The immense creature on the right is my personal dog and bodyguard, Hagrid Hippocrates Little Bear. He has not been photo-shopped. Wife and Pomeranian are actual life-size. Notice she has him eating out of her hand. Notice her big smile.
Hagrid is my dog, but Mrs. Welch trained him. The plan was to get the puppy to understand who was boss. Totally, without hesitation, without doubt. The Caucasian Ovcharka is known as ‘The World’s Most Deadly Dog’ which is basically true. They pick their teeth with pitbulls. Just made sense to protect the littlest human in the house. Same for the old Pom. Hagrid was five times bigger than Dixie when he arrived. Must be gentle with these two, I told him.
He was about eight weeks old. Canine imprinting occurs between four and twelve weeks, thereabouts. You want them to stay with their mother to learn what it means to be a dog. But you want to get them young enough to explain how you expect them to live with a family. Around my house, the biggest rule is nobody hurts the girls. I explained- based on 776 dog years’ worth of training – this was the safest for the boys in the end.
Hagrid went berserk the first time I turned on the vacuum cleaner. Best I can figure that long flight from SeaTac to Tampa-Clearwater, first time away from his litter, alone in the dark storage department of a jetliner, must have been an unpleasant way to travel. Turn on a Dyson Big Ball Animal Upright…hear that?!… sounds very nearly like a Boeing 727.
Anyway. He is basically a perfect dog. Except on a cool moonlight night, when he is reluctant to come indoors. That’s genetic. And he can’t be in the house when I vacuum. That’s imprinting. Nothing else makes sense.
***
Stumbled upon a tiny tome by Erik Wahl. Here’s the introduction to Unchain The Elephant
“Several years ago, I had the privilege to go on safari outside Nairobi, Kenya. As I ventured into the vast, unregulated openness of the Masai Mara, I experienced life from a completely new perspective. I witnessed the grace of a pack of gazelles, the migration of the wildebeest, and the clever stealth of the cheetah. But the most memorable encounter by far was when I crested a hill and unexpectedly came face-to-face with the overwhelming size and unparalleled raw power of an untamed elephant.
This was not a petting zoo elephant quietly behaving in a crowded room. This enormous elephant was wild and completely unrestrained to explore, to discover, and to enjoy the beauty of its natural habitat. How did this massive, powerful, free creature succumb to a life tethered to a chain in a circus tent?
When an elephant is born into captivity, the owner ties the animal to a tree or post with a thick chain to prevent the 250-pound infant from escaping. During the first few weeks of his life, the small elephant tests the chain that binds him, again and again, in an attempt to free himself and wander as his nature urges him to do. His efforts, however, are no match for steel links. Over the course of a few weeks, he eventually learns that his resources are no match for the hardiness of the chain. He gives up any further attempts to free himself, and thus relegates himself to a life within a small circle.
As an adult elephant conditioned by a past experience, he can now be tethered to a small tree with the thinnest of ropes or, in some cases, no rope at all. He makes no attempts to wander because he carries with him, for life, the belief that he does not possess the power to break the ties that bind him. The adult elephant could easily snap the rope or uproot the tree to which it is attached, but he makes no such effort, because early in life, he was taught that true freedom was not available to him. For the remainder of his life, he is tame and nothing like the captivating, powerful creature he was born to be.
Can you sympathize with this elephant? Do you feel your life has been shackled by what you were conditioned to believe when you were young? Maybe the conditioning was even more recent than that.
The time has come to unchain the elephant.”
***
So, seems to me, maybe we should pay more attention to imprinting. Who we do it to. How it is done and has been done to us. You. Me.
Think about that the next time you hear Dick Cheney giving advice about the Middle East.
Got The New Yorker today. Glanced at the first cartoon I could find. A couple of ticks talking about biting somebody’s ass. Tried another cartoon. That was more like it, a veritible epiphany. Right there on page forty-four, ‘THE CONGA LINE OF PAST SELVES.’ That’s why that magazine costs $7.99 on the newsstand.
Maybe I digress. Not sure.