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Still, in all this ruminating I accomplished only half of what I set out for myself as reasonable sabbatical goals. I'm sure I could have pursued my tasks more efficiently if I hadn't been repeatedly interrupted by the rough and tumble of my household's daily life. Ann has to get off to work at the office each day. Helen and Jane must each be prepared for school with lunches packed to exacting specifications that I violate on pain of dire consequences ("Daddy . . . I said only half a sandwich"). The house must also be prepared for their return: dinner prepared, laundry folded, beds made, mail sorted, bills paid, errands completed, and so on. As a family, we badly underestimated the extent of these responsibilities and, mislabeling my status at home on sabbatical as "leisure," we decided we could add into the domestic economy the commitment of owning a new dog. 

Rhea (for our dog was to be named after a goddess identified with the earth) is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, the latest in a long line of Chessie's owned by my wife's family. When I first met Ann she owned a Chesapeake named Josie, and in the exuberant flush of our courting, when I longed to know everything about Ann, I also longed to know everything about dogs, hers in particular. The Chesapeake is one of only a handful of breeds to have arisen in the United S tates. According to a legendary story widely related among Chessie fanciers, the breed originated from a pair of Newfoundland pups given to inhabitants of the Chesapeake Bay area by sailors grateful for their hospitality after a shipwreck in the stormy waters of the Bay. In the succeeding years, these two dogs ("Sailor" and "Canton") were bred with other dogs popular in the region, probably with curly-coated retreivers, water spaniels, and perhaps with otter hounds, to produce an incomparable retrieving dog. The dogs that emerged were strong, calm, loyal, and intelligent, with massive chests and dense, wavy, oily coats that equipped them perfectly for retrieving large water fowl from icy, wind-blown water. 

Thankfully, Chesapeakes have never become particularly popular among pet owners, for the popularity of a breed creates a demand that breeders rush to satisfy without pausing much to consider the well-being of the dogs. Thus some popular breeds (golden retrievers, collies) have been placed at risk by the temptation to breed too closely; and individual litters in these breeds are placed at risk by simple inattention as they languish in "puppy mills" or in pet store windows. The unpopularity of Chesapeakes has worked to their advantage in another way, too : the breed's fanciers have never concerned themselves with success in the show ring as much as with successful performance in working conditions. This has meant that the dogs have never been bred to satisfy changing tastes of show judges, and as a resul t have been spared the overemphasis on bizarre physical features that have become fashionable in some breeds (think of the extreme pointed muzzle of champion collies, or the extreme downsloped hindquarters of champion German shepherds). 

Ann's old dog Josie was just what you hope for in a companion dog, and it brought great sorrow to the house when she died prematurely of lupus, just as our children were born. If older dogs are good mates for infants, puppies are notoriously bad ones. The sturdy puppy's friendly play is so dangerous to the fragile infant that parents must restrict the puppy too much for her own happy development. Jo's death meant that our house would be without a dog for the time of Helen's and Jane's infant- and toddler-hood. But my sabbatical coincided with a milestone birthday for Jane when we judged she, and so our whole family, was ready for a puppy. 

Part of our thinking was that in the "leisure" of my sabbatical I could devote enough time and care to Rhea's education that she would turn out a well adapted member of our little society, equipped with the citizenship virtues that let a dog live happily and constructively within the activities of a family. So I added to my daily round of domestic duties (and of course to the official business of my scholarly sabbatical reflection!) an earnest examination of the literature on dog behavior and obedience. I learned well what can be learned from the welter of expert opinion on dog rearing, and I did well in the earliest phases of Rhea's upbringing. But the "father" of a young dog can only go so far on his own without jeopardizing the healthy growth of a dog's character, so the time came for Rhea and me to go to school, and we continued in school for most of the year, fending off sloth and obstinacy in pursuit of justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance. 

One night each week, we presented ourselves to the inspection of Marly Whiting, the president, dean, and sole faculty member of the Canine College on South Morgan in Minneapolis, to let our discipline and character over the preceding days be judged. It is a harsh ritual, for if dog and handler can properly perform an exercise as prescribed by Marly Whiting, we get off without a word; if not, we are chastised by Ms. Whiting more bluntl y and severely than I have ever known any student anywhere to be chastised. I should not say "we" are chastised, for of course it is the handler who during the week between classes either succeeds or fails to instill in the dog the familiarity with a command and the will to perform an exercise cheerfully that exempts the team from Marly's rebukes. 

Dog obedience training, I have found, creates a kind of elite. Those dogs and handlers who pursue it come to believe that an obedience-trained dog is a safe a nd welcome member of human society, whereas untrained or poorly trained dogs are an inconvenience and a threat to human society, as well as a threat to themselves. Moreover, since the successful training of a dog requires extraordinary patience, consistency, and ingenuity from the handler, good handlers often become scornful of pet owners who lack the discipline, consistency, and ingenuity to instill the requisite virtues in their animals. 

At the same time, dog training is a conceptually simple matter. There are some intellectual virtues and some rudimentary skills that a dog must cultivate and master. Lacking these virtues and skills the dog is ill-equipped to assume her place in human society. At a minimum, a dog must know the exercises "heel," "sit ," "down," "come," and "stay" (which the dog must perform while sitting, lying, or standing). For specialists and aristocrats of the dog training world there are myriad other exercises: down on recall, fetch (with countless variations), jumping, pulling, identifying scents. And of course dog pranksters can learn tricks that are entertaining, but irrelevant to good citizenship: shake, rollover, etc. 

