Seven days of gratitude, day four: dogs

As a child, I hated and feared German Shepherds. They were the pit bulls of the 1960s, trained by the rather harsh methods of the times and very often abused by idiots like Mr. Rolf, the white trash next door who engaged in a number of questionable exercises to make his dog fierce. He certainly made it good at biting neighborhood kids in the ass.

So for quite a number of years, the only good GSD was a dead one as far as I was concerned. I carried pepper spray with me on my paper route and used it to fend off many an attack, and later I learned to deter the attack of an aggressive German Shepherd by charging it directly while growling and barking myself and striking it on the nose with an umbrella or convenient stick.

When my wife suggested a German Shepherd for the old farm in Oregon, I was horrified. "I seen them dogs b'fore," said an old man at a sheepdog training class a few years later. "Theyze stock killers." I wasn't so much worried about the killing of livestock as I was about the killing of myself or the kids by some evil beast only barely distanced from its wolf ancestors. So when Colin vom Distelfeld came into my life I waited for an inevitable doom that never came. He was the first dog with which I was engaged in training of a serious kind; my first lessons in training dogs came from a sort of family tradition learned with the Wehrmacht.

The methods I learned were generally brutal, even when they were not intended to be. The technique of discipline in which I was taught to take the puppy by the scruff of the neck was said to be how the bitch disciplines her pups, but it is instead rather more like the way my hunting dog Ajax kills a raccoon, cat or small dog which tries to bite a piece out of him. The puppy Colin must have been terrified. He spent many a night alone and crying on the end of a line outside by his doghouse in the everlit courtyard. A bit like a concentration camp, with the flag of Lower Saxony flying over the farm and training and discipline vocabulary which I innocently absorbed and learned later bore an uncomfortable similarity to forms of addressed used with prisoners in a KZ.

By the time Colin passed away in another land 13 years later, I had learned that kinder methods were far more effective for teaching dogs as they are for human, but the obvious truth that consistency and love are better motivators than screaming and beating is not always so obvious when the early fears in a relationship are not well resolved. Colin never became the killer I feared he would be, because despite abusive training methods, the family environment in which he spent his first years was one of general affection and play, and offered a diversity of experience with many kinds of animals and people. Like many people who grow up with diversity and tolerance of it, the dog grew to love creatures of every kind, and treated all of them, from baby mice and young chickens, to lambs, geese, cats and equines with gentle and playful friendship. This dog taught me the value of forgiveness and second chances and that even the wrong methods with the right intentions can succeed.

The dogs I have had since him have been trained increasingly by positive means, and the differences in behavior and responses which I have observed in that transition of method have amazed me and times and humbled me more often. They have made it clear to me how much people share with their fellow mammals psychologically and how much more we can achieve with each other through kindness, rather than brutality.

In the course of the last century, animal behaviorists have helped us to understand the value of positive reinforcement as a motivator as well as the risks of harsh "discipline", which is better called abuse. And old habits are not always easy to break in the same way that those raised in violence often struggle to break the violent cycles in their lives. I have watched with no little satisfaction as police department K-9 units and military trainers have abandoned old, hard methods and picked up clickers and bags of treats as they recognize the validity of the science which has proven that a dog trained with love means greater reliability and safety in the field. Even some German hunters have realized that the best performance in the hunt comes from dogs treated with love at home and in their training. Paul Schrader, a leading dog trainer in Germany with many top results in championship trials going back to the days of the GDR once observed to me that the best dogs he had seen in some 50 years of work with them were inevitably those raised as part of a family, not confined to a kennel. Klar.

When I expressed my gratitude for teachers on the first day of this series of articles in response to a challenge by a young Portuguese veterinarian, who is herself quite an inspiring example of positive training methods and behaviorist practice, I should have included dogs, because as I have "trained" them, they have taught me, reminding me time and again of the value of kindness, loyalty and quiet companionship. Communication with dogs is sometimes the most complex form of translation or interpreting I do, but its successes have given me valuable insight into many diverse failures of communication.

Hunters have a particular method they like to teach dogs who retrieve, the Zwangsapport or forced fetch. That people continue to practice this particular bit of idiotic brutality is somewhat amazing; positive alternatives are demonstrably better and their superior results are quickly apparent in the field.

