Free Don't Dump The Dog by Randy Grim Page B

me of having a mental breakdown, as if I was an alcoholic in need of intervention, because I wouldn’t take Bonnie or her puppies to the pound “like any normal person would.” But the truth is, “any normal person” would have heard the same thing I heard when Bonnie limped behind me through the park to my front door—that inner nagging voice, which interpreted her look: Please, don’t leave me here. And they would have ignored it.
    But for once, I listened.
    And now I always listen. Just ask Dr. Gupta.
    Territory Marking
    Recently, I entertained a short-term guest in my home—a huge, old, un-neutered pit bull named Goober—who religiously marked all four corners of my bed each night before he jumped in.
    I first saw Goober when I traveled to New Orleans with Jeff Popowich from Best Friends Animal Society in Utah ( www.bestfriends.org ) and a film crew from National Geographic to rescue dogs abandoned after Hurricane Gustav. We were part of a group of first-wave responders, and authorities gave us a partial list of dogs they knew were chained inside homes or to fences and then left behind. We worked from 6:00 AM to midnight every day for a week.
    I found Goober lying on a sidewalk that led up to a house in which a woman stood and yelled for help. Turns out, Goober wasn’t her dog—he’d just picked her sidewalk to rest on—but he was arthritic and weak from hunger and thirst. He could barely stand up anymore, let alone walk away. He was a large pit bull, with ragged ears, fighting scars, and testicles the size of baseballs, and that convinced the woman inside that he was laying there waiting to eat her.
    Jeff and I managed to get the old guy inside our rescue van, and despite his pain and weakened state, his tail banged like a bongo on the van’s metal floor. He was that grateful. Needless to say, I decided Goober had probably lived a hardenough life already, so instead of transporting him to the local shelter, which was already overloaded with abandoned dogs, I brought him back with me to the evacuated vet clinic that served as our makeshift home during the rescue operation.
    The short walk from the van to the door of the abandoned clinic took us half an hour, because, in addition to limb-numbing sores and arthritis, Goober, like any un-neutered alpha male—canine, human, or otherwise—had to mark every blade of grass along the way, even after he was empty and nothing came out. It’s a territorial thing, like a Wise Guy leaving a calling card, and no matter how inconvenient it is, no matter how much it slows down business, one doesn’t yank Tony Soprano by the chain.
    Once we made it to our temporary bedroom (a floor and a sleeping bag), Goober peed all over the place: the crates, the operating-room table, the corner of my backpack on the floor. When I finally climbed into my sleeping bag and patted an invitation to him, Goober first hobbled from one corner to the other, making his mark, then, with painful slowness, he climbed up next to me and made himself comfortable.
    For dogs like Goober, marking isn’t just peeing—it’s an instinctual drive. Researchers argue about why they do it—to intimidate intruders, to maintain territorial borders, or to make a map for themselves so they don’t get lost—but no matter the reason, they still do it, and it still smells bad. At least to us. Dogs don’t think peeing is as gross as we do. In fact, if an alpha male lifts his leg over the mark of a subordinate female, he’s basically telling her he’ll protect her no matter what. It’s a compliment.
    Dogs are really nothing more than learning-disabled wolves, and scent marking in a wolf pack is one of the most important forms of communication. The alpha male in any wolf pack—the guy who leads the hunts, attacks intruders, and gets the females—does most of the scent marking, and does so most frequently at the edges of the pack’s territory, to keep neighboring packs in their own ’hoods. Lone wolves