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.When his eyes briefly contacted mine, I saw intelligence and distrust in nearly equal proportions.With my mind, I reached out to him and asked, "Do you want to be this way?" For a moment, there was no response.Then slowly he turned his head and looked into my eyes for a long time.His answer was clear in my head: "No one listens to me." I promised him that I would, and taking the leash from his owner, I began to search for how best to begin.I asked Hobbs to simply walk with me, but he leaped away, pulling hard toward the training room door.I moved with him and stood quietly as he pawed at the door in irritation.In his quick glances at me, I could see that he wished both that the door would open and that I would go away.But the door remained closed, and I stood waiting, gently persistent, softly toning to him.Gradually, he settled down, his breathing normalized, his eyes beginning to lose the hard, quick look of a trapped animal.Again, I invited him to walk with me, and this time he agreed, though he was cautious and still wanted to leave.As we reached the center of the room, he suddenly stopped.When I gave a little tug on the lead, I saw him begin to tense, his whole body stiff with an unspoken challenge, his eyes shifting in a split second to the hard eyes of a dog who is growing angry.He leaned back to set himself against the lead, and I quickly offered a little slack to release the tension.Surprised by this, he relaxed a little but stood watchfully waiting for my next move.I knew he was anticipating that I would insist on going forward, and I could feel him mentally preparing to resist.From the history the owner had provided, I knew that Hobbs would bite me if I pushed him.Though she had claimed that he bit without "any warning," I could see now that this was not true.Hobbs was quite fair.He did give warnings.The problem was that people ignored these warnings, which undoubtedly both frustrated and confused him.Biting, he had learned, was a clear communication that even very unobservant people take note of and respect.He did not know that he was writing his own death sentence.Quietly, I turned back the way we had come, inviting him to join me, which he did without hesitation.We continued to work on simply walking together, asking him to be with me but going only where he was willing to go.Silent until now, his owner spoke up: "Why did you give in to him? How can it be a good thing to let him get away with that? Why don't you just make him do what you want?" I reminded her that precisely that approach had led to this dog biting people."There is no point in winning abattle but losing the war.This dog no longer trusts that anyone hears him when he says no, and so he's ready for a fight.I don't want to fight with him.If I'm going to help him, I need him to cooperate with me.He's got to do it willingly, freely and with trust that I will respect what he tells me.And he is cooperating comhe's just not ready to cooperate in that particular spot just yet." As I said this, we approached the same spot where Hobbs had balked a few minutes earlier.For whatever reason, he stopped again and looked at me.I asked him to go forward, but he did not move.For a long moment, he stood there looking at me.I waited, watching for the signs that he had reached a sticking point.But they never came.The dog took a deep breath, and when I asked one more time, he stepped forward past that mysteriously difficult place and we went on, together.For the next hour, each time we found a point where Hobbs told me he could not go on, I listened.We changed direction, we did less, we tried again.There was a dance between us now, the dog and I, and he had given me the lead.I did not step on his toes in any way.He was soft in my hands, so that a mere flutter of a finger on the lead became a meaningful signal.He was soft in his mind, and it showed in his eyes; the distrust slowly gave way to a cautious belief that I was listening.Soft in his heart, Hobbs gave me all that I asked for.I cannot say where we went or precisely what we did [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]