TARA Training and Behavior is named for the memory of my first and only champion Irish Wolfhound, Tara Pooka Burr Kelly, F.Ch, CD, CGC, TT.
I got Tara as a puppy from a puppy mill while I was still in college and studying concurrently the languages of Classical Greek, Classical and modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Swahili, and French. I already had a background in studying a bit Urdu, Tagalog, some Hindi Indian languages, and Navaho. Additionally I was studying trigonometry and Philosophy (which one could argue is the language of males when taught at a Jesuit university!).
Despite a relatively intense immersion in language, I found to my chagrin that I had no common language with which to talk to this strange creature called PUPPY. I enrolled in a puppy class with her and found that the methods of puppy learning were much like the methods with which I studied language. As a dyslexic person, I need to first memorize the translation of a foreign word into English. I then need to re-learn the back translation of the English rendition into that foreign word. I discovered in training my puppy that I first needed to understand her needs as a canine, then I had to translate my needs as a human back to her. Thus began a long relationship of give and take with a dog who so changed my world that I devoted my life to helping her kind.
Although the average lifespan of an Irish Wolfhound is around 5.2 years, I was blessed to share a long and wonderful time with Tara. Together we dabbled in Schutzhund, we excelled in tracking, we showed a bit in conformation, and we completed her obedience title in 3 back to back shows. We ranked among the top 5 Irish Wolfhounds in obedience in the nation that year. Tara loved agility, although we never competed. At the age of 5, Tara began coursing and to our delight and astonishment, quickly attained her field championship at an age when many Wolfhounds are already dead. On her 7th birthday she won the lure coursing Veterans Stake at the Irish Wolfhound Club of Americas National Specialty Show. The next year she won Best of Breed in lure coursing at the Irish Wolfhound Club of Americas National Specialty, again on her birthday, the day that she turned eight years old.
I was so blessedly fortunate in being able to take Tara to work with me most nearly every day, and she was rarely away from my side. When I traveled, she traveled with me, and together we explored the states of Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Arkansas, Wyoming, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Minnesota. One summer we drove to upstate New York with Nero and took a canine behavior course at Cornell University. She was a familiar figure at the annual Association of Pet Dog Trainers conferences, which she would attend along with Nero, my 90 lb Pit Bull/Chesapeake Bay Retriever mix; Tess, my Lurcher Extraordinaire; Poppy, my ridiculous American Staffordshire Terrier; Cinnamon, the worlds most Perfect Cockatiel; and Banjo, my diabetic silver tabby cat. Amazingly, even with such a large and eclectic crew, we were never turned away from any hotel.
Tara was the first dog that I ever was taught to train. By the time that she was eight months old, we had taken a puppy class, a beginner class, two novice obedience classes, three conformation classes, an agility class and a tracking class. With the exception of the last two, I was taught to train her on choke and prong collars with correction based training. By the time she was a year old, she had completely shut down. I was not having any fun, either, as it did not seem fair or right to hurt my dog that I loved in the name of sport and training. We quit training entirely for the next four years.
When I returned to working with Tara, we had attended multiple conferences (
Continuing Education credits on this website) with the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), The National Association of Dog Obedience Instructors (NADOI), and many private conferences by wonderfully qualified individuals. I began working with her with clicker training and positive training, and her achievements speak for themselves.
Tara died suddenly. I had been feeling that she was not well, but bloodwork, radiographs and cultures had not revealed any abnormalities. We had an ultrasound scheduled for the morning that she died; she did not live to see the appointment. That morning she asked to be let out a 3 am, it was apparent to me that she was in great distress. I called my wonderful veterinary clinic: the vet on call met me there by 3:30 am. I had already arrived (I was blessed to work there and had let myself in and begun my veterinary technician work on her) and had run a series of x-rays: it appeared that she was in the early stages of bloat. We put her on a morphine drip and waited for relief.
I sat alone with her in the darkness of the clinic, quiet as there were few animals in the hospital, the only sounds were the sounds of Tara's laboured breathing and the crooning of my songs to her. By 9 am, it was clear that there were no options. Tara had developed cardiomyopathy 11 months earlier and had already outlived the expectations of the board certified specialist. It appeared that either her spleen had ruptured and caused her to bloat, or she had bloated and ruptured her spleen. With her heart condition, she was not an anesthesia candidate, and she was one month shy of eleven years old, ancient for an Irish Wolfhound. I had sat with her head in my lap, stroking her, singing to her, talking to her about our rich history together, just her and I, for 5 hours. We talked of our life, our world. She was my world. I told her that. I could not image myself without her. I was more alone, more afraid- more terrified, more vulnerable than I had ever felt in my entire life. I have survived gang rape, anti-American riots in volatile countries, horrific car accidents that should have ended in death. I left my family at a very young age and flew across the world to a non-English speaking country to a boarding school, as a catatonically shy teenager. Tara and I had shared marriage, death and divorce together - she was stalwart and at my side, always the steady one, always the constant, always there for me. I would gladly have suffered any of those torments in exchange for the life of the dog that lay dying in my lap. I felt crazy, felt deranged, felt as though to ask for her euthanasia was to ask for my own suicide. I could not image life without her. I am one of the few people that I know that can say that they had their Irish Wolfhound for one third of their lives, but there it was: I was in my 30s and I had had her for more than 10 years. Ten very impressionable, difficult, transitioning, wonderful, full, life formative years.
But I had to move outside myself and finally give something back to the dog who had given me her life. Around nine am, I asked Dr. Van Horn (
Tri-City Animal and Bird Clinic's website) to come in and provide euthanasia. It should have been easy, she should have gone quickly. She had an IV catheter in with morphine, she should have been druged to the gills, she should have been so compromised that to slip away was inevitable.
She went very slowly. She roused herself from her narcotic stupor, looked at me for what seemed like centuries with eyes that speak of secrets that I will not share, and serenely, calmly, knowing that to do any less would affect me greatly, let her life slip away at my bidding, by my hands, while lying in my arms cradled in my lap.
At the time that I write this, three years have passed and I still do not have another Irish Wolfhound in my life. I hope to share my life with one someday. I cannot live without my sighthounds and my pit bulls. But I have not been able yet to replace Tara. It will happen one day, but it will not be a replacement . It will be a dog that is sent to me, one who is meant to be with me and share its life with me.
We all have individuals who touch and change our lives. Tara was one of many who have been sent to me, rich blessings that I do not deserve, gifts that I did not ask for nor can reciprocate. Tara was the first to teach me more about living and giving than any of my other masters. She was, and is, omnipresent in my daily thinking, my daily interactions with others, my daily communications with those who speak English and those who do not. She helps me, in her memory, to be kind and patient, as she was to me when I was in error of translation, when I was violent in training, when I was forceful and brutal with choke collars and prong collars and correction based training.
Tara taught me how to give and how to take. She taught me about communication, about learning, about generosity and forgiveness. She taught me how to play and how to laugh and really mean it. It is in her memory that I name my business, my passion, my livelihood, my training philosophy: Tara, Training Animals with