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Devotion in Dogs
Tiffin Shewmake

The following article is an excerpt from chapter six of the book Canine Courage: The Heroism of Dogs, that explores a dog's concept of time, love, and devotion. Tiffan Shewmake's book is an homage to our best friend and the extraordinary love and devotion they show us in return. The book examines canine natural history and answers many questions about the dog-human bond as it unravels the mystery of how and why dogs are unique among our domesticated animals.

Depressive behavior from an owner’s absence can also worsen over a long period. But what is time to a dog waiting years for an owner to return?

Understanding of Time
Visiting a grave or waiting years for the return of an owner raises the question of the canine’s grasp of time. All animals, including dogs, have internal clocks that help regulate daily behavior and physiology. Dogs know general times, such as morning or afternoon, and specific times, such as dinnertime. Feral dogs follow a diurnal rhythm--active in the morning and evening and sleep during the day. Dogs can also follow a weekly routine, such as going to church on Sunday. Rin Tin, a Shepherd in Chandlersville, received a medal for ten years of perfect attendance at Sunday School. Rin Tin’s streak began in 1930 when he started attending with the family's children, none of whom received a medal.

Having a daily clock is not the same as understanding the passage of time. Some contend that dogs can’t tell a month from a day, and that years have no meaning. While dogs may not be precise, this mindset seems extreme. Dogs manage an extra-exuberant greeting for a loved one who has been away a long time. Depressive behavior from an owner's absence can also worsen over a long period. But what is time to a dog waiting years for an owner to return? Did the Italian record holder Fido count out the months and years of his long wait or was each day a new start without the burden of the previous time or maybe Fido was simply following a routine for a long forgotten reason.

While stories of extreme devotion cannot be fully validated, I am convinced that dogs are loyal. Dogs act devoted, and appear depressed or mournful in the appropriate circumstances. While some may think that dogs are simply upset or stressed from a change in their routine, I believe that they are complex animals and that the behavior reflects what it looks like--devotion. Secondly, the ability to bond is an advantage for the dog, both because of the importance of relationships with pack members and also to ensure the continued support of people. Devotion strengthens the bond and ensures the cohesiveness of the pack.

The ability to bond is an advantage for the dog, both because of the importance of relationships with pack members and also to ensure the continued support of people. Devotion strengthens the bond and ensures the cohesiveness of the pack.

Other Examples of Devotion
Devotion shows the strong drive that dogs have to be with their owners. My dog Blitz hates it when his pack separates. If my husband and I are out walking and one of us lags, or worse, heads home early, Blitz races back and forth between us with increasing anxiety. Some dogs suffer from even short times apart from their owner. The resulting separation anxiety can cause behavioral problems such as excessive barking and destruction. An overly close relationship between the dog and owner can contribute to separation anxiety, and one solution is to cool the dog/owner relationship. There are even stories of dogs getting sick or dying from separation anxiety.

During World War II, The New York Times reported on the plight of Pal, a seventeen-year-old German Shepherd-Airedale mix, who became despondent when his twenty-two-year-old owner, Franklin E. Higgins, joined the army. Pal refused food and suffered a stroke shortly after Higgins left. He was not expected to live. In an unusually compassionate gesture, the army granted Private Higgins an emergency furlough to visit his dog. The two were reunited after Higgins' 1,300 mile train ride from Missouri to New York. After seeing Higgins, Pal began eating and seemed years younger. There are no further articles about Pal, so we will never know the turn his condition took when Private Higgins returned to service.

The New YorkTimes found dogs like Pal interesting enough to publish several similar articles about other dogs:

He (Pal, a 10 year old white collie) lies curled up in a kennel, at times gazing at a nearby picture of his master. When the young man left for induction in June, Pal spent several days roaming the neighborhood searching for him. He began to grieve and lost his appetite….Pal heard his master’s voice over the phone and tried to reach the phone. Mrs. Young put the dog's ear to the receiver and at the sound of his own name he barked joyously. His appetite has now returned and he keeps the telephone under daily vigil.

Kenneth Horler, a schoolboy, fell from his bicycle and died in the street. His inseparable companion, Bubbles, a little black and tan Terrier, was inconsolable. After visiting the boy’s grave Bubbles stretched himself out on the hearth rug in front of the fire, gave several faint sobs and died.

These articles reflect the human viewpoint of dog devotion. Even during wartime, the Red Cross (who requested the furlough) and the army helped Higgins see Pal before he died. Because people place great value on devotion, they would tend to breed devoted acting dogs and thus increase this characteristic.

Dogs that travel hundreds of miles to rejoin their family also demonstrate the canine drive to be with their pack. This might be an indirect measure of devotion. Headlines such as, "Sam's Fine, Dog Tired after 840-mile trek" or "Dog Takes 1,600 Mile Walk Home" are not uncommon and at one time dog travel stories were so prevalent that the great humorist James Thurber wrote an essay on the subject:

Far-traveling dogs have become so common that jaded editors are inclined to turn their activities over to the society editors, and we may expect before long to encounter such items as this: “Rover, a bull Terrier, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Thompson of this city, returned to his home at 2334 Maybury Avenue yesterday, after a four-month trip from Florida where he was lost last February. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson's daughter Alice Louise is expected home tomorrow from Shipley, to spend the summer vacation."

