I am one of those people.

I talk with my hands and most of the time I don't knock over stuff, but sometimes I do.  But when it comes to dogs, I have always talked with my hands in a very literal sense from their  Homecoming Day and onward using hand signals.

Thank Heavens.  

This week has been very long and not fun for my furry friends.  I've been sick and mostly in bed or on the couch with tea and Kleenex and one or more types of cough syrup/decongestant/nasal spray/homeopathic remedy.  I lost my voice three days ago.  However, I am still able to tell Ollie, Marshall and Gus (and to a lesser degree, Orange Cat) that I need them to move, be quiet, sit, wait, back up, relax, come here, or snuggle.

(Orange Cat knows my hand signals for 'snuggle' and 'come here', lately it's just a matter of if he *feels* like coming or snuggling.  For this, I blame the Egyptians.  Cats were once treated as royalty and we humans will never live that down.  Ever.)

Dogs understand hand signals well before they understand the verbal command or cue.  In part, this is because their eyes are designed to detect small movement.  While most dogs don't actually 'see' very well (about a human equivalent of 20/70), their eyes are able to detect slight changes in the way we walk or move even from great distance.   Their ears are designed to hear noises from great distances with incredible directional accuracy, evaluate pitch and volume at much greater frequencies than the human ear is capable of.  Unfortunately, that does not mean they are good at differentiating human noises.  Our words become a foreign language to them.

When teaching a foreign language, one of the best techniques is Total Physical Response method which is basically immersion with overstated, exaggerated movements to show what the word or phrase means.  (Note:  It does not help to just stand there and repeat the phrase louder over and over and hope the other person understands what you are saying.)  Essentially, since we are teaching dogs human language, that is what hand signals accomplish.  Dogs will never be able to replicate our vocalizations, but may learn correct responses to 30-200 verbal commands and gestures given the right training.

As the week goes by and I have to communicate what I want or need from my dogs without any verbal commands, I'm realizing how much we look at each other to make sure the message got across.  I had forgotten sometimes to look for the body language that is asking essentially, "This is what you want, right?" and reinforce the behavior.  I am realizing how much I talk.  

And how much I don't need to.

And how much I talk with my not-furry friends.

And how much I don't need to.

I think I'm learning why monks take a vow of silence-- not so much to learn a 'new' way of communicating with the earth and the beings here.   Rather to return to a very natural and basic way of communicating.   I'm thinking that some of my frustration the last few weeks is from talking too much and not listening-- not hearing-- what other's silences are saying.

tweet-tweet-tweet.

There are two birds outside arguing about who gets to own the pine tree by the garage.   But that isn't the type of tweeting I am talking about.

I just started on Twitter on the advice of the incomparable blogger Havi Brooks who-- along with her duck, Selma-- writes The Fluent Self Blog.  I adore her style and her motivations and it feels sometimes like she's in my head.   She helps me feel like I'm not The Crazy Dog Lady and instead that I am only one of the many crazy dog ladies out there who happens to like to write about critters and furry friends.

If you also are a Twittering person, you can find me there @furryfourpaws

I guess the right term would be 'follow me there'.... I'm still learning this stuff.

Wow.

In the middle of a week where I've lost my voice, I find I have a different type of voice here at Beliefnet.  

And let me tell you, with this virus-thingy that has taken over my vocal chords, I'm reminded the benefits of teaching my dogs hand signals every day!  (Which is the subject of tomorrow's entry.)

You can vote here!

I'm so thrilled to be a finalist and be included with all these other writers that are not only talented, but brave and honest and so undeniably REAL.  

Happy reading.  And happy voting!

It has been an unusually cool summer.  Unlike the Julys and Augusts of the last five years, I have only turned on the air conditioner once.   We've actually spent most of the days outside for a few hours.  It's been very... nice.

For Gus, he doesn't know any different.  This is his first summer of his life outside of a cage.  It's been a joy watching him discover cabbage moths and fireflies, happily investigating the yard and neighborhood.   Marshall is experiencing his first summer of long afternoon walks.  Last year it was so hot that walks usually only happened at night.  Even Ollie is experiencing a first of sorts as this is the first summer he is the gentle leader of their little pack.  He isn't just watching over his "little brother" and teaching him the basics of summer dog stuff.  Together, they are three adult dogs learning how to work together to enforce a very strict anti-squirrel policy.

 Each season is new.  

I find myself at a point where I am regularly comparing the present to the past:  the weather, how I react to things, how my political and social views have changed throughout different stages of my life.  While a certain amount of reflection is good, I am reminded of presence and purpose.   I am reminded to see energy as it ebbs and flows and time as equally as fluid.

Last week, I read a review of a book and wanted to go to a bookstore to get this book. As much as I love the ease of Amazon ordering, it is not the same as going to the bookstore. I find a great spiritual connection in the physical: fresh pages, unbroken bindings, coffee smells. So, I put Marshall in his service dog vest and we went to go see what we could find.

As I looked at the collection of titles, I thought about authors and other research I had read by them, about research that completely refutes most of the books on the shelves. I began to reminsce about how I started learning about dogs and how that learning has developed over time.

My father trained his dogs to hunt grouse. As bird dogs, they had to have pretty specific rules and the whole family had to be consistent with them. My father was a big fan of Barbara Woodhouse, a well-known dog trainer from the 1970s. If you know anything about her, it is probably her theories on dog vocalizations and human commands. Dog tips like naming your dog a two-syllable name come from her research, as well as certain emphasis on 't', 'sh', and 'ch' sounds in commands. My dad's stories and intuitive bits of wisdom about his dogs peppers my childhood memories.

When my husband and I first got married, I wanted a dog so much I couldn't stand it. A dog meant family. A real family. I started checking out every book at the library about dogs and puppies and dog training. Cesar Millan had just published his first book and although my father had been far more gentle with his dogs, I recognized so much of my dad's training methods in the Millan methods that I felt a special kind of connection to his dog interactions. I knew though that working as a financial consultant with sixty- to seventy-hour work weeks and my husband's work travel would not make a good environment for a new pup and put the dog idea on hold.  I was content for the time being to snuggle my bunny and befriend the stray cat who would become Orange Cat and read my library books on dogs.

As my job got more stressful, I decided I needed an outlet and started volunteering at the county dog shelter. My shifts started out with simply walking the dogs and giving them exercise. I started signing up to taking adoptable dogs to various events. Working with the shelter dogs was one of the only things that I looked forward to in my life at the time. When I quit my job (a story for another day), I started volunteering more and more, helping out with adoption counseling, education seminars, events, and day programs to socialize the pooches in the adoption wards. I think those dogs at the shelter helped save me as much as I helped them.

In order to communicate better with these furry creatures, I kept reading and found better science and methodology in the animal community. Essays and research by Patricia McConnell, Sophia Yin, Stanley Coren, Karen Pryor, and The Monks of New Skete kept me fairly busy. We adopted Ollie somewhere halfway through that stack of books and I was so glad I had researched so well. His fragile temperment would have broken if I had implemented some of the old training techniques my father had used.

We moved back to Michigan and I started volunteering for no-kill shelter that had lofty goals but unfortunately was also very poorly run. While I cleaned kennels and worked with Akitas, Staffordshire and American Terriers, and Rottweilers that had failed their Humane Society temperment tests, I tried out different techniques I had learned and over the next five months figured out that the strongest connections were made when I talked less, watched more, and focused more on my body language. Each of these interactions gave me more information about the nature of dog-human communication.

By the time we adopted Marshall, I was a pretty good judge of temperment and learning ability. At seven weeks he was showing fabulous skills that would lend well to therapy dog work. New groups of books on therapy dog training and research about the benefit of therapy dogs in a variety of settings towered on the coffee table. As I began to work with Marshall on socialization and task training, I noticed Marshall's alerting and encouraged it. Hyperlink hopping through Delta Society and Therapy Dog Inc. website links, I found the Psychiatric Service Dog Society. I started working on Marshall's public access training and together we developed an incredible range of skills and tasks and a bond like I have never quite experienced with another animal.

A few months after Marshall's first public access training sessions, Gus came to live with us and my focus became educating myself on the problems faced in rehabilitating puppy mill dogs and dogs with little to no human interaction. I finally started researching alternative therapies and conditioning to overwrite the damage done from years in an overstimulating, undersocialized environment.

And that brings us to the day at the bookstore, with Marshall in his vest and me on tip-toe reaching for the book I came for. I feel like spending time around dogs gives me a type of intuition and experience in communicating with them.  However, learning about the biology and behavior of these amazing animals helps me undercover the more subtle lessons they are trying to impart.