The Last Puppy in the Box - If We Only Listen: A Story of Cross-Species Understanding
The Gateway to Understanding: The Language of a Shoulder Nuzzle & Why We Ditched the Communication Buttons We Worked So Hard to Master
On October 9, 2022, during our first RV trip, we spotted an open trunk with a box and a sign that read “Free Puppies“ in a Walmart parking lot in Española, NM.
We already had four dogs in our care and weren’t needing or looking for another one, but being the dog lover I am (and knowing that parking lot puppies are often not in the best shape), David asked me if I wanted to stop and check on the puppies “just to make sure they were okay“.
At first, knowing we already had our hands full, I said “no,” but when we circled the lot a second time and the puppies were still there, we decided to stop. That’s when we met Bear, the last puppy in the set who needed a home.
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Immediately, as we approached the puppy box, watching Bear’s last sibling go to their new home, I noticed that these puppies were tiny, younger than is appropriate for a puppy to be separated from their mother.
I picked Bear (who hadn’t yet told me her name) up, and she nestled under my neck into my shoulder, as if to say, “I’m scared and don’t know where my family is,“ and I was immediately torn.
Much like human babies, puppies (especially ones this young) are a lot of work and need 24/7 care.
I estimated this pup was between only 4 and 6 weeks old and knew that if we brought this puppy home, I would be facing many sleepless nights in the coming weeks.
Additionally, Sadie, our youngest dog at the time, can be funny with other dogs and doesn’t seem to like strange dogs very much, so I assumed adding a puppy to our family would be something Sadie would never go for... but I was wrong.
Sadie’s not aggressive with other dogs, but she can be pushy, bossy, and jealous when other dogs (outside of her pack members) are around her people, near her toys, furniture, food, water, or home. She will bark in their faces and push them away from things and people she feels protective of, so we assumed (falsely) she would not take to a puppy being added to her pack.
While I felt the pup was begging me to help her, David and I decided “it was up to Sadie” whether or not we’d bring this small pup into our home.
When we brought Sadie out of the RV so we could gauge her feelings about the tiny puppy, something unexpected happened.
As soon as Sadie saw the tiny puppy, it was as if she could tell this kid was too young to be without its parents, and Sadie showed us a side of herself we’d never seen before.
Sadie, looking worried, immediately started caring for the puppy, stimulating it to go to the bathroom, just as a mother dog would. Since Sadie had decided she was not only willing to tolerate, but also care for, the tiny black and brown pup, we took it as a sign that Bear was meant to join our pack.
Bear, named for her huge personality, bravery, feistiness, and because she looked like a small black bear cub when she was little, was a handful.
I’ve crate-trained many dogs over the years, teaching them that a crate is a happy, cozy den full of treats and toys. Still, Bear was very averse to being in or even entering the crate (no matter how many lovely treats and toys I placed inside of it), and I wasn’t going to traumatize her by forcing her into a space that stressed her out.
Not having a safe place to stash Bear when I couldn’t keep an eye on her made her early days a lot of work, because Bear was the type of puppy that chewed on anything she could get her mouth on (from wires to furniture and even walls).
Additionally, as is true with most puppies of similar age, Bear wasn’t potty trained (yet), creating extra urgency around keeping an eye on her so she would learn not to potty inside the RV.
Raising Bear was a lot like raising a tiny human.
I slept and worked when she slept, because if she was awake, she required my full attention. Sadie was instrumental in this process (though Sadie didn’t love it when Bear tried to nurse from her, since Sadie had been spayed many years ago and didn’t produce milk).
I would sleep on our RV dinette bed, with Bear on the inside by the wall, so she would have to cross over me to get out of bed when she woke up, and Sadie would also sleep with us, keeping the kid nearby, and waking me up whenever Bear started shuffling about if I didn’t wake up on my own.
In the early days, I could only sleep or work for about 2-3 hours at a time when Bear was napping, but eventually her overnight sleeps grew longer and longer (while her day naps became shorter).
It was a significant victory the first time Bear slept through an entire night, many weeks after her arrival in our home, but also bittersweet, because this meant her day-naps had become shorter and much less frequent (making it very difficult for me to get any work done).
The next thing we needed to work on was getting Bear to tell me when she needed something (like to go outside).
I used to be an animal trainer (using methods similar to what is commonly used in human behavioral applications). I even used to have my own dog training company. However, since being diagnosed Autistic, I have given up these methods, due to the realization they often don’t benefit the people (or non-human animals) they’re used on.
These days, when working with animals, I have three main goals:
Build a relationship with the animal, based on love, trust, and mutual respect. Help the animal understand that I will protect them, ensure their needs are met, and that I am someone they can turn to when they need something.
Teach as many words as possible, and learn the animal’s body language, so cross-species communication is easier.
Teach them to let me know when they have a need, and for them to “show me“ what that need is, by leading me to what they need (to the door if they need to go outside, to a water bowl if they need water, to the cabinet where their food is kept if they’re hungry, or to anything else they want).
Eventually, I also want them to learn to signal to me which choice they want when I list out multiple options for them to choose from.
Being Autistic, for me, means when I’m hyper-focused on a task, the world around me nearly vanishes, and in the early days, Bear didn’t know (yet) to effectively ask me to help her get her needs met.
She would sit near the door, silently hoping someone would notice she needed to go out to potty (which didn’t work out well if I was distracted by work or another task).
For both of our sakes, I needed Bear to come get me (or at least bark or make a sound) when she needed something from me.
Enter the communication buttons.
I’ve been fascinated with the idea of communicating with animals since I was very young, so naturally, when I saw the “talking dogs“ who used communication buttons online, I was intrigued by the possibility of applying this technique to my own animal friends.
We started with two buttons: a “water button“ (placed near the water bowl) and an “outside button“ (placed by our front door).
