Truffle Goes to the Dog Park

Four labs and lab-mixes, and three terriers—or is it three labs and four terriers?—are in the dog park, a canine whirlwind. But where is Truffle? At six pounds, zero ounces it’s easy to lose him in the melee. Not that he gets into the thick of things with the big guys. Instead, he busies himself with important stuff, namely peeing on every tree. Then when things slow down he ambles over for a bit of sniff-and-greet. Neither shy nor aggressive (a good thing, given his size and toothlessness) he favors retired brood bitches rescued, like him, from puppy mills. Given his seven years as a stud, this is not surprising.

His nonchalance, unfortunately, does not extend to humans. For months, when we met a person on our walks, Truffle would wind the leash around my ankles in frantic attempts to get away. Now, mirabile dictu, he is slowly getting over that. He will, sometimes, approach a stranger and sniff their fingers, especially if the stranger offers a treat. Truffle’s treats consist of tiny bits of turkey hot dog that I dehydrate for hours in the oven, filling our living space with unseasonal Thanksgiving-like odors.

Truffle doesn’t do many adorable dog behaviors. He doesn’t chase balls, play with toys, or climb stairs—neither would you, if you had been caged all your life. But when he’s been in his crate a couple of hours and I come home and let him out, he spins and dips his head, grins his toothless grin, and does lop-sided play bows.  He is the very picture of dog joy, and it does my heart good to know that he is capable of it.

He has earned the respect of the cat Telemann, who is twice his size. He is not a barker—as long as he is in the same room with us when we are at home. His coat, on which I spend far more time than I do on my own hair, has now fully grown out. He has a magnificent white ruff, awesome white breeches, and a dandelion puff of a tail that he carries arched over his back. The coat comes swishing down almost to his tiny feet, so that when he walks he seems to float above the ground. He’s a good looking guy.

But he is not, and he may never be, house-trained. If in the past you had told me that one day I would be using pee pads and belly bands, I would have scoffed. But my prior dogs, from German Shepherds to a Shih-Tzu-Poo, had all had proper babyhoods, and could be trusted in the house by three months old.  When I learned that Truffle was not house trained, I thought it would be no big deal. Consistency, attention, patience, reinforcement…what could go wrong? I had trained twelve puppies in the past. I knew what to do.

But I hadn’t accounted for Truffle’s having had to overcome a dog’s instinctive repugnance to soiling his living quarters. I hadn’t accounted for his not being neutered until he was seven years old. And I hadn’t accounted for the studly compulsion to mark territory. All you need to do is watch him obsessively lift his leg (it’s always the right leg) against every lamp post, fire hydrant, bush, and tree to know that this is a creature whose mission in life is, like Alexander the Great’s, to conquer the known world.

Admitting defeat has been hard on me. I haven’t given up all hope that sometime in the future he may get the idea that there is a difference between the woods and the house. But for now, it’s pee pads, belly bands, and eternal vigilance. It’s humiliating to give up control, to let go of the idea that if I do everything correctly and persevere, good things will happen. It may be that the universe sent me Truffle to teach me that I am not in charge, and that working really hard at getting things right is no guarantee of anything. I’m beginning to think that it’s Truffle who is the teacher here, and not the other way around.