IGX

By Ted Kerasote. Came out in 2008 and I somehow missed it, though I like Kerasote.

Guy on a rafting trip finds a dog that says, "you need a dog and I'm it." Kerasote is quite consciously anthropomorphic. He suggests that if you leave empathy out of the situation, you fail to see something important about animals and about us. He interprets his dog's actions and expressions and translates for us. "Ha ha ha," Merle panted, "stop and look. The elk are there."

Kerasote, for his part, speaks English, Spanish and French to the dog. "Senor, you are a grandee."

Merle's door is the dog door Kerasote put in in his home in rural Wyoming, in the small village of Kelly. The dog has his run of the village. The dog makes his own decisions. Merle will go skiing, trekking, river running and elk hunting but chooses not to go when Kerasote brings out the shotgun for birds.

Merle comes and goes as he pleases. Makes his own decisions.

The author doesn't say you should train your dog his way. He just says he did it this way and gives his reasons. He doesn't like the "alpha" theory and uses current wolf research to show where he thinks it is faulty.

I feel that Kerasote may have read some things into the dog's behavior. The one time Merle chooses to go bird hunting, he flushes a bird and retrieves it. All with a certain air of contempt, as if to say, "I can do it, but I don't want to." This teaches Ted a lesson about trying to direct the lives of other people, which is a problem he's having with his girl friend. (This, I suspect, is the deeper meaning to Merle's door: it is a door that opens up into another area of perception.)

So the dog comes and goes. Visits everyone in the village. Everyone calls him "the mayor."

Spoiler....






Of course the dog dies. All dogs die in all dog books. But what is interesting and/or controversial is that Kerasote lets Merle die a natural death. After a series of extraordinary measures, the diagnoses is that the dog can not survive. Rather than put him down, Kerasote takes him home. The dog is not in pain. Just dying. Kerasote tends him 24 hours a day, cleaning up feces and urine three or more times a day. The whole village stops in to say goodbye. Even Merle's dog pals.

And so Merle passes peaceably, naturally. Not something I would do, but something to think about. It is the way we do it with our human loved ones.

There is a lot of good dog science in the book and some very good writing. Probably, like me, you won't agree that this way of raising a dog is possible for most folks. You may object to Kerasote's take on training. Or his ideas about euthanasia. But all are things to think about.

All in all, and despite my several disagreements with the author, the best lie dog book I have ever read.

If the dog is going to die, put his ass down. thats what I want

I will check this out. Thanks Timmeh.