A Maggie Dog Story

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, April 6 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post 

You remember my Brittany spaniel, Maggie? The one who ate the money? Well, $20 bills
aren't the only thing Maggie has eaten. She has eaten sponges and shoe boxes and unopened
letters, and she's dug used tissues out of the garbage and consumed them as though they
were rare Alsatian bonbons. One of her favorite maneuvers is jumping onto the table while
the family is eating -- she has a vertical leap like Michael Jordan's -- and grabbing my napkin
and taking it into the living room and shredding it. And when I follow her in there to pick up
the pieces, she doubles back to the table and snatches my lamb chop and wolfs it down. She
has dug craters in the back yard the size of missile silos. She's routinely pooped in the house.

Maggie, the Katzenjammer Dog.

A few weeks ago, I decided to do something about it. I made her into a throw rug. 

No, that would have been cruel to the dog. Instead, I was cruel to myself. Some rich,
social-climbing interior decorators I know recommended a canine training facility, a rustic
place deep in the woods costing $500 a week, apparently the Phillips Andover of dog
boarding academies. (Upon graduation you go straight to the University of California at
Barkley.)

I dropped Maggie off. One week passed, then two, then three. No word from the trainer.

I telephoned.

"It's taking a little longer than I thought," he said. "I found out she is a Brittany, and they are
very difficult dogs to train."

He found out she was a Brittany? What did he think she was, an aardvark? He is a
professional dog trainer. This is like a master chef suddenly discovering that the potato he
had baked and served with sour cream and chives was in fact a banana.

"Another week then?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said. "I'm under a lot of stress," he said.

How much stress can there be teaching a dog not to eat a sponge? It's not like I handed him
my dog and said, "Teach her to play the violin."

I waited a week. Then another. Our home was quiet, tranquil, Maggie-free. My kids had
nearly forgotten what she looked like. I considered leaving her at the trainer's for good, and
bringing home a gerbil, and telling the kids it was Maggie. 

Six full weeks passed. In a sense the joke was on Maggie, because at this rate when she got
back there'd be no money left to eat.

I called the trainer. "I assume she's trained."

There was a pause. "It's not as much whether the dog is trained," he said, "as whether the
family is trained."

"I'm coming to get her right now," I said, and hung up.

The trainer led Maggie out of his house, and let her run free. And she ran gloriously. Maggie
was fast and sleek and exuberant. 

"How will she behave in the house?" I asked.

"Let me show you how good she is in the woods," the trainer said.

And he led us into the woods, with Maggie off the leash. We walked up hills and through
valleys. Maggie stayed near, never letting us out of sight -- often coming to us, never bolting
from us. She actually seemed trained.

"How will she do in the house?" I asked the trainer.

"Let me show you how she does in the road," he said.

The trainer put Maggie on a leash and walked her to the middle of the road that ran by his
house, then yanked hard on the leash -- flipping Maggie into the air by her neck, like a trout
being pulled from a stream. I gasped.

"She won't want to go in the road now," the trainer said.

Of course not, she'll be too busy calling a personal injury lawyer.

Maggie remained on the side of the road, even as we leisurely crossed back and forth.

"How will she do inside the house?" I asked.

"Let me show you how she is in the open field," the trainer said.

And as I watched Maggie perform obediently in the field, I realized that she'd been trained
fabulously; she was a great outdoor dog. Which would be fantastic for me -- if I were a fur
trapper.

"What about in the house?" I asked.

"In the house she stays in a crate," the trainer said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The object of the training is to make all her rewards come outside," he said. "The reason
she's good in the crate is so that you'll reward her by taking her outside."

"She's a house dog. I want her walking around the house, sleeping on the bed with me. I
don't want her in a crate. She's not a bowling ball."

"If you don't keep her in a crate, you'll undo all the training," he said.

I piled the kids and dog in the car, and left. 

We pulled up to the house. As I opened the door, I tried positive reinforcement. I said,
"Maggie, you are a well-trained dog now. You will not revert to your old habits. I have
complete confidence in you."

She bounded straight for the kitchen, hopped up on the counter top and stuck her head in the
goldfish bowl.

"No, Maggie!"

This was the magic command. The trainer had assured me that was all I had to say, and
Maggie would instantly shrink, chastened, from what she was doing.

"No!"

She stopped. She looked at me. Then she stuck her paw in the bowl, and began to swipe at
the goldfish like a bear with a salmon.

That night Maggie ate a napkin. The next night, a sponge. The next night she dashed out the
front door and ran into the road. This week she leapt out of the car through a rolled-down
window and went bounding through back yards until she fell into a neighbor's swimming pool,
and had to be fished out, like an old boot. 

I am tempted to say that Maggie learned nothing from the dog training academy, but that
would be wrong. Maggie learned one dog skill she'd never had before. Now, without
requiring any command from me, entirely on her own initiative, she drinks out of the toilet.

@CAPTION: MAGGIE 

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

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