When I began training my dog Ajax vom Bernsteinsee to fetch under the direction of my hunting mentor, his breeder, I was taught that I must pull his ears and strangle him so that he would eventually learn how wonderful it is not to experience pain by obeying my commands. German society often runs a bit like that as one can see from the rather negative tone still found too often in its schools. These focus more on elimination, weeding out the weak, rather than encouraging all to make their best contribution. In the old German dog world I was told that perhaps six of the ten German Shepherd puppies born to my bitch in Oregon would have had to be killed so that the strongest four could thrive. Though killing puppies is now frowned upon in the Vaterland, there is still too little concern about the waste of potential domestically or in relationships with the country's EU partners. While the German government chastises the weaker countries in the union and calls for tribute to its banks and emphasizes the virtues of austerity and beggaring your neighbors, my German dog teaches me the real virtues of loving acceptance, patience and the occasional tasty chicken in my jaws.

In my expressions of gratitude thus far, teachers, story tellers, a frying pan and dogs abide, these four: but the greatest of these is dogs.


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Day One – Teachers Day Two – Storytellers Day Three – This Old Frying Pan Day Five – Dissidents Day Six – Hands Day Seven – Free Will

When life gives you dogs, make lemonade!

Ajax (right) and his bodyguard

For many freelance translators working long hours alone, the companionship of animals is an indispensable part of working life. My two - Csővárberki Jámbor and Ajax vom Bernsteinsee - remind me that it's time to stop working, take breaks and do more important things like search for empty cigarette cartons and beer bottles in the park. Or take a day at the beach as in the photo above when little Jámbor decided to take on the Rhodesian Ridgeback which had just bitten through the steel chain collar of his mentor in a failed assassination attempt. Life is always interesting with those two.

Animals can also assist us in our daily chores. At my home in Portugal, I have trouble cleaning up all the oranges and lemons which fall in my back yard, so the dogs stay alert, and when they hear the sound of fruit dropping it is quickly retrieved and presented to me. This means a lot of breaks. At the moment the oranges are done, but quite a few lemons still fall. And my hunter-pointer-retrievers ensure that they do not simply lie and rot.

At the moment the bag of lemons on my kitchen floor probably weighs 10 kilos (22 US pounds) and I thought "oh God, what am I going to do with all of these???". But on hot Alentejo days and nights when the translation and language lessons require frequent replenishment of fluids and electrolytes, the answer is easy. When life gives you a home and dogs like these, make lemonade. Here's the recipe that has sustained me lately:

1 cup honey
3 cups boiling water
2 cups fresh lemon juice
Ice cubes (preferably lemon or orange juice cubes)
Pour boiling water over the honey in a pot or jug and stir util the solution is complete. Add the lemon juice. Cool (or store chilled in the fridge) and serve over ice. 

If work gets really hard you might need some cookies to go with the lemonade.

The Great Hungarian Dog Odyssey

I hate to drive. I especially hate to drive on roads with German drivers. They often give me the feel of being trapped in the original Mad Max movie, and the tension differential when I cross a border into a country with more civilized driving habits is palpable. So I need a good reason to cross the country twice and go farther through other lands with signage I can't read and roads with conditions I would rather forget. Dogs are reason enough to drive 3700 kilometers or more.

Most of those who know me or read my blogs or forum rants know that I have kept and trained dogs for a number of years. Fewer know that I actually prefer cats, but since I'm a bit allergic to cats, and dogs travel better, dogs are now my companions of choice. I have a particular fondness for the Hungarian pointers known as vizslas, especially for the wire-haired variety. Their gentle nature (shared by their short-haired cousins) mean that most of the work of socialization that I used to invest in a German Shepherd can be put directly into other training.

I used to criticize the people of my host country who would drag back dogs from their holidays in other European countries, and I still cannot condone the irresponsibility with which many do so. But after becoming better acquainted with the dreadful conditions faced by discarded pets and working animals in countries such as Spain or Hungary, I cannot help but say a small prayer of thanks for each animal who makes it to a new home in Germany or elsewhere. The work of organizations here such as Fantelgarten e.V., Vizsla in Not or Jagdgefährten e.V. cannot be praised enough. I was very pleased to learn last year that Kilgray, the company which produces my current favorite tool memoQ, supports a local animal shelter in the country where they are based, and I hope that when my colleagues and their friends consider their charitable contributions that animals in need are not forgotten. Sometimes things that we would discard can make a difference in life. The fifteen puppies in the place I visited who died of cold for lack of warm blankets and bedding would have lived perhaps with some discarded sweaters.

