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Authors: Akira Mizubayashi
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and judgement. It was therefore necessary to teach Mélodie a minimum of rules of behaviour: to walk beside her master at the pace he set, to relieve herself in the gutter, to wait for the green light before crossing the street, not to bark needlessly when she met another dog ⦠As amazing, as incredible as it seems, she didnât need repeated training to internalise the rules and prohibitions. I donât remember there being difficult or painfulmoments in socialising her. The pedagogical satisfaction of this teacher was greater with her than it was with some frankly lazy students who lacked the desire to progress. Twice, however, only twice, did I scold her and hit her mercilessly; I had to force myself to harden my heart, make it impervious to any cry of despair, with a devilâs heart.
The first time was right at the beginning. The protection offered by the vaccine had not yet taken effect and she was not able to go out and play in the street. With the stress of this mounting, every day at nightfall, as Iâve already mentioned, she would suddenly be overcome by the desire to run frantically through the apartment; she would bark her head off, but I was unable to attribute any meaning to the explosion of yelps. The obsessive running around the house would cease, I thought, once we took her out regularly morning and evening. As for her habit of continual yelping, we had to act quickly to nip it in the bud. If not, we imagined that neighbourly good relations would suffer. So I hit the poor creature a number of times on her rump with a sixty-centimetre bamboo ruler that had belonged to my 88-year-old mother and was now part of the sewing kit of my French wife. No doubt Mélodie was astounded to see the mood of her always kindly master suddenly transformed into this incomprehensible satanic rage. But the cruelty of the masterâs heart of stone made him twist the knife in the wound. He took the dogâs tail and lifted up the weight of ten or so kilos, shaking it and inflicting resounding whacks with the ruler as he did so.
After that day the disruptive yelping stopped altogether. The animal never barked again unless she had to tell us something, to deliver an urgent message to us.
The second occasion involving punishment came about in Philosophy Park, which was, in effect, the meeting place for the dogs of our district. Towards six oâclock in the evening, winter and summer, at a time when the passers-by were thinning out, from around and about there came to play a number of dogs of different sizes and ages who had got to know each other. Among them there was a young Labrador called Tom who was an indefatigable chaser of balls. His master would throw the ball as far into the distance as he could and Tom, never tiring, would retrieve it. As for Mélodie, this game, so universal and typically canine had never interested her. But, that day, impressed perhaps by Tomâs ardour, she clearly wanted to have fun with her companionâs round yellow plaything. The two masters agreed to get them to compete against each other. Tomâs master threw the ball a few times in a row. The two animals charged off at once as if the little spherical object, transformed into a magical whirlwind, was drawing them up with extraordinary power. Tom, who read the slightest movement made by his master and therefore guessed the direction of the flying object in a split second, succeeded in catching it before his newly arrived competitor. Tomâs master suggested that I now have a turn at throwing the tennis ball. I accepted. But it made no difference; Tom was more skilful and better trained for the task than my dog. It seemed to me that Mélodie ran faster than her rival, but she didnât manage to get herself into the best position in relation to the ball to snatch it up deftly.
Even so, after several attempts, she finally succeeded in grabbing hold of it by fending off the advances of her male adversary,
The first time was right at the beginning. The protection offered by the vaccine had not yet taken effect and she was not able to go out and play in the street. With the stress of this mounting, every day at nightfall, as Iâve already mentioned, she would suddenly be overcome by the desire to run frantically through the apartment; she would bark her head off, but I was unable to attribute any meaning to the explosion of yelps. The obsessive running around the house would cease, I thought, once we took her out regularly morning and evening. As for her habit of continual yelping, we had to act quickly to nip it in the bud. If not, we imagined that neighbourly good relations would suffer. So I hit the poor creature a number of times on her rump with a sixty-centimetre bamboo ruler that had belonged to my 88-year-old mother and was now part of the sewing kit of my French wife. No doubt Mélodie was astounded to see the mood of her always kindly master suddenly transformed into this incomprehensible satanic rage. But the cruelty of the masterâs heart of stone made him twist the knife in the wound. He took the dogâs tail and lifted up the weight of ten or so kilos, shaking it and inflicting resounding whacks with the ruler as he did so.
After that day the disruptive yelping stopped altogether. The animal never barked again unless she had to tell us something, to deliver an urgent message to us.
The second occasion involving punishment came about in Philosophy Park, which was, in effect, the meeting place for the dogs of our district. Towards six oâclock in the evening, winter and summer, at a time when the passers-by were thinning out, from around and about there came to play a number of dogs of different sizes and ages who had got to know each other. Among them there was a young Labrador called Tom who was an indefatigable chaser of balls. His master would throw the ball as far into the distance as he could and Tom, never tiring, would retrieve it. As for Mélodie, this game, so universal and typically canine had never interested her. But, that day, impressed perhaps by Tomâs ardour, she clearly wanted to have fun with her companionâs round yellow plaything. The two masters agreed to get them to compete against each other. Tomâs master threw the ball a few times in a row. The two animals charged off at once as if the little spherical object, transformed into a magical whirlwind, was drawing them up with extraordinary power. Tom, who read the slightest movement made by his master and therefore guessed the direction of the flying object in a split second, succeeded in catching it before his newly arrived competitor. Tomâs master suggested that I now have a turn at throwing the tennis ball. I accepted. But it made no difference; Tom was more skilful and better trained for the task than my dog. It seemed to me that Mélodie ran faster than her rival, but she didnât manage to get herself into the best position in relation to the ball to snatch it up deftly.
Even so, after several attempts, she finally succeeded in grabbing hold of it by fending off the advances of her male adversary,
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