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Zoey, the Knowledge Keeper of the Pack, outside the reading room

13 · RITUAL

How to meet

The cheapest ritual to fix and the one almost every house gets wrong, several times a day. What happens in him when the door opens and somebody shouts hello, why the nose has to go first, what to do with your hands when he jumps, the line you say to every guest, and how to carry the same calm hello out of the house and into a cafe.

  • 21 min read
  • 12 figures
  • In the book
Text

Two dogs meet in a quiet lane at dawn. They have come together in a slow curve, and one calmly smells the other's shoulder, both bodies loose and tails low.

Watch how people come home to a dog. The door opens. Before they are through it, the voice goes up. Hi puppy! Hi baby! The dog hears the key, is already at the door, and now explodes. He runs, he leaps, he lands on their chest, and they catch him and love him and say the sentence I heard in house after house: look how happy he is to see me.

He is happy to see you. He is also excited, and those are two different emotions, and the second one is the one you are building. You did this yesterday and you will do it tomorrow, and so will everyone else who comes through that door, and a dog who practises excitement every time a human appears becomes a dog who lives in it. In the houses I worked in, more problems started at the front door than anywhere else except the leash.

This chapter is the third ritual, and I put it third on purpose. Walk first, because a walked dog can learn. Rules second, because he needs to know what is wanted. Then this, because the way he is met is the way he learns to meet the world, and it is decided in the first five seconds of every arrival. Meeting is the daily half of socialising, at your own door, each time you, your family or a guest comes in. The other half, his meetings with other dogs, is a session of its own in chapter 16.1

Happy is not excited

You met this in chapter 07, so I will only say the part that matters here. Excitement is an unstable energy in the animal world. Watch a grown dog when a puppy comes bouncing at him. He does not bounce back. He turns his face away, and he waits. In dog after dog I have seen the same thing: left to their own kind, their natural state of mind is what Cesar Millan calls calm and submissive, and excitement is not met with excitement. In a litter, the puppies are allowed to be excited for a while, and then they are not, and the adults make that clear. So a dog knows how to meet calmly. It is we who teach him the other way.

Two panels in a society compound. A small puppy bounces at a grown dog's face, and the grown dog stands still with his head turned away. A minute later the puppy sits, and the grown dog calmly smells his neck., open the figure larger
A grown dog meets a puppy's bounce by turning his face away and waiting. He does not bounce back. In a minute the puppy is sitting, and the meeting happens by the nose. Dogs already know how to meet calmly. We are the ones who teach them the other way.

And we teach it fast. A puppy who jumps and gets loved for jumping is learning, every day, that arrival means leaping and leaping means affection. In six months he is a big dog and he is still doing it, and now the family calls him hyper. He is not hyper. He has been in a school of excitement since he was eight weeks old, and he is a good student.

Two panels at a front door. On the left the person comes in with arms flung wide and the dog leaps onto her chest. On the right she stands still and looks away while the dog, four feet on the floor, smells her legs., open the figure larger
Two hellos and two sentences. On the left he learns that a person arriving means excitement, and that excitement gets touched. On the right he learns that a person arriving means a smell and a calm body, and that calm gets touched. Both take about five seconds. He will practise whichever one you give him.

Here is where it goes, in house after house I saw. Excitement is a precursor. Put tension or frustration into an excited dog and you get aggression: he jumps, somebody screams and waves their hands, he snaps, and from that day he has a label. Keep an excited dog in a small flat with a doorbell and you get anxiety. Add a nervous temperament and you get a dog who hides when the bell goes. None of these are what the family meant when they shouted hello. But that is what the hello was teaching.

And I want to say one more thing about the hello, because people do not hear it the first time. When you come through the door shouting, you are already excited. Your excitement and his meet, and what they make together is a dog who is completely out of control at the door, and you call it love. So part of this ritual is yours. You have to come in calm. Some of us need to take a breath in the lift.

The woman stands alone in a small steel lift with a bag on her shoulder and keys in her hand, eyes closed, taking one slow breath before she reaches her door., open the figure larger
Part of this ritual is yours. Some of us need to take a breath in the lift.

The rest of chapter 13 is in the book

Chapters 01 to 03 are free to read. The other 21 chapters cover, in order:

  • The rest of the Foundation
  • The Six Rituals
  • When Something Is Wrong

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Until then, these are free and cover the same ground: