A close friend recently invited me to participate in a pet painting class. The class involves bringing a photo of your dog, 3-hours of careful instruction, and the finished product is a canvas-creation of your pet’s likeness. It’s not a class for artists; it’s a class for pet lovers.
I’ve chosen my favorite photos for the class. I let my French bulldog Buckley out to potty just before I head off to immortalize her in paint. Of course, Buckley senses I’m in a hurry and she darts down our culdsac in the opposite direction of home, gleefully. She turns to look at me and when she sees me behind her she bolts again with even more enthusiasm. She’s wearing her remote trainer and I signal her to come to me. As we make eye contact and I move to pick her up, she does but bolts again. We repeat this dance and eventually I get her back inside and, though frustrated, I’m off to my class.
In 5 minutes, I have my paints, my canvas, and my picture and I’m ready to go. With the guide of someone with much more artistic ability than me, I begin sketching out Buckley’s basic shape. We discuss different breed face shapes and how to draw them. I get a few complements on how cute Buckley’s photo is and while I agree she is cute, I’m still aggravated with her earlier episode.
During the second hour of class, a dog starts to become recognizable in my work. But I’m stuck trying to get her face right. I’ve had hours to study Buckley’s wrinkles, nose, her worm-like lip, and jowls that from underneath look like a cat-fish, yet I’m struggling to bring it to life 2 dimension-ally. The gracious instructor eventually camped out with me. She could see my challenge.
“You are too close to your dog.” She said.
I moved back from my work area with a jolt. She laughed.
“No, I mean, you are seeing your dog and not the shapes that make up your dog. You look at her every day so you are biased. See her with fresh eyes.”
She proceeded to show me that her head was a square; her nose resembled a vertical “E” and so on. I was fascinated. I hadn’t ever seen my dog in this way. While I couldn’t have said the finished product was the splitting image of Buckley, it looked like a French bulldog. Plus I had learned something and my earlier frustration is gone.
Once I got home, I showed Buckley the still drying painting. She was not interested and instead, she started barking at me. I knew right away she wanted me to cash her. I prop up the painting and I oblige. I lunged at her as I have a 100 times before and she begins making fast figure eights around the coffee and dining room tables. She is in heaven. When I’m tired, I fall into a chair. I look at the painting, and then at Buckley. I notice her face and shapes very differently now and I wonder what else I’ve been missing about my dog that were right in front of me. I go to pick her up and she bounds off. I grumble at her for being such aloof and then it clicks "I’ve been teaching my dog to run from me. A recall could never override this amount of fun."
In life and in training if can be helpful to consider carefully exactly the message you are sending your dog and is it the message you want to reinforce. In our case, it was suddenly clear I need to work on some fresh communication with Buckley. During our training classes, we learned it can be helpful to turn away from your dog, making sounds in the opposite direction of your dog that are fun, and sitting down until your dog comes to you. These can feel counter intuitive but may actually help in a crisis. Further, simple awareness that I'm reinforcing the opposite behavior of what I want to achieve with my dog.
What's new that you've noticed lately when you take a fresh look at your pet? Are you having the full experience you hoped for? Or can you both find a new and even better side of each other together?
