Dogs Prefer Strong Leaders

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Sarah Connor, the main protagonist of the movie Terminator 2. The scene of Sarah holding a snapshot of her earlier self, taken at a gas station in Mexico with a Kodachrome 960 instant camera by a Mexican boy on November 10, 1984, and sold to her for $4, has always been impactful to me. It is timeless, connecting the past to the present through an object. The photograph shows Sarah Connor, six months pregnant with her son, John Connor, in a jeep near the Mexican border.

The transformation of Sarah Connor from a gentle, ordinary woman to the mother of the leader of the human resistance reminds me of my own transformation. I spent my early years congenial and generally mild-mannered, like Sarah Connor. At this point in my adult life, a transformation of sorts has taken place. I didn’t have anything as dramatic as the Terminator in my life, but after some struggles that life has brought, my life has been tempered and forged into what I have become today.

Both dogs and humans look for subtle signs of a strong leader. Society often thinks about men when they imagine a great leader. However, there are examples of women leading armies. Joan of Arc, a peasant girl, at 13 led the French army to a momentous victory that repulsed the English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War.

My experience with dogs is that I must change my demeanor to that of a strong leader in order for them to take me seriously at the start line in agility. It’s almost imperceptible, the change that needs to take place. However, it is remarkable the effect it has on the results. I believe that dogs need a good human leader because if they don’t feel that the human is in charge, then they must take over. The results of me not paying attention to that are mostly disastrous to our performance in agility. Blue Angel, my almost 6-year-old Blue Heeler, feels that she must take over if I don’t show strong leadership. She jumps the start line after I tell her to wait. It all goes downhill from there because I’m not able to get into the most favorable position to get us started on the course. I’ve been noticing that Lucky, my 10-month-old Australian Shepherd puppy, is exactly the same. If I don’t take on the persona of Sarah Connor, he will abandon me and run off the course. The other human agility participants taking the class with me get a chuckle out of me taking on the persona (I do too when I stop and think about it). It is incredible to notice the change in me and in my dogs when I pay attention to it. Let’s hope that I remember to take on that persona this weekend at our next agility trial.