The Undeniable Personhood of Valentino

He is family.

The Undeniable Personhood of Valentino

On an afternoon in late October, Tino and I drove to Long Lake in Port Orchard.  It is one of our favorite spots, when work takes us to the Kitsap Peninsula, and we will stop there after a search.  For unknown reasons, we are often the only people at this wonderful little park.   I guess it could be that we go there when the temperatures are cool, which they need to be for Tino to search, and other people go to this lakeside park when it’s sunny and warm, to have a picnic or swim.  Tino swims in freezing weather, and it’s never too cold for him.

On this day, we urgently needed to have fun.  We had just worked a very sad case.  Tino had done a great job, finding evidence and solving the mystery when absolutely no one else on the planet could have helped this family.  They could have used all of the most recommended search techniques to find their beloved dog, but only Tino’s nose could have found the trace evidence that told the story of this dog’s final moments.

I will call the dog Thomas, which is not his real name.  Although I want to share details of his life and his death, his story is not really mine to tell.  Also, what happened to Thomas has happened to many other good dogs, so his story is in one sense very specific while also fitting a general pattern.  Thomas was about 13 years old, in good health.  He liked to wander about the large yard and also venture into the adjacent forest sometimes.  He would hang out near the garage as his master worked on trucks.  Thomas was smart, and he knew the patterns and routines of his household.  He would explore and chase rabbits, and always show up again where he was supposed to be.  Until one day he didn’t.  He just vanished, without a sound, as if abducted by aliens.

When I was told about the circumstances of the disappearance of Thomas, I immediately thought of a coyote.  I didn’t want to tell the owner that, because when I mention coyotes, that’s all a pet owner can think about from that point on.  Also, I could be wrong.  When coyotes take small pets, it is their signature that the cat or small dog simply vanishes without a sound.  From the statements owner have made and from the evidence my search dogs have found, we can piece together a typical coyote attack.  Coyotes watch.  They are clever.  They are stealthy.  It is very likely that coyotes have watched you and your pets and you never knew they were there.  Dogs and people in their yards are noisy and not careful because they feel at home, as they should.  Dogs bark and play.  Dogs and cats often develop routines, going to visit favorite spots around the yard on a regular schedule.  When a cat strolls to his favorite sunny spot, or a dog goes to chase that same rabbit that always appears in the same corner of the yard, the coyote is watching and waiting.

I don’t mean to cast coyotes in a negative light.  Coyotes provide valuable ecological services.  Without them, it is very likely we would be up to our necks in wild rabbits.  Coyotes are part of a stable ecosystem.  Unfortunately, a few coyotes can develop the habit of including pets in their diet.  Most coyotes don’t.  Most lost pets were not taken by coyotes.  It is always a possibility that a coyote can strike a domestic pet such as a cat or a small dog.  When they do, the typical pattern is that the cat or small dog is completely unaware of the presence of a coyote.  The attack is sudden, and it is over instantly, with the cat or small dog basically unaware of what is even happening.  It is over quickly not because coyotes want to be merciful, although these deaths are mercifully quick.  It’s because the coyotes wants to be stealthy and remain undiscovered.  The coyote dispatches his prey instantly to keep them from making any noise.  The coyote doesn’t want to attract the attention of that animal’s family, or the attention of other coyotes, who would try to steal some or all of what he caught.

When I agreed to bring Tino out to search, I hoped I was wrong about the likelihood of a coyote attack, but also there was the possibility Tino could find evidence if there was an attack.  It would be a challenge for Tino to find anything because the dog was last seen in the middle of his own yard, where scent trails would radiate out in every direction.  I explained how Tino works, and that he would bark a lot at the beginning because he is excited to search.  The dog’s owner followed along behind us as Tino circled the yard and started out on branch trails that led a little way into the woods and turned back.  After about 20 minutes of this, Tino found an interesting scent trail leading into the brush, salal and huckleberries, where you could see the vegetation was disturbed by the passage of some animal.  He dragged me through the brush to a particular spot, and then he stopped.  He sniffed the ground where the duff had a slight depression, as if a weight had been there.

I couldn’t exactly describe it to you, but Tino had a look on his face.  It seemed as if he understood what had happened there even if he couldn’t tell me in detail.  For the most part, our communication is a matter of Tino going where he wants to go, where the scent leads him, and me hanging onto his leash and trying not to fall.  It is my job to read his body language and behavior.  We have been through thousands of hours of training so that I can learn how he responds to various situations.  We can’t really practice on simulated coyote attacks, and it’s something we both had to learn on the job.  Tino seemed to not have that drive to pursue the scent any more, as if he had reached the end of the trail and he knew what had happened.  What I looked at his face, I had the impression that Tino knew the full story, just from the scents left behind.  He has encountered this scenario many times. I thought, What am I doing to my dog?  We follow scent trails as a game, which he is excited to play.  Hopefully we find the dog alive and well.  If Tino knows, if Tino can tell exactly what happened at this spot, from the smell of blood and death and decay, that’s not really the game he signed up for.  I felt bad for the dog’s owner, but I also felt bad for my best friend, that he should have such an intimate understanding of mortality.  I asked him to wait while I took a closer look.