The original plans for the trip came about when I learned in December that a good vizsla bitch in Csövár had just given birth to six puppies, three of them male. I had wanted a male from this line for some time, so I planned a trip in early February. Since it's a long way to the Budapest area and transport is often difficult to arrange for the rescue organizations here in Germany, I asked if there might be a dog or two needing to make the return trip. In fact there was, and one night a few weeks before my planned departure, half a carload of donations (blankets and dog jackets mostly) were delivered to my home. The other half of the car was filled with food donations picked up as I passed through Hannover on my way to Budapest via The Hague, where there was a gathering of Stridonium members planned shortly before I was to pick up my puppy in Hungary. Some of those attending had come from rather far away (one apparently got tired of chewing the seal blubber with Inuit neighbors and needed an infusion of Continental air), so I didn't mind the detour for good company and conversation with colleagues.

The real highlight of that weekend, however, was a magnificent tour of the Mauritshuis gallery in The Hague, where docent Nancy van Bavel shared her extensive knowledge of the Old Masters in an engaging way that by itself would have justified the long drive, the best such presentation I have ever experienced. The collection there is modest in size but of better quality than others I remember, and I look forward to an opportunity to return for another delightful afternoon of cultural education. One thing I found particularly appealing was that there is a better range of work for artists that interest me than I recall from other galleries, and Nancy carefully explained the development of the artists' techniques over the course of their careers and offered insightful comparisons with peers from the same period. If you pass through The Hague, the Mauritshuis should be high on your list if you love art, and even if you favor other periods, the sort of tour I experienced will make it a day not to be forgotten.

After a few days' inadequate rest punctuated by translation and consulting, I set off on the 1400 km leg of the journey, which took me through the southern part of Germany and Austria. In Austria I discovered to my consternation that LPG fuel is not available on major highways and that asking for it provokes a smug safety lecture from the inbred provincials at the filling stations. I was prepared on the return trip and filled up at the last station with LPG in Hungary, which got me safely through The Land of Wienerschnitzel back to Germany.

Safely arrived in Budapest, I transferred the carload of donations, looking forward to improved fuel economy and better driving safety, then afterward met Gábor Ugray, head of Kilgray's development group, to catch up on software and life. The next year should be one with pleasant surprises for memoQ users, but that's not really news, is it?

After the late dinner, I made my way up to the only dog-friendly hotel I could find near the breeder's kennels, and early the next morning I drove on summer tires over icy roads in a snowstorm to pick up my new family member, Csővárberki Jámbor, who will be trained to hunt according to the laws of the German state of Brandenburg. He was quickly adopted by my German Wire-haired Pointer, Ajax, who spent much of the rest of the day playing with him in the hotel room or in the snow.

The next day, the day planned for the return to Germany, I had to find winter tires to make the journey back through Austria safely. Although it was a Sunday, the hotel staff kindly contacted friends and acquaintances and arranged for an excellent set of slightly used Michelin winter tires to be put on the car for spare change. I had wanted similar tires in Germany but didn't want to spend the high price demanded for them, and with only one season's use these were almost a gift.

A few hours before my departure, the person running the dog rescue operations in Hatvan, which are supported by Fantelgarten e.V. in Germany, delivered the "ABC puppies" - Alpha, Billy and Chili. These wonderful little dogs had been set out on the street to starve, but Aranka and her friends rescued and cared for them until their transport to new homes could be arranged. The day before, or perhaps it was the same morning - the communication in English was a bit spotty - another dog had been rescued from the roadside where it lay dying in the snow after being hit by a car. I have met dogs who were thrown out of a car in a bag with other puppies (not all survived the landing), heard of bags of puppies hung up in trees to die and worse. The capacity for cruelty is all too human. But so is the capacity to do something about that cruelty.

With five dogs in the car, I headed off for the planned rendezvous in Regensburg, where two of the pups (A & C) were delivered, then after a night at the wonderful Hotel Bischofshof am Dom with three dogs (where young Billy munched a table - the staff were very understanding), we headed off to the last meeting point in a Regensburg forest to hand over Billy, and I made my way back to Berlin. The 3700 mile trip might have been shorter had I been able to read a map or make use of a working navigation system with Hungarian data, but not by much, really.

In the weeks since we returned, my little Hungarian import has thrived and added welcome spice to my routine. I look forward to training him and watching him develop. Some find that an animal "ties them down" and adds complications to life, but then I find most worthwhile things have some sort of complication involved. If, like me, you find that dogs have a place in translation, I hope you enjoy your canine companions for many good years. And please don't forget the ones who are not as lucky as yours.