A Tail Told by Lead

Some friends and I were once having an online discussion about how to get a dog to pay attention to you, and to return to you, if it is running off and isn't on a leash. One of the things that came up was the old trick of jumping up and down, waving your arms in the air, and screaming--to get the dog's attention--and then bolting off in the opposite direction from the one the dog was heading in. In trying to give an example of this method, I shared the following story.

You'd be surprised what you may find yourself doing in public. Picture this. Your three year old dog, who has always been excellent in the car, suddenly one day decides to leap out of the window of the car while it is parked at a convenience store. He's NEVER done this before. Never even shown any inclination to do so. You didn't just walk off and leave him there--you'd just stopped to use the pay phone real quick, and are standing not 4 feet from the car. Dog leaps out of the window, and starts racing around the parking lot. You drop the phone and call him to you. He heads the other direction. He runs through the car wash. You follow him, not sure exactly what will happen to him in there. He goes all the way through, emerging on the other side wet and a little soapy. Seconds later, you do the same. He turns around and goes back through the other way, and so do you. You look up at the car inside the car wash as you race past, and see a very puzzled face staring back at you. On your third pass through the car wash (this time the racing hound didn't just turn around and go back through, but instead ran all the way around the convenience store in a big circle, attracting as much attention as possible), you see people laughing and pointing. After some more racing around the parking lot, and a great deal of pleading to the dog's sensibilities on your part, a man approaches you.

"Is that your dog?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

"You should get him! You shouldn't just let him run around out here like that."

!?!?!?!???????????!!!????

After taking a moment to stare at the man with disbelief (and to wipe some suds off of your nose), you decide that your universe will make much more sense without him in it, and so you just decide to ignore him and pretend like he isn't there. Maybe he'll go away.

Turning back to your dog, you find him sniffing at the cars waiting in line for the car wash. Most people seem to be finding this whole event rather entertaining, but a few seem genuinely pissed, and one person yells at the dog for rubbing up against his car. The dog decides that this isn't as much fun as it was a few minutes ago, and heads off into the parking lot of the grocery store next door. So you head off that way as well.

But this time you decide that people are already laughing at you, and perhaps it will be best if you can just get this over with as quickly as possible. So you jump up and down a few times, hollering for all you're worth. The dog stops and turns towards you, but doesn't come. So you turn your back to him, say a quick prayer, and start running away from him. After a minute or so, you find yourself in the back loading area of the grocery store (ahha! no witnesses!!), just as the dog tears past you. At this you immediately stop in your tracks, and lay down on your back, right on the pavement-- you being soaking wet and soapy after all. Without looking up at the dog, or calling to him, you just lay there, staring up at the cloudless blue sky and cursing that impulse that ever made you want a dog. A few seconds later your view of the heavens is blocked by a huge tan dog head, as your beloved furred one leans over and licks your face. Moving faster than you've ever moved before, you snap his leash onto his damned collar and stand up. He looks up at you with that damned grin that wrenches heart strings every time, and the two of you head soggily back to the car.

Now....trust me.....jumping and running and yelling and general banshee behavior is much less embarrassing than the car wash relay.

Copyright © 1998, 2001 by OffLead Productions. Reprinted with permission of the author.