Thurber may spoof such dog travel stories but dogs like Sam, the Yorkshire Terrier-Poodle mix who walked the 840 miles from Colorado to California to rejoin his family, illustrate an incredible drive to get home. Besides demonstrating loyalty, these long journeys show an amazing, almost unbelievable navigational ability. Some tales, especially dogs finding their owners in unfamiliar locations, seem supernatural. The ability of dogs to find their way home is looked at in more detail in chapter eight.

Being driven chemically does not take away from the dog's feeling of love any more than oxytocin takes away from a mother's love; it is the way mammals function.

Love
Devotion and loyalty are complex behaviors, and extreme stories of devotion don't clarify the nature of this behavior in ordinary dogs. Some people describe such complicated dog behavior as mindless habit or instinct, which does not seem to adequately describe devotion:

To explain such behavior (not eating or dying of grief) one must speak scientifically of "conditioning," particularly if the animal is accustomed to being fed exclusively by its master, exercised only by him, etc. It is in fact a case of anxiety which is sometime deep, of depression which can sometimes end in death; but a dog in such a situation does not "know" that his master has disappeared for ever. Could one say that it is waiting for his return? That would be to admit that it could call his master to mind; and that too is impossible. Snatch a dog from its surroundings, separate it completely from its master and from everything which, by association, could awake memories in it, and in a few days it will slip into a new life.

This thinking relegates the dog to the state of a demented person who repeatedly reads the same letter, the news fresh each time. Such a dog would be eternally getting to know his owner, and be unable to differentiate strangers from friends, much less learn a person's idiosyncrasies. But anyone who knows dogs, takes for granted that they develop strong bonds and recognize friends versus strangers. This recognition persists over time; just look at how dogs greet children who have been away at college.

The dog's tie to man is a main theme in the writing of Jack London. Why else would White Fang, grievously treated by man, not return to the wild despite being part wolf and possessing hunting skills sufficient to support himself:

He crawled straight toward Grey Beaver, every inch of his progress becoming slower and more painful. At last he lay at the master’s feet, into whose possession he now surrendered himself, voluntarily, body and soul. Of his own choice, he came in to sit by man’s fire and to be ruled by him.…White Fang did not run away, though he was allowed to remain loose…it was necessary that he should have some god. The lordship of man was a need of his nature. The seal of his dependence on man had been set upon him in that early day when he turned his back on the Wild and crawled to Grey Beaver’s feet to receive the expected beating.

Jack London is not saying that the dog loves man but that being with man is part of the dog’s most basic nature. I go further, and believe that dogs love people and that this love is part of their nature. Love is usually considered a human emotion but if we base our definition of love on behavior, then there is no question that dogs love. How else would we describe someone who--enjoys being with a particular person, tries to comfort the person when she is down, is unhappy when the person is unhappy and happy when she’s up, will leave a place of comfort to be near the person, protects the person, and becomes upset if separated?

Love has a chemical basis. In mothers, the hormone oxytocin stimulates the flow of milk and encourages the mother’s desire to cuddle her baby. This same hormone stimulates sexual arousal and can be induced by the touch or merely the look of another person. Another natural chemical in the body, phenylethylamine (PEA), is secreted when one is infatuated and produces a euphoric high. Long time couples have a more serene relationship and the other’s presence causes the release of endorphins, the body’s natural opiates. I suspect that the presence of an owner causes the same type of chemical release in a dog as occurs in a long time couple. (The same may happen for the owner.) Thus the touch or presence of the owner would give the dog a peaceful, calm feeling. This might explain the tendency of many dogs to stay physically near family members. When I work at home my dog is usually close. Often I cannot move my chair without hitting him, and he always joins me if I take a nap.

The dog would lose these comfort chemicals with the loss of an owner. Some dogs, like people who crave the excitement of PEA and neurotically seek out new relationships, may be more sensitive to these chemicals and therefore, more sensitive to loss. These dogs may suffer more intensely from separation anxiety or strive, like Shep, to find their owners and restore their physical good feeling. Being driven chemically does not take away from the dog’s feeling of love any more than oxytocin takes away from a mother's love; it is the way mammals function.

Regardless of the why or how of love and devotion, like heroism, this behavior has a practical basis. Devotion may be even more effective than usefulness or even heroism in helping ensure the dog’s survival. The well being of a beloved friend far exceeds simple survival, as the loving owner provides the dog with a high standard of living, which translates into physical well being and comfort.

Tiffin Shewmake has a background in science and research. Her book was an answer to an unsuccessful search on a book of dog heroes. She found that if she wanted a book on the subject, she'd have to write it herself. Canine Courage: The Heroism of Dogs started out as a collection of dog hero stories. However, during her research, she realized that the real story is the relationship between dogs and people, which is the basis for heroic dog behavior. The domestic dog is the corporate protégé who bets his future on his boss' success, and uses sacrifice to gain the boss' help. Heroism is a part of the dog's overall survival strategy of saving people to save themselves. So the book became much more than stories as she looked at the dog's natural history, behavior, and relationship with people to help understand the nature of canine heroism.

Canine Courage looks at what motivates heroic dogs, exploring what dogs understand of danger, and how dogs know what to do in an emergency. The book also looks at related behaviors such as loyalty, relationships with other animals, extrasensory perception, and everyday heroic acts. Why would Shep wait twelve years in a hospital lobby, the last place he saw his owner alive, what drove Nipper to run through flames to save a herd of cattle trapped in a burning barn? Reona ran to the house next door and pushed a little girl out of the way seconds before a microwave oven toppled off the refrigerator. How did Reona know of an earthquake? These behaviors are thoughtfully explored by example through touching stories revealing the true bond between humans and their best friends. For more information, visit doghero.com.

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