Nature Versus Nurture

The very first time I took Prince to the veterinarian, for his puppy shots, she told me the most important thing I could do for him was to introduce him to as many people as possible.  The magazine she gave me emphasized the same thing, instructing owners of breeds like German Shepherds, Rottweilers and Doberman Pinschers (among others) to introduce their dogs to as many different types of people as possible.

Prince on the prowl

Both the veterinarian and the magazine emphasized that socializing a puppy as early as possible was the best way to end up with a dog that was good with people outside of its family.  I must admit, however, that I had my doubts about this, especially in view of my experience with my first dog, Pasja.

Pasja was adopted from the local humane society by my older sister, but she gave him to me when he displayed a marked (and inexplicable) preference for me.  He was a Labrador/Border Collie/Husky mix, which made him look like a very small, blond and somewhat fluffy Lab.  His personality, however, was nothing like a typical Lab's (or any of the other dogs that contributed to his heritage).

Pasja hated absolutely everyone except for the people in our family.

We had unintentionally done everything to ensure that Pasja was as well socialized as possible.  Countless people had visited when he was a puppy, oohed and awed over him, picked him up, cuddled him and even held him on their laps.  Pasja's response to all of this was to stare at them in a stony manner, which at the the time we thought was evidence of his stoicism, but later figured was his way of reacting to the unwanted attention before he was big enough to defend himself.

As soon as he became a year of age, he began to display his hatred toward almost every member of the human race.  Men, women, children were all the same to him...he hated all of them equally.  He attempted to attack neighbors, veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and once even went after a group of almost twenty adolescents who had happened to gather at the end of our street (who all wisely fled).

The only theory I could come up with to explain his behavior was that it was genetic.

As such, when Prince was very small, I actually wondered whether I should even make the attempt to socialize him.  However, the extremely rapid pace at which he grew, and the fear people displayed around him even when he was a mere 4 months of age, made me resolve to follow the professionals' advice.

I decided I would do this in two ways:  First, by walking him frequently and letting him see as many people as possible (even though this had never accomplished anything with Pasja) and second, by letting him meet a wide range of people at our home, mostly friends of my boyfriend.

I hoped for the best...but the outcome was something I had never expected.

Cookie and Cream

Almost a year before I got Prince, one of the feral cats living in my neighborhood gave birth to four kittens in an old, unused doghouse I had on the side of my yard.  They were all girls, and we named them Farrah, Leah, Clara and Oreana (or Oreo).  I kept Clara and Oreo, and my sister took Farrah and Leah.  Because of Oreo's name, and Clara's coloring, my boyfriend nicknamed them Cookie and Cream.

Oreo and Clara in their favorite spot

Both Clara and Oreo liked dogs (especially Isabel!) but Clara had her doubts about Prince.  Each time he sniffed her, she would huddle down in a small heap and gaze around in a terrified manner until he lost interest and walked away.  Oreo didn't mind him at all, though,and when she was very small, she even tried to sleep with him at night, until he got too rowdy for her.

Prince had a special feeling for Oreo.  Every time he saw her, he would try to wash her, or even put his entire head underneath her so that she was practically sitting on his muzzle, and sniff and lick her stomach.  What I think he knew at the time (and we, of course, did not) was that Oreo was sick.

Oreo

After she got spayed, Oreo began to lose weight.  I don't know if she possibly got infected with something during the procedure, or it was something she'd had all along that was triggered by the stress of the surgery, but even though she ate, she continued to deteriorate.  We took her to the doctor's almost every week, tried countless antibiotics, vitamin shots, food supplements, natural food, all of the most expensive foods that we could find, and none of it helped.  The veterinarian thought she had feline leukemia.  She suggested putting her to sleep, but we wanted to keep trying.  We even fed her formula from a bottle and spoon fed her baby food, but she ended up dying a few weeks later.

It's always extraordinarily difficult to lose a pet, but losing one so young has always been even harder for me.  She was my boyfriend's favorite cat, and he was her person...when she was well, every time she got excited about something at night or wanted to play, she would wake him up by jumping on his chest and rubbing her head against his beard.  He always felt like she was saying, " Come look at this, Steve!  Come see!"  (And he always did.)

