Ann's Running Commentary

I haven’t hired a doggie therapist, but I have made a discovery about my four year old Weimeraner, Jackson. He has Multiple Personality Disorder.

Jackson, like most weimeraners, is fiercely loyal. Of the five people in the house, I am the one he has to be near twenty four hours a day. This means I am also the one who is run into and knocked over on a consistent basis. In the house, Jackson is a terror. He runs into everything, banging his head on the table or wall several times a day, slipping as he rounds corners and basically seeming like the world’s klutziest dog. He is also horribly disobedient. I can yell,”Come” until my face turns blue and get no response. But if I yell, “Treat” he comes running. He pulls things off of the kitchen counter; noses open the pantry for a late night or early morning snack and digs in every trash can in the house. He jumps on beds and he runs to the front window to bark at every dog who dares walk by our house. In the house, we have taken to calling him Jackson the Terrible.

But when he sees my running shoes being laced or even hears the word run, he becomes Jackson the Magnificent. He waits patiently by the back door and is ready to go the minute I am. As we head out the door, the anticipation is apparent but not in the tugging and pulling way that my other dog exhibits. Instead it is his raised and wagging tail that gives him away.

The first part of the run is fun for Jackson the Magnificent but it isn’t what he is here for. The first half is where I first noticed the split personality disorder. The dog that stands at my front window and barks like Cujo at any dog that passes the window tucks his tail between his leg and jumps to the other side of me if a dog comes running to its window. He gives me the “Mommy, that dog scares me” look and refuses for the rest of this part of the run to go back on the other side.

Other than this refusal though, he becomes the world’s most obedient dog. He runs without tugging, doesn’t stop to smell every tree and never barks at another dog. This obedience becomes even more pronounced as we hit the second part of the run, the trails. On the trails through our woods Jackson listens to every command. I can whisper the word “come” and he returns without hesitation. One “This way” and he changes course on the spot. “Wait there” and he stops and sits quietly until I release him. Things I have tried in the house to no avail are obeyed completely on the trail.

But the biggest difference between Jackson the Terrible and Jackson the Magnificent, the two very different personalities of my Weimeraner, is his gracefulness. On the trail Jackson becomes Mikhail Baryshnikov. He glides gracefully through the landscape with his limbs all in his command. He soars over the low brush. He cuts in and out of the trees. To see him in the woods you would never guess he is the same klutz of Magnolia Lane. He is graceful and sleek as he bounds through the thick forest of trees.

On the trails, he is the dog that every trail runner dreams of owning. He scouts the terrain ahead and comes back to my side when there are other runners about. He is the perfect off leash dog. Jackson the Magnificent becomes the dog I beg him to be inside.

Once we return home he remains Jackson the Magnificent for about an hour, as though he is basking in the glory of all that he was. But then it is over and he goes back to the same klutzy, disobedient, barking dog.

I am not sure there is a cure for multiple personality disorder in a dog but if there is I wouldn’t want it. I have begun to see this daily transformation as a gift. And it makes me wonder, would I appreciate the grace and beauty of Jackson the Magnificent if I couldn’t compare him to Jackson the Terribly Naughty?

Originally Published in Dog Living Magazine September 2009

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