Expert Sniffs Out the Problems of Pets--and Owners

IF ONLY THEY COULD SPEAK

Stories about Pets

and Their People

By Nicholas H. Dodman

W.W. Norton

288 pages, $24.95

It used to be that pets were just pets, dogs just dogs, cats just cats. Yes, we all loved most of them, but when they got sick or cranky or unmanageable, we put them down, as the euphemism goes, and went on to the next one. It was all a normal part of human life.

At first glance, Nicholas H. Dodman’s “If Only They Could Speak” can be read as a parody of human behavior in a nation where people, awash in money, have swept aside the routine handling of animals in favor of costly cures and experiments that can turn ordinary love for animals into strange distortions of the human/pet relationship

Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist in the School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and a popular writer and television personality, presents us with a world in which people spend thousands of dollars on the physical, and, increasingly, psychological, needs of their pets, chiefly dogs and cats. Prozac abounds.

A typical chapter in the book opens with a couple or single owner, in great trepidation and anxiety, bringing their aggressive or fearful or compulsive pets with them, hoping, at last, for a cure. Dodman seems to be the court of last resort, the Massachusetts General Hospital or, if you will, the Lourdes of pet problems.

To the reader experienced with animals, many of the problems Dodman is asked to solve have obvious solutions. You want to tell the young man who, against all odds, is trying to civilize a pit bull to give up; they are genetically disposed, sometimes fatally so, toward aggression. (After months of trying, Dodman did tell the owner to give up, and the animal was put to sleep.)

Then there is a cat that is a cross between a Siamese and a Maine coon cat. Don’t get one; it is bound to be strange. (It was.) To the woman who insists on giving precedence to a small, pampered dog over its housemate, a large and dominant dog, the reader wants to shout, “Don’t even try! It means trouble!” (It did.)

As “If Only They Could Speak” progresses, it dawns on the reader that the pets described here aren’t the only ones with problems. Nearly always their owners have them too. Men and women who are having difficult times with each other turn to pets for a bit of solace. So do lonely people, so do people who have suffered losses from death or divorce. So does, for instance, a woman consumed by her successful career.

It is Dodman’s chief virtue that as a veterinarian he sees the connections between owner and owned, master/mistress and pet. His advice consists mainly in explaining to his clients who speak that they cannot demand of his clients who do not speak that they be something other than what they are.

As all experienced pet owners know, the genetics of a dog or cat set the general direction these animals will go and the bounds beyond which they cannot stray. A retriever will retrieve; a herd dog will herd; a guard dog will guard; a hound will hunt by scent; a terrier will dig and furiously shake its prey.

And certain breeds within these types will have pronounced tendencies: pit bulls and Doberman pinschers are aggressive; chows and cocker spaniels will bite; boxers may be compulsive drinkers of water. Oriental cats of all types may be subject to compulsive behavior.

Dodman’s advice for dealing with difficult animals is sensible and kind. Use rewards, not physical punishment. Never, never, as some trainers do, lift a dog from the ground by a choke chain. For a fearful or abused animal, use patience and gentleness. And always remember it is the human who is in command. Never let the animal get away with unacceptable behavior. Gently but firmly teach the beast its limits, and it, and you, will be happier.

Dodman can be eloquent on the joy a healthy relationship with a pet can bring to both sides of the equation. “It is not a weakness to develop a close and loving relationship with a pet,” he writes. “Quite the reverse: it indicates loyalty, caring and strength of character.”

But he also wisely remarks during the course of the book that a dog is, after all, just a dog.