I wish we had been able to figure out what Prince knew, long before any of the rest of us did.  If I'd known I was going to have her for such a short time, I would have been able to give her twice as much love as I did.

The Cat's Meow

For many years, I firmly believed that most dogs get along well with cats.  I actually once ventured the opinion, in a conversation with a friend, that most of the time, the cats were the ones with the problem, not the dogs.  Having owned both cats and dogs for many years, I knew that not all dogs get along with cats to the same extent, but I had never really had much of a difficulty with any of my dogs, except for an occasional growl and some excessive nipping (which my toy poodle, Charla, was guilty of).  I really thought that if dogs grow up with cats, they rarely have difficulties getting along with them.

This opinion changed when I got Prince.

As a puppy, Prince really didn't seem to be too excited by most of my cats, but one of my cats took an instant dislike to Prince the moment he saw him.  As soon as I put Prince down in front of him, Remy arched his back, hissed, and tried to scratch him.  Because I grabbed Prince before Remy touched him, I thought that Prince had barely noticed.

I was wrong.

For several months afterwards, I tried to keep Remy out of Prince's way, but one day he escaped into the part of the house where Prince was.  Prince instantly went after him, and I snatched up the cat to protect him, only to have him climb me like a tree.  After a lot of shouting and a great deal of pain, I managed to deescalate the situation, and decided the two of them would never meet again.  Unfortunately, Remy was less than cooperative in this regard.

Every night, when I took Prince into the bedroom, Remy would come to the bedroom door and howl.  Why he did this, knowing his arch enemy was in the room, I couldn't say, but he did it continually...for months.  Every night, usually around 4 am, I would awaken to the sound of his mournful meows, and see Prince lying in front of the door, eyeing the crack beneath it in an exasperated fashion.

I tried ignoring Remy...to no avail.  Spraying an aerosol can in the air also accomplished nothing after I did it the third time.  Night after night, I would lie in bed, grinding my teeth, as the wailing continued, until one night, befuddled by a lack of sleep, I decided to open the door a mere crack and scare Remy away by showing him Prince.

I had failed to take into account Prince's frustration about the situation.

Prince and Little Kitty

As soon as I opened the door, Prince bulldozed past me, causing the cat to jump at least 6 feet in the air and land on top of a dresser, from which he promptly dislodged everything on top of it.  He then jumped down and, after a spirited romp through the house, ran back into the bedroom and disappeared under the bed.

This meant, of course, that I had to confine Prince to another portion of the house while I spent 15 minutes coaxing the cat out from his hiding place.  The only positive thing was that for several weeks after that, Remy refrained from meowing at the bedroom door.

I don't know whether Remy was the catalyst or not, but Prince doesn't like most cats.  He kind of likes the first cat he met as a puppy, Little Kitty, and every day when she runs into his part of the house, he says hello to her, and sometimes even gives her a lick.  She's the only cat he'll tolerate now.  In fact,  she's the only cat he's ever tolerated...except for Cookie and  Cream.

Prince's Girlfriend: Blondes Are More Fun

No rendition of Prince's relations with his canine companions would be complete without mentioning his girlfriend.  It might also be appropriate to say, when talking about Prince's relationships with other dogs, I saved the best for last.

As a child, I was a devoted fan of the collies stories by Albert Payson Terhune.  I can't remember how many times I read Lad: A Dog.  I also was (and still am) a fan of Lassie, and with these collies as examples, I grew up to have an extremely high opinion of the character and intelligence of the collie. Therefore, when my other sister asked my advice about whether or not she should purchase one, my immediate answer was yes!

My sister's collie comes from Northwest Iowa, which her veterinarian told her is where they breed some of the best collies in the Midwest.  Her name is Tira, and she is everything I always thought a collie would be.