I got down on my hands and knees, with my eyes very close to the earth.  I couldn’t see any definitive evidence, although the earth was disturbed as if a small body had been placed there and then taken away.  I smelled the ground, and it had a scent I recognized from previous times we had come across evidence of a coyote attack.  I was aware that the owners of this dog were watching me, and I knew I ought to explain my behavior, but I didn’t want to say anything conclusive or give the impression that we were done searching.

I asked Tino to continue, and he did, but with a different demeanor.  He had less urgency, and he seemed thoughtful.  He led me to a fence that was higher than a small dog could have jumped, and Tino indicated he wanted to continue.  When the owner said he didn’t think his dog would have jumped that fence, I was forced to say what was on my mind, what I didn’t want to tell him. I explained that Tino’s behavior was indicating a possible coyote attack, although I hadn’t reached that conclusion yet.  It is possible that his dog could have been carried over the fence by a predator.  He said he understood, and that he had already been considering that possibility.

I told Tino to go ahead and jump the fence.  I’m sure he could have jumped the three-foot fence fairly easily, but Tino didn’t quite think so.  The dog’s owner and I pulled up on the top line of barbed wire and pushed down on the rest, to make an opening, and Tino jumped right through with ease.  I got through the fence much less gracefully.  Tino followed the scent trail through a yard and to the right of way under transmission lines.  It was the kind of landscape that gets mowed periodically, perhaps every other year.  It is the ideal place for Scotch broom to grow, and also the preferred habitat of coyotes.  If you ever see Scotch broom, think coyotes.  Tino tracked around in small circles and spent more time investigating a patch of earth that had been disturbed.  Something had happened there, but there were no distinct footprints.  I looked closely, and didn’t see any evidence.  The missing dog had very short hair, as he was groomed recently. It was possible that, if there had been any minute trace evidence, it could have been taken away by crows. Tino did not want to track any farther.

We stopped at that point, and I told Thomas’s owner my interpretation of Tino’s work.  We had found zero physical evidence, but based on my familiarity with my working partner, it seemed that Thomas had probably gone into the woods a short distance, probably chasing a rabbit, not knowing that a coyote was watching that rabbit.  The coyote probably caught Thomas completely by surprise, and it would have been over instantly.  From that point where Tino first stopped, the coyote would have carried the body over the fence and through the neighbor’s yard.  I explained that that was just my interpretation, and not proof.  I suggested that Tino and I go back to the start and see if we could find any other scent trails.  If not, then I would slowly walk the first scent trail Tino followed, looking for trace evidence.  The owner agreed to that plan.

Back at the start, Tino half-heartedly tried in a few directions, but it was as if he knew the answer and knew further attempts were pointless.  I told him he was a good dog, I gave him his cheese, and I let him into the car to take a nap.  I went back to the original scent trail, walking slowly, looking for any small sign.  Thomas’s owner was behind me and to the left.  He saw something first.  It was a small bit of fur, it was definitely Thomas’s fur, and not the fur of any wild animal.  We looked at the ground near the fur, and it appeared to be covered in blood, hardly even visible because of the dark ground.  At that spot, if you had your nose close to the ground, you could smell a scent I would describe as the scent of death.  The owner of Thomas used to be a hunter, and he said he recognized the scent.  Then, as I was looking down at the ground, away from him, he let out a primal wail and started sobbing.  He cried as if he had lost his son, which he had.  He own human son was there beside him, and held his father as he cried.  I certainly understood their grief, imagining how I would feel if I had lost my Tino in this manner.  What also struck me, and made me deeply sad, was that I wasn’t crying.  What has happened to me, that I’ve been in this situation enough times that I wasn’t overcome with emotion?

We went back to the driveway.  I let Tino out of the car, and the owner thanked him.  He also gave Tino some water, out of Thomas’s dish.  We drove away, leaving the family to their sorrow.  As we had been driving to the house that morning, before the search, I saw huckleberries everywhere.  I had thought that I would pull over after the search and get a few huckleberries, one of my favorite foods in the world.  As we drove away after the search, after our terrible find, I didn’t feel like stopping for huckleberries any more.