The manner of instilling these virtues and skills in the dog, for all that it requires great resolve on the part of the handler, is just as simple. Marly Whiting let all of us in her class know this one memorable evening when, exasperated at the failure of some handlers to coax an automatic sit from their dogs while coming to a stop at heal, she said, "people, it is just a matter of command, compulsion, obedience, infraction, correction." A few minutes later, in a separate context she added the notion of praise. But that first stern, uncompromising list is the kernel of the thing. 

A handler has means of imposing on the dog a negative stimulus, especially a stern voice and a training collar. A handler has expectations of what behavior from the dog fits the protocols of the exercise. A handler administers a negative stimulus as a disciplinary force when the dog fails to conform to the structure of the exercise. In the early phases of training, this is most of the time. If the dog forges ahead when commanded to heel, for example, the handler says firmly, "NO, heal," and jerks the lead quickly and hard, so that the chain training collar momentarily closes uncomfortably around the dog's throat and then is relaxed. When the dog successfully conforms to the structure of the exercise, the handler praises the dog with a cheerful "good dog, what a good dog!" The process shapes the character of the dog so that she knows that conforming to the purposes of the human world ("obedience") earns praise; flouting those purposes (an "infraction") earns discomfort (a "correction"). 

One of the surest principles of early training is that the handler should make the correction firm enough that it will not have to be repeated. A single really brisk "NO" coupled with an equally brisk jerk on the training collar burn a memory into the dog's mind, so that she quickly abandons the offending be havior and complies with the command. Trainers reserve special disdain for the handler who is not sure enough in his resolve to correct the wayward dog firmly. "Nagging" a dog with gentle, pleading tugs on the collar, rather than jerking it with efficacious verve, is a cardinal sin. Don't coddle the animal, the implied maxim seems to run, administer discipline sufficient to the task. 

There are many moments in the training that must strike an observer from outside the scheme as unfairly, or "inhumanely" harsh to the dogs. None is more exacting that the series of exercises by which a dog is disciplined to concentrate unwavering attention on the person of the handler. To insure that the dog is constantly visually alert to the handler, some commands are given by hand signal, rather than by voice. The dog whose attention wanders cannot possibly obey these commands, since she does not see them. A visitor to the class on the right night, when these commands are first being taught, would see a roomful of dogs each seated in front of her handler at the full extension of a six foot leather lead attached to the chain training collar. On an instruction from Marly Whiting, each handler makes a vigorous hand gesture that signifies the command "down." A few dogs happen to be watching their handlers, and a few of these comply with the command. But the rest, including all of the dogs who are gazing curiously about the room "commit an infraction" by failing to comply with the command they didn't see. The correction that follows is swift and without warning: the inattentive or obstinate dog feels the jerk and hears the stern "no," together with a spoken repetition of the command. Some dogs with good handlers are nearly knocked to the floor by the force of the correction. It is an enormously important and almost always successful element in the training of dogs, for almost all come quickly to the realization that they must simply watch the handler at every moment to avoid an infraction and a correction. The properly disciplined dog is resistant to all distractions and temptations, and awaits the whim of the handler without question. 

Rhea and I have been successful at dog school, and I am quite proud of it. I do the things that successful handlers must do to inculcate proper behavior and respect for human authority in their dogs. Rhea is especially good at heel, sit, down, and come, but she remains irresolute on prolonged stays, and sometimes wanders from her position to rejoin me. Even though this is endearing, it is an infraction and, naturally, merits a correction along with a forcible return to the assigned position. Her lack of resolve or independence on these long stay exercises jeopardized our performance on the test that certifies successful completion of the beginner level of dog training, and permits advance to subsequent stages. Knowing this, I was more nervous at the prospect of this exam than I was for any exam in my own schooling, including both oral and written exams for my doctorate, and including every phase in the process of my tenure review. More than any other, this exam seemed to test my character, for it tested my success at shaping a citizen (granted, a particular kind of citizen) of our society, at forming character; and the exam was a straightforward proficiency test, where the skills and virtues were either evident, or they were not. We failed on our first try, and succeeded on our second. Waiting in the classroom for our second attempt, I nearly wet my pants for nervous anticipation. Heading home after our triumph, I celebrated with Rhea what a good, mannerly, attentive, docile being I had made out of my dog--the earth goddess. 

The flickering unease of a possible train of thought embarking from this link between my training success and the mythical resonance of my dog's name was an unwelcome intrusion on our mood of triumph. It gives me pause still--disciplining a dog to my needs by administering corrections and praise; it seems ego-centric and unmindful of the individuality and creativity of the animal Rhea. 

But of course, dogs are different from people, and in the long run the loss of their individuality and creativity is probably not so great compared to the advantages won for human society by their discipline and attentiveness. 

To return to my subject though, my sabbatical year reflection turned largely to women and higher education. But I accomplished only half of what I set out to do, being interrupted so often by the rough and tumble of our daily lives--housekeeping, child rearing, and dog training.