Love and patience, I discover, go hand in paw

The day I can’t get a strange dog to warm up to me is the day I’ll tender my resignation as an interspecies ambassador. Dogs, cows, horses, goats, hens, roosters, and (a few) cats: I’ll meet them for the first time and, most often by the end of the encounter, we’ll be solid friends. I have had one or two negotiations break down before an alliance finally took root.

I know enough to give a hesitant or suspicious animal space and time. They have their reasons for holding back. I think of the stray hound who appeared, starving, at the milk house door on our farm in Indiana one day. I provided a bowl of warm milk, and then, day by day, solid meals. He never would come into the house, instead making himself comfortable in a roofed shelter of hay bales just outside the back door. 

For more than a month, I couldn’t touch him. Then one day, as I walked toward the barn, he got up on his hind legs and put his front paws on my shoulders. 

My biggest challenge in the past year, since moving into an apartment near Basel, Switzerland, took the form of a massive Bernese Mountain Dog. He accompanied an elderly woman on her daily strolls along the stream behind my home. His owner uses two canes to steady herself. Since I enjoy the same footpath almost every day, our encounters were frequent. The dog was not leashed but walked closely by his partner like a bodyguard or ever-ready prop against falls.

I’d admired the beautiful Bernese without approaching. He seemed to be part cherished pet, part support animal. My policy is not to touch anyone’s dog without asking permission or sensing a clear invitation to do so, such as muddy paws on my pant legs.

This fellow’s owner would always offer a cheerful smile and pleasant word or two in the local Swiss dialect, little of which I understood fully at first. My inquiry of “Sprechen Sie English?” seemed to amuse her no end. And so we’d just smile and pass as the dog eyed me warily, usually with a sharp warning bark. 

As this went on, week after week, I began to wonder if I’d lost my touch. I came at least to know their names: Etti and Rocky, pronounced with a deeply rolled “R” and long “o.”

You can’t force love. I knew not to press. And sure enough, over time the sharp bark morphed into an almost welcoming woof, and the conversations with Etti lengthened into several sentences, mutually understood despite my nonnative accent. 

Finally, one day, Rocky presented his massive head below my hand, as if allowing me to bestow on him his entitled and long-overdue knighthood. 

So granted. 

With the ice broken, I’ve since gained Rocky’s trust. Seeing me coming along the path, he seems to have to work to not bound forward, taking a few steps my way as the distance between us closes. He woofs in real greeting, presents himself for a pat, and then returns faithfully to Etti’s side. 

The crowning moment came just the other day. Rocky thrust his head at me so enthusiastically in his greeting that he nearly upset my balance. Startled, I gasped. Etti leaned into her canes with a deep laugh.

And so I retain my illustrious title.