Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
minor mutinies, loved to stroke their silky setter heads. They distracted him from a grinding
schedule: a demanding research career; a wife who, because she was paralyzed, needed nurs-
ing; and three occasionally wild children who needed raising. The setters and their escapades
were his only vacation.
Unlike my father, I didn't want dogs as a distraction; I wanted dogs who would engage
completely with me and vice versa. By my early twenties, I had settled on German shepherds
as my favorite breed. Partly because I loved their intelligence and dignity and their physical
resemblance to wolves, partly because they were the antithesis of setters. David met me when
my second shepherd was still a young dog and fell in love with him. Zev was an easygoing
ambassador for the breed.
David and I realized the squashy mole needed a name that suited him better than Coda.
His entry into the world felt less like a tail end and more like something improvisational. So
David, a lover of jazz, renamed him Solo.
Animal behaviorist and author Patricia McConnell, who has devoted a good portion of
her career and research to dogs with behavior problems, has a chapter in one of her training
topics on anger management in dogs. She wrote about her reaction when her favorite border
collie gave birth to just one pup: “I'm supposed to help people, not cause the very problems
I'm trained to alleviate, so when the vet confirmed that the litter contained a total of one
puppy I was beside myself. You might think that it wouldn't be a crisis but it felt like one
to me.” McConnell briefly considered euthanizing the pup before rejecting that idea as she
held the small warm bundle of fur. “Over the years I have seen what appeared to be a dispro-
portionately large number of singleton puppies with serious behavior problems.” She was the
dog behaviorist who knew too much. Nonetheless, she decided she would experiment. For
the good of her research and perhaps the good of future clients who came to her in despera-
tion over their singleton dogs.
When he was only five weeks old, McConnell wrote, the border collie pup growled at her
in fierce aggression, lips curled back from tiny milk teeth. “All I had done was touch him.”
• • •
You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life.
—Han Solo,
The Empire Strikes Back
, 1980
Joan nicknamed the singleton pup “HRH,” for His Royal Highness. Solo was the king of
everything. He had the canine equivalent of an Exeter education before he was eight weeks
old. Being a litter of one had its perks. Joan took him everywhere with her: to acupuncture
appointments, to Lowe's, to friends' houses, on walks in the woods to explore. I followed