As we drove away, and drove to the lake, I told Tino that I love him, which he hears quite often.  I told him he was a good boy, and I petted him as I drove.  I considered our work.  It is supposed to be a game.  It is supposed to be fun for him.  I try to shield him from death, and I was glad that he was back in the car when Thomas’s owner had started wailing.  We have a new puppy, Raven, and it seems that she will make a great search dog, like Tino.  If she becomes a search dog, I will love having that bond with her, working together as partners.  I have always said that I let the dog choose if they want to be a search dog.  We make it fun, to entice them to search, because a dog won’t search if it’s not fun.  I try to acquire the dog’s consent to become a search dog.  There really isn’t a way for me to tell a dog, up front, that there are going to be bad days, with the worst possible endings.  If Tino had the choice all over again, if he knew at the beginning that some of his searches would end in death, would he still sign up for the job?  I think he would.  If he has that level of understanding, then hopefully he also understands that we perform a vital job, giving an answer to the dog’s owner.  If Tino understands that Thomas suffered a violent death, then hopefully Tino has the capacity to fully understand how much I love him and value his work.

We went to the lake and played as if our lives depended on it.  Tino ran and splashed.  He refused to give the stick back to me, as usual, so I had to go get a second stick from the nearby woods, and throw that into the lake for him, to get him to drop the first stick.  He played and ran around the large field. He chased the geese.  I took many pictures and videos of him, even though I already have thousands of pictures of him.  I needed to document his aliveness.  I need to take every opportunity to fully enjoy my son and my partner, my friend, knowing that a drunk could hit us on the way home.  Knowing that it could end suddenly for us, without warning, the way it did for Thomas.  I feel like The Coyote is always watching us, waiting for us to drop our guard.

The family of Thomas lost their son.  They lost a person.  Thomas was a dog, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t family, that he wasn’t a person.  Almost every sort of human was considered to be not a person, at some point in history.  One tribe might consider members of another tribe to not be real persons, to be things, so that violence toward the outsiders could be justified.  Women were not considered persons, at least in regards to voting or ownership.  Women were property in the eyes of the law. My own mother wasn’t allowed to have a credit card in her name, at one stage in her life, and the credit card had to be issued to Mrs. Branson.  I have to admit that I haven’t always thought of dogs as people. At a certain point in my life, I didn’t even particularly like dogs, if you can imagine that.  Because of my time with dogs, such as Porter, Tess, Kelsy, Olive, Bear, Mu, Fozzie, Sky, Viktor, Tino, Raphael, and now Raven, I have been forced to see the obvious fact that these dogs are people.  They think.  They feel.  They are more human than humans, most of the time.  They are family.  When I lost Kelsy, it was a grief like I have never felt after the loss of a human relative.  I had a deep bond with her, as my working dog.  These furry people in my family are not persons because I grant them personhood.  They always possessed this quality whether I was able to recognize it or not.  I think most people would now agree that women were always people, even when they were incorrectly considered to be property.

In every instance, granting personhood to a new class of citizen has enriched those already recognized as persons. Sharing the umbrella of personhood never detracted from anyone.  All of the work that I do, that Tino and Mu and I do, it is driven by the view of society that dogs are considered a consumer product.  The law allows them to be bred, in horrible conditions, for the purpose of making money for a human.  The law considers a dog to be property, like a shoe or a watch.  If a dog is unwanted or unclaimed, he can simply be destroyed, as if he was an old toaster or a broken refrigerator.  There aren’t enough loving homes for dogs because people with profit as their motive keep cranking out puppies like a consumer product, like an item on the grocery store shelf, like fashionable clothing that sells one year and not the next.  Dogs are disposable in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of society in general.  To the people who hire us, dogs are family.  They are people.  They are often the heart of the family.  One person who asked for our help the other day said, “He is my soul.”

Tino and I will keep searching for lost dogs, doing our best to solve this problem, but we will never be able to keep up.  The underlying cause of so many dogs going missing is that they are not treated as people.  They need to not be produced as a consumer product.  Dogs should only ever be bred for the best interests of the dogs, which means much less often.  Dogs should be treated as the family members that they are.  The owners of Thomas loved him, obviously, but there were steps they could have taken to protect him. For example, Fozzie wears a coyote vest when he goes out for a walk at night, and none of my dogs is ever out of my sight for more than a moment.  Tino is my family, he is my son, my partner, my friend.  He is a person.  I protect him every way I can.  I enjoy sharing my life with him as a person.  If every dog was recognized as a person, it would solve so many of the horrible, perennial problems dogs face.  I don’t know how anyone could look at the face of my Tino and deny that he is a person.  If he is a person, then that unwanted dog in the shelter is also a person. That Black Lab puppy that someone needs to get rid of is also a person.  We need to treat these people with the respect and care they undeniably deserve.