Dog Story

Until one has loved an animal, part of one’s soul remains un-awakened
- Anatole France

I said no for eighteen years. I was the mother of two active boys and the wife of a driven husband. There were scores of ballgames, dozens of class trips, hours of homework. When they asked, over and over and over again, if we could get a dog, I said no. I didn’t feel I could take care of one more being. Then, suddenly it seems, they no longer came to crawl into bed with us when there was a thunder storm. They got part time jobs, took the SAT’s, learned to drive. They became more independent. I was surprised to find I missed taking care of a little one. The next time they asked for a dog, I said yes.  I bought some books about dog training. How hard could it be?

We went to North Shore Animal League and saw a cute black lab mix. He was small and needy-looking and I was ready to take him home, but my husband, Dan, suggested we stop at a pet store before making a final decision. I didn’t want to support the puppy mill trade, but agreed to go to satisfy Dan. What I didn’t know is that Dan and our son, Justin, had seen a puppy at the pet shop the night before. They had a plan.

We walked into Shake-a-Paw in Hicksville. The store smelled of excrement, cedar shavings, and disinfectant. The shrill bark of dozens of puppies clamoring for attention pierced our ears. They were all in a makeshift corral, furry babies walking clumsily on eight-week-old legs. Some were wrestling like bear cubs, playfully biting and tumbling. Others pleaded for our attention as though they knew we held the promise of love and care. 

Dan called out to me, “Honey, come look at this one.”

He was in a small crate by himself, a yellow Labrador retriever puppy, a fur ball with soulful eyes and floppy ears. There’s a reason advertisers use yellow lab pups to sell products. He was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. “Wanna hold him?” asked Dan.

The cubicle could fit only one of us. My husband and sons encouraged me to go in. The salesperson brought two lab pups, a black and a chocolate, into the cubicle. The black one barked constantly, the chocolate kept jumping, scratching my bare legs with sharp little claws. She handed me the yellow one. He looked at me with sad eyes and settled quietly against my chest. I fell in love. There was no way I was going home without him. I looked at Dan without saying a word and he understood. “I knew she’d fall in love with him,” Dan said to Justin smiling victoriously. We named him Kato.

By the time we filled out the paperwork, purchased the necessary paraphernalia, and set it up at home, it was late and we were all exhausted. We placed Kato into his crate in the family room and went upstairs to bed. 

Kato cried all night. No one got any sleep. When we took him into the yard he lay down on the grass looking miserable. When we touched him, he tried to bite us with his sharp puppy teeth. He was uninterested in the toys we bought him preferring instead to tear at the perennials we had planted, pulling until he had them out by the roots, and then shaking them like mad. Whenever we put him back in the crate, he cried. With the boys almost grown, life had begun to get easier. Now, with this little monster living with us, we had no peace day or night. We were exhausted.

Weeks passed. None of the training techniques in the books worked. When we tried to teach him how to walk on a lead, he’d grab the leash in his mouth and play tug-of-war. Even dousing the leash in hot sauce didn’t deter him. He chewed on furniture and pulled up loops of carpeting. He bit us. I developed tightness in my chest. Dan would have nightmares about a lion living in our home. We had gone through major life changes, raised two children, faced the many challenges of family life and had never been this stressed out.

Dan came home one day and said, “I spoke to Jim at work. He already owns a lab. He said he’d be willing to take Kato.” Dan thought I’d be relieved. I was shocked and angry. We weren’t quitters.

“No way! We are not failing at this. I’m going to call a professional trainer. “

The first trainer was a burly man with a gruff voice. “Oh, this is a tough guy. Alpha male. Not gonna be easy.” His training technique consisted of placing Kato on a leash and yanking it roughly to get Kato to obey commands. Kato looked frightened. His eyes pleaded for help.

“Surely there must be a gentler way to do this,” I said.

The trainer sneered and said, “Well, you could try to hug and kiss him into it.” I couldn’t get him out the door fast enough.

The second trainer also identified Kato as an alpha male. She went over basic commands with us and suggested rewarding good behavior with treats, but we had already tried those techniques.

I was beside myself. I didn’t want to fail and I loved Kato despite his bad behavior, but I thought we might have to take Jim up on his offer. Then a friend told me about a television show called The Dog Whisperer starring Cesar Millan. His tagline is I rehabilitate dogs. I train people.

Dan and I became disciples. We DVR’d the show and created Dog Whisperer marathons. For weeks, our kids saw only the backs of our heads as we sat in an oversized chair together watching episode after episode. What Cesar said made sense to us. We needed to understand how a dog thinks. Cesar talked about the importance of rules, boundaries, and limitations which sounded like good parenting. He also expressed the importance of giving the dog three things in exactly this order: exercise, discipline, and affection. According to Cesar, it all begins with the relationships we form with our dogs during walks. We began to use Cesar’s techniques.

Kato’s behavior improved rapidly. We were empowered by our new dog training skills. It was a relief to know we could make this work after all. Within a few weeks, he obeyed basic commands, walked well on the lead, and stopped biting. He still, however, exhibited some alpha male quirks. 

One afternoon, I was in the yard with Kato when Dan came home. In typical alpha male fashion, Kato stayed put and waited for Dan to come and greet him. Dan didn’t even look at him. Kato was clearly put off by this. He looked at Dan and raised his chin as if to say, “You must acknowledge me.” Dan stood perfectly still and continued to ignore him. I watched in silence as Kato crawled slowly toward Dan, his belly almost touching the ground. When he got there, he lay at Dan’s feet, and put his head down.

