be obedient, and he is smart. Too smart, in a way.

But things are not going well at the SPCA. They think he’s part wolf. They say he’s not adoptable. They do not feel comfortable handing him over to anybody. He does not fit in society as-is. He belongs in the wild.

I think of him isolated behind the chain-link walls of a dog run, and sigh.

To me, this situation screams the points in Coyne (1999), and Kendler, Kuhn & Prescott (2004). Cal has an optimal flourishing environment, and a non-optimal one. Regardless of whether his optimal environment is feasible for the typical SPCA adopter to provide, he does have the possibility of flourishing. Everybody does.