Pukka's Promise by Ted Kerasote

7/29/2019 Pukka's Promise by Ted Kerasote

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T e d K e r a s o T eA u t h o r o f M e r l es D o o r

The

Questfor Longer-Lived

Dogs

PukkasPromise


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i n t h e t i m e o f t h e b i g l i g h t 167

It was also during this long light-filled time that Pukka learned some-

thing else, something that I wished he hadnt learned. He learned to

bark, and not merely in surprise, but avidly, requently, and, as he got

bigger, with a bawling sonorous bay that rattled every window in the

house and sounded ar more like a hounds voice than a Labs. His

learning to bark did not happen incrementally. It happened over the

space o one weekend.I had gone to my nieces wedding in Chicago and had let him or

three days with the Landales and Buck, who, among his many shining

virtues, has one ault: he barks uproariously when someone comes to

the door. It doesnt matter i he knows you; it doesnt matter i youre

a amily member; it doesnt matter i he has just seen you only a ew

minutes beore. He believes that people coming to the door must be

announced. I am certain that in a previous lie he was a town crier.

Beore I let or Chicago, Pukkas reaction to someone coming to thehouse had been to walk to the door quietly, wag his tail, and wait or it

to open. But on the day ater my return, when the UPS man delivered

a package, Pukka leapt to his eet and roared his head o.

Although this was a wonderul confirmation o the many scientific

experiments showing that dogs learn best by observing other dogs, I

was hardly pleased to have the very proo beore my eyes or, more ac-

curately, my ears. I dont like barking dogs, or rather, I dont like dogs

who cant distinguish between the UPS man and a burglar. Even whenaced with such a potential threat, dogs can use methods just as eec-

tive as barking, i not more so, to let their people know danger is nigh.

Subdued and considered warnings, however, arent what the major-

ity o humans have reinorced over the ages, or at least they havent re-

inorced them since the time when hunter-gatherers became armers

and herders. As a armer or herder, you wanted to know i a leopard

was slinking toward your cattle or i thieves were about to steal your

chickens. A barking dog was very useul in these situations. On theother hand, as a hunter-gatherer, you kept no livestock and owned al-

most nothing but your weapons. You were more interested in learning

what animal was slinking toward you in the night rather than scaring


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p u k k a s p r o m i s e168

it away. Ater all, it could be a juicy oryx or a big at water bualo a

windall o protein with very little investment o energy on your part.

In such cases, you wanted your dog to be silent and to tell you about

who was approaching in some other way besides barking: perhapsno more than an undercurrent o breath murmured in your ear, or a

nudge o its snout against your shoulder, or the dancing o its eyes and

the pointing o its nose, all mannerisms Merle had employed to let me

know that elk were nearby. Villagers, in other words, wanted alarm

and blu; hunter-gatherers wanted silence and observation. Merle,

having grown up in the desert partly on his own, among coyotes and

herders with guns, knew all about the wisdom o silence. Pukka, with

little danger in his lie, and also with what I considered poor caninerole models, needed schooling.

So began over a year o trying to convince Pukka that our house

needed neither a security system nor a town crier. It was a task made

especially dif cult because o how much peer reinorcement Pukka

was getting or barking.

Buck was not the only barker. A.J. barked, and Burley barked, and

Goo barked, too. They barked at people walking across the field; they

barked at the UPS man, the FedEx woman, the Lower Valley Energyman, bicyclists whom they didnt recognize, and wandering deer and

coyotes. Given how much they barked, its surprising that Pukka didnt

start barking until he spent a weekend at Bucks, a circumstance that

may have had to do with his admiration or Buck and his leeriness o

A.J. and his crew.

The initial instigators in all this barking, as ar as I could tell, were

two American Black and Tan Coonhounds who lived on the east side o

Kelly, chained to two telephone wire spools by their person, a teenageboy in love with hunting mountain lions. The telephone wire spools

were turned on their sides and doors had been cut in them, creating

little kennels, and night and day, summer and winter, the two hounds

were chained to their small shelters, unless they were out hunting li-

ons, which wasnt oten.