“Congratulations”, I said to Dan. “You are now the alpha male.”

©2013 Rita Maniscalco All rights reserved.

A Memory for Mother's Day: The King and My Mother and I

The King and My Mother and I

Mom was washing the breakfast dishes. The kitchen smelled like bacon and Palmolive. Thinking to my fifteen-year-old self, yeah-right, like this would ever happen, I asked anyway: “Hey Mom, do you want to see Elvis in concert?” She turned off the faucet and looked at me.

“What did you say?”
“Do you want to go see Elvis Presley? He’s playing at the Coliseum on July 19^th. Tickets go on sale today,” I said holding up the newspaper to show her.

She quickly stripped off her yellow latex gloves leaving them dangling inside-out on the edge of the sink. She rushed over to the table, took the newspaper from my hands, and slid slowly into the chair as she read the ad. Mom had no patience for nonsense and no time for fun. Money was tight. We never went out to dinner or the movies or got Carvel ice cream. We had only been on three vacations that I could remember. Go to a concert? No way!

Looking at the ad she said, “Your father won’t want to go.” It was the response I expected, the excuse she always used when she didn’t want to do something. Then she said something that shocked me, “Do you want to go with me? I’ll get tickets.” Who was this woman?

Mom hated both vanity and waste. She didn’t wear make-up and never got a manicure. She darned socks and used towels until they were threadbare. She made do with what she had and rarely bought herself anything new, but it was no wonder considering her history.

Mom had grown up poor and much too quickly. Her mom died of cerebral meningitis when she was five. Her dad was drafted into the army three years later. She and her sister were left with their brand new step-mother at their home in Yugoslavia during World War II. They were ethnic Germans. Their ancestors had lived in the area harmoniously with Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Serbs and others for more than 200 years, and had never set foot in Germany. When Hitler attempted to have Tito assassinated a second time, all ethnic Germans were in mortal danger. They had to sleep in their clothes prepared to escape from Serbian Partisans at a moment’s notice taking only what they could carry. They escaped by train in a cattle car. Because it was safer to travel only at night, the journey took months. Many died along the way. 

In the meantime, her father became a prisoner of war. By the time he was released, he had fallen in love with a woman who worked at the prison. The woman became pregnant, so he started a new life with her and never returned to his family, nor provided any financial support. He left his young daughters to be raised by their step-mother in Germany, a country that was strange to them, among native Germans, many of whom didn’t want them there. My mother was nine years old. Her sister was ten.

After finishing eighth grade, mom went to work. She also began training as a seamstress. At fourteen, she led the life of a responsible young adult. Money came only via hard work and was to be spent wisely.

Mom became a serious, capable woman. She emigrated to the U.S. with my father and her stepmother in 1957. They worked hard all day and studied English at night. By 1959, she and my father co-owned a two-family home. Six years later, they purchased a home of their own.

Mom loved her home and enjoyed entertaining. All holiday gatherings were at our house. As frugal as she was, when it came to having company, she was a very generous host. The food was mostly homemade, but there were also some purchased delicacies. Beverages flowed freely. When anyone stayed overnight, Mom would have them take the master bedroom since there was no guest room.

Another indulgence was music. There was always music. Whether it was soft classical radio on a Sunday afternoon, or record albums that included Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, and movie soundtracks, the little blue light on our Blaupunkt was on. The only Elvis album was gospel music, including Mom’s favorite, How Great Thou Art. I knew Mom was an Elvis fan, but I didn’t think she’d go to a concert. She waited in the rain for two hours to get tickets. 

The seats were close to the top of the stadium, so Mom brought heavy binoculars on a leather strap which she placed over my head like a lei. When the lights went down, Elvis’s imminent arrival was announced with Strauss’s fanfare from 2001, Thus Sprach Zarathustra. Elvis was greeted by a tidal wave of screams and flashcubes. He was wearing a low-cut white shirt, glittering sequined vest, and huge black and white fringed bell-bottoms. The fact that he looked like a pudgy cartoon version of the 1950’s Elvis didn’t seem to bother his fans. There were rippling explosions of light everywhere he turned. His first song was The Wonder of You, the perfect opening for a king who clearly had affection for and was amused by his subjects. As Elvis sang, he bent down to accept gifts from fans in the front row, even kissing a fortunate few. A stagehand, dressed and coifed like an Elvis-wannabe, placed silk scarf after scarf on Elvis’ neck which he promptly slid off and gifted to adoring fans.

When Elvis appeared, Mom grabbed the binoculars, forgetting the strap was around my neck, and yanked them toward her. For most of the concert, I felt invisible which was just fine with me. Mom sat up at the edge of her seat, wide-eyed, with both hands over her mouth as though she couldn’t believe she was really there. From time to time she’d whisper, “What a voice,” or “He’s beautiful.” As she looked at him, I looked at her. I saw for the first time, not my mother, but a girl with a crush on a guy. I was happy to see this side of her, thrilled we had those feelings in common. 

Elvis belted out hit after hit and the hours flew by. His final encore was Mom’s favorite, How Great Thou Art. I stood beside my mother, my heart filled to overflowing, as Elvis’s magnificent voice filled the stadium one last time.

In the weeks before the concert, Dad, feigning jealousy, teased her quite a bit. When he came to pick us up in his white, ’67 Chevy Nova, he asked, “So, how was the concert?” Mom crinkled her nose, and said with a shrug, “It was OK.”

©2013 Rita Maniscalco. All rights reserved.