Therapy Dog

I've known all along that my choosing to work with dogs was going to mean I had to face some dark corners of my psyche. I've known that dogs are therapist in a furry coat and to really understand them, to really learn how to "lead" them, I would have to understand myself in a way I've only glimpsed in my work with a human therapist.

Thus is the case with Rubin. Don't let the goofy demeanor fool you. Don't let that cocked head and awkward under bite make you think he is not wise or challenging. He may look at you like he is simply waiting to learn from your fount of knowledge when in actuality, like any great Buddha, he is simply asking you a question so you might find an answer you didn't know you needed.

For the past year, I've been "training" Rubin for his therapy dog test. Passing the test allows Rubin to visit hospital patients, schools, and nursing homes clad in his trim-fitting blue vest. The test requires Rubin to perform many tasks. Simple ones like sit and down and stay. And odd ones like a hug from a stranger, awkward petting from another stranger, and the ability to walk into a "large angry crowd" and allow himself to be petted.

Rubin can do many of the tasks required, but he is not a dog who allows strangers to touch him. He backs away. Once he knows you, once he's spent time with you, he'll let you do everything from petting the top of his head to scratching his speckled belly. But if you are a "stranger" forget about it.

Therefore, despite all the work, Rubin scored a "not ready" on his first attempt at passing his therapy dog test yesterday.

But don't think he is not a therapy dog. Far from it. He may never offer elders therapy nor children a reading companion, but he certainly has provided me with the kind of therapy I've had to pay a lot of money for in the past.

And all of it without words.

These are five (though there may be more) of the "issues" I'm working on in my therapy work with Rubin (I don't feel comfortable saying this is what I've learned because, like any good therapist, working with Rubin is a process not a goal):

1. Worry and stress do not lead to a calm life nor do they light a clear path. On the contrary, they just make everyone else around you worried and stressed. Worry and stress serve no other purpose than to cement you to an immovable position. You cannot "progress" when you walk through life with worry and stress. People don't like it, dogs really don't like it. And they will remind you of your worried/stressed energy every chance they get by disobeying you, running just out of reach from you, and barking hysterically. It may feel counterintuitive, but at the moment when your worry and stress are controlling every aspect of your life, a good therapy dog will ask you to breathe, to sit down, to let go, to simply stop and check in with yourself.

2. The word "failure" should be banished from our vocabulary, specifically the vocabulary of teachers and schools. Instead, we should be seen as "ready" or "not ready." Once you hold onto failure as an option, if you do not succeed, your sense of worthlessness can grow at an exponential rate. Failure digs holes that feel impossible to grow out of. Failure burdens while "not ready" offers hope of a next time. You aren't there yet. You aren't there yet, but you can still get there. To be ready requires work, hard work. It will require skills you may not think you have and some that you think you have, but aren't developed yet. Being "not ready" is not a detriment, it just means there's more work to do. Being "ready" is different for everyone. For some it may come naturally and within a few months, you're there. For others, "ready" may take years and many attempts, but once you slip into that feeling of failure, of seeing yourself as someone who can't, then no matter how much hard work you do, you're done for. You've defeated yourself and it's a defeat of the most debilitating kind.

3. Patience is an important virtue IN a teacher, but patience is also an important virtue FOR a teacher. I've known all of my teaching career that the more patient I am with my students, the more they learn, the more they grow. But I've often been unable to apply that kind of patience to my own life, to my own learning. I am hard on myself. I grow impatient with myself. When working with Rubin those dual needs for patience -- patience with him and patience with myself -- are a must. If I am impatient in only one of those areas, then Rubin struggles to learn. I struggle too. I know what I want Rubin to do and I know the unspoken time limits I have in my head for Rubin to do it. When he doesn't do it or doesn't do it within those time limits, I lose patience not just with him, but with myself. He is not a failure, I am and that kind of self-flagellation can kill you... slowly. When I am forgiving, when I am patient with myself, Rubin responds with that knowing smile, like the yogi whose known the answer all along but needed you to arrive at the answer by yourself.

4. The more you control a situation, the less control you really have. For me, this is an internal struggle. I lay out in my head exactly how I see a moment, an hour, a day progressing and any deviation from this plan raises my level of anxiety. Rubin is my constant reminder to live in the moment. It's a cliche, I know, but Rubin notices the world in a way that I have lost. The bird over his head, the smell of the grass, the desire to jump on a moth -- he notices it all and in his attentiveness he does not think about the next moment, the next hour, the next day. If I am not in that moment with him, we lose our connection. He does not respond to my commands. Often he will not even look at me when I say his name. At these moments he wants me to be in his moment and only then will he acknowledge my existence. How often have I been so wrapped up in what's next, my mind spinning around one worry or another and unaware of someone else's existence or even my own existence? He is of the body first, the mind second. I am often just a head, detached from my body and that body's existence in the sensory world. In my head, I swim in worry, thinking myself into the future and not living, full-bodied in the now.

5. In my quest to learn more about dogs, I've watched a lot of dog trainers via television and video, I've read a lot of articles and books, but nothing prepares me more than working with an actual dog. They are all different. In their differences I must be different. I can do this well with my human students -- they all require a different kind of teaching since they all learn in different ways -- but with a dog, my intuition is all off. I'm not sure what one dog needs versus another and in not knowing, I doubt myself. We watch a lot of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, and he claims that doubt is perceived as weakness by a dog. Dogs do not respond positively to weakness. Instead, they search for a strong pack leader and if they do not perceive that strength, they take the role themselves. But how do I shed my weakness when it has been the skin I've worn most of my life? Sure, I can walk into a classroom filled with kids and exude leadership and strength because I've done it for over 20 years. Kids listen simply because I understand the lay of the land far better than they do, but dogs...well, dogs are in a different country. While taking the therapy dog test, Rubin instantly went into his insecure place. He tucked his tail, his ears folded back, the whites of his eyes got larger, and he walked with nervous hesitancy. He was a reflection of me. Even though I stood tall and walked confidently, inside I was everything Rubin was on the outside. I was nervous. I was hesitant. I was doubtful. I was without a shred of confidence. He needed me to be more than a mask of my fears, but I couldn't shake it. I couldn't breathe my way into self-assuredness and he knew it. When I look back on that moment, I realize that for much of my life, I have lived in that kind of fear -- a fear that I am not good enough to pull this off. The fear that if you pull on my facade, the whole of me would crumble into a ball of rubble. I'm a lot better than I was years ago, but that insecurity is still there, still running in my veins. Rubin is like a mirror. No, even more in-depth, he is an x-ray who reflects back to me not the facade, but the underlying image of my insecurity.

This may all seem ridiculous. This may all seem like new age hooey, but when I allow myself to believe it, when I allow myself to see myself through Rubin's eyes, I know he is one of the most gifted therapists I've ever worked with. At this point, we are working on our partnership. We're working on being in the moment together, walking confidently, and learning to be ready for the now. I was not ready the other day and therefore Rubin was not ready. He may never be a therapy dog for others. In fact, if I listen to him closely he would say, "I'd rather play than work," and so I'll pull out his agility equipment and learn better leadership skills by directing him through the tunnels and the jumps, the weave poles and the see-saws. "Play therapy," he'd say, "That's what will work best for you. Play therapy."

He's right, of course, I just need to listen not only to him, but to myself. In therapy I think they call that transference -- he lives the lessons until I can learn them myself.

I'm very lucky to have such a patient therapist. And one who can wiggle his tail with such love, I am slowly learning to love myself.