Bored out o their minds, and wildly jealous o every dog in the vil-

lage who had its reedom and walked by them, the hounds bayed end-

lessly in rustration, hour upon hour, while the teenager was in school.I had spoken to the boy, oering to keep his hounds at my house with

the other dogs during the day.

You couldnt let those dogs o a chain, he said flatly. Theyd kill


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a cathe meant a house cat just like that. Besides, theyll just run

away.

So the dogs bayed on and on, and one aternoon I walked down the

road and across the creek, upset at what I was hearing in their baying.It wasnt merely rustration; it was pleading: We want to play with the

other dogs. Let us o our chains.

No one was home the dogs didnt bay when their people were at

homeand the two coonhounds erupted when they saw me approach.

Leaping against their chains, they rushed me, bawling at the top o

their lungs and looking erocious. Their vicious behavior was why

everyone in the village gave them a wide berth. But they werent growl-

ing in the least.I knelt beore them and said, Oh, you poor buggers. You just want

to play, dont you? I made some kissing noises with my mouth, and the

bigger dog, the male, pricked his ears, looked at me careully, and then

did a play-bow. Putting my hands on the ground, I play-bowed back

to him. He wagged his tail exuberantly, and edging closer I cupped

my palm low beore him and let him smell it. He wagged his tail even

harder; I stroked his chest; a ew moments later he turned on his back

and let me rub his belly, wagging his tail ervently.I would have taken both o them home right then and there, but

they were not my dogs. Around the world, dogs are still property, and

I could have been prosecuted or stealing them, even though people

are rarely prosecuted or treating a living being as these two dogs were

being treated, chained night and day, eighty degrees in the summer,

twenty below zero in the winter. The recent passing o anti-tethering

legislation in some municipalities may finally bring this deplorable

practice to an end.The teenager let or college and took his hounds with him, but the

damage to Kellys dog culture had been done. There had been no bark-

ing dogs in Merles time, in those halcyon days no dogs being perpetu-

ally chained. Now, having heard the chained coonhounds baying, A.J.,

Burley, and Goo decided that barking might not be a bad idea. Instead

o being a passive observer, a barking dog could make things happen:

he could make people move away; he could keep them at bay (bay-

ing dogs themselves having put this ar-reaching idiom into the lan-guage); and, i the person was a dog lover, a barking dog could make

that person kneel and talk to him sweetly, asking what was wrong, as I

had done with the coonhounds. In all three cases, the dog was noticed,


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not ignored, and up and down the main road o the village dogs began

to bark.

With this much peer pressure, it was enormously dif cult to con-

vince Pukka that I knew better than all o his buddies and that he aloneamong them should be silent. But I didnt want to live with a bark-

ing dog, and so I tried to teach him not to bark. In act, I tried every

technique I could find in the training manuals. I tried diverting him

with other behaviorhaving him sit, or instance. Pukka soon learned

to sit and bark simultaneously. I tried having him sit while eeding

him raw elk burger or not barking, and I soon discovered that a dog

can sit, eat raw elk, and resume barking all at the same timeat least

Pukka could, strangled though his barks were. I tried the going bal-listic technique, as some training manuals call ityelling at the top

o my lungs, No barking! This certainly rightened poor little Pukka,

but had no lasting eect upon him except to make me eel despicable.

Yelling is not my stylehad it been, I might have lived happily with a

barking dogand I abandoned the going ballistic technique ater a

couple o attempts. I also ound the oshoot o this advicestrike the

dog sharply across its muzzle with an index fingerbeyond the pale

and did not so demean Pukka or mysel.I tried talking to him sweetly, kneeling by his side, putting an arm

around his shoulders, and saying, You really dont need to bark like

those other dogs. Its unnecessary and raises your blood pressure.

Hearing A.J., Burley, and Goo barking rom across the field, he would

tremble, rumbling in his throat, and the instant I would stand up rom

our tte--tte, he would join them in barking. I tried giving him time-

outs in the bathroom. He would remember them or an hour or so and

then resume his barking. I bought two bark boxes, which emit a high-pitched sound that dogs supposedly dont like, and placed them at the

ront door and at the sliding glass door, where Pukka habitually would

bark. Within two days, he learned to walk fity eet beyond each box

and bark. When I placed the small rectangular black box on his collar,

as it was meant to be placed, he was dismayed, but quickly adapted.

He began to woo, just loud enough not to set the collar o. This was

a step in the right direction, but hardly a solution. I didnt want to live

with someone who was constantly grumbling under his breath.At last the dog who began Pukkas barking career helped me to end

it. One aternoon I was watching Buck and Pukka play. Buck was lying

on Pukkas bed, where they had been mouthing each other and crying


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out in delighted playul yelps. Ater a while, Buck grew tired o the

game. Not so Pukka. He leapt at Buck and backed o, and when he

got no response he pawed at Bucks ace, then bit his ears, Buck yowl-

ing in high-pitched annoyance, almost a plea, Please stop. Im tryingto rest. This only ueled Pukkas exuberance: more biting, more paw-

ing, more lunging, until Buck moved his head sharply against Pukkas

ace, not striking him with his eyeteeth, but rumbling uriously in his

throat: GRRRRR! Stop it! Instantly, Pukka backed o and lay down

a ew eet away. Thats all Buck had to doemit one deep menacing

GRRRRR!and Pukka let him alone.

I considered what I had just seen and filed it away. Buck went home,

Pukka had his dinner, and in a bit A.J., Burley, and Goo broke into ausillade o barks when a cyclist went by. Pukka leapt up rom the floor

where he had been napping and raced out the dog door to join them,

bawling, AwRooo! AwRooo! Danger! Alert! Scramble or action!

Flinging open the door, I rushed ater him, ell to all ours alongside

him, put my cheek against his head, and said, No barking. Then I

growled dramatically, GRRRRR!

His shoulders ell. His tail went between his legs. He ducked his

head and whined, pawing my ace submissively and trying to lick meon the mouth. We dont bark here, I said. Its pointless. Its unneces-

sary. It disturbs the peace. And it hurts my ears.

He looked at me.

Grrrrr, I added.

He pressed his head against my shoulder: Oh, please dont growl at

me.

I wont have to, i you dont bark, I replied sternly.

Cowed, he lowered his head. Suddenly I saw his eyes brighten withan idea. Rushing through the dog door, he disappeared or about ten

seconds beore bursting back outside. He had a bone in his mouth.

It was the one I had given to him at midday, and it was still filled

with marrow. I had remained on all ours, and Pukka now leaned his

shoulder against my upper arm and gently pressed the bone to my lips.

His eyes looked into mine and said, Im sorry, and heres my bone to

prove it.

Its dif cult to be upset with a dog, and a young dog at that, whohas developed such a refined sense o statecrat. I had spoken to him

in Dog, and he had responded in kind, making reparations with the

greatest treasure he owned, his still-juicy bone. Taking it rom him,


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I said, Thank you, Pukka. Its a lovely bone. I snied it. Mmm, it

really is. And Im touched that you would give it to me. Apology ac-

cepted, and please have it back. I handed it to him, and demurely he

took it.And that was that. I wont say that he no longer barked. But get-

ting down on my hands and knees and growling at him talking Dog

to himworked better than anything else over a period o months to

make him a quieter dog. He had his relapses, to be sure, but more o-

ten than not, when Goo, A.J., and Burley barked, Pukka would sit on

the deck, rumbling sotly in his throat as he gazed across the fi

eld atthem.

No barking, I would remind him quietly.Another sot rumble: Im not barking, Im rumbling. And this, it

proved, was his negotiated settlement with me: I was his person, but

he had his peers the canine culture surrounding himand he would

split the dierence between the two o us.

Documents

Pukka's Promise by Ted Kerasote