Tira only needs to be told not to do something once, and she never does it again (or almost never)!  She immediately heels when put on a leash, without ever having been taught. She learned how to sit, stay, stand, and lie down on the first try!  She is also amazingly calm, and an extraordinary watchdog...all at 1 year of age.

After reading about Lad and the other collies from The Place, and watching Lassie innumerable times, I told my father (as a child) that I thought collies were just as smart as German Shepherds (his favorite breed).  He pointed out the difference between all the things that German Shepherds can be trained to do, and the more limited things collies have traditionally been used for, as an example of German Shepherds being more intelligent.  After knowing Tira, though, I still think collies are just as smart.  They just have a different physiology and different personalities.

Fortunately for Prince, my sister let him meet Tira when she was a puppy, and he often goes over to play with her on the weekends now.  The first time he met her, and she jumped on him, he actually growled a little, but a short time later, I saw that familiar gleam in his eye, and the next thing I knew, he was running after her and pawing at her in a rather familiar manner.  Of course, he is almost twice as big as her, but she really doesn't seem to mind.  I think he's finally found the love of his life, and considering the fact that he's always preferred blondes, I'm not surprised it was her.

I just hope the relationship turns out to be a truly compatible one.

Scrappy

I actually knew Scrappy long before he came into Prince' life.  He belonged to a young couple who lived up the street who sometimes gave him a lot of attention...and sometimes did not.  Before that, he had belonged to somebody else...and I think this person might have mistreated him.

One day, Scrappy's owners moved away and left him, and I found him wandering down the sidewalk next to my house.  Not really wanting another dog, but unable to abandon him to whatever fate might await him on his own, I took him into the yard...and then into the house.  It was immediately apparent that he had major problems.

Scrappy bit.  Two situations seemed to provoke this behavior; first, bending over to pet him (he bit several well-meaning people in the face), and second, putting your feet anywhere near him.  Even tripping over him caused him to react with outrage, biting at your feet and ankles in a fury.  From these two things, I figured he was teased, and probably kicked.

Scrappy didn't like other small dogs, in spite of his being a Shih-Tzu, a breed known for their good nature.  He ate everything he found outside, probably because at one point, he had not been fed very well.  Trying to stop him also resulting in his attacking you.  He didn't like most people...whenever someone passed by the yard, he would growl and bite the fence bars in a fury.  What he did like was cats...and large dogs, probably because he had lived with large dogs at one time in his life.  I think he liked cats because he had never been exposed to them, and therefore hadn't had any bad experiences with them.

He also liked me.

When he first met Prince, Scrappy was somewhat standoffish, but I knew he liked him,too, because he didn't attack him.  One time, when Prince tried to take some food he had left, he nipped at Prince...but Prince's reaction made that a one time thing.  Thereafter, Scrappy would always politely move aside.

After a few weeks had passed, Scrappy began trying to play with Prince...usually by enthusiastically gnawing on Prince's legs.  At first, Prince reacted by leaping away, but then he figured out that Scrappy was actually trying to play with him, and would respond either by getting down to Scrappy's level (which was quite a feat for such a large dog) or hitting him with his head.  As they got to be better friends, Prince would gently mouth at him, and Scrappy would roll over onto his back and kick all four legs in the air, wildly.

Nowadays, whenever the two of them get together, the first thing Prince does is gently nuzzle (and sometimes lick) the top of Scrappy's head.  Scrappy responds by happily biting his legs (and occasionally barking at him) and Prince kneels down.  Whereas Isabel, my Chihuahua, still chases Prince and barks at him, Scrappy is almost always happy to see him.

I know Scrappy has been good for Prince (he finally has a friend!) and he actually is somewhat calmer around other dogs since Scrappy came into his life.  I don't know if Prince has really been good for Scrappy.  After 2 years, we can finally put our feet by him without his attacking them (my boyfriend even plays with him with them!) and he doesn't eat everything he finds outside anymore (just some of it), but I'm not sure if the credit belongs to us, or to Prince.  I suspect if it were because of us, he would like other people better than he does, and he still hates everyone who walks by (and yes, he still attacks the fence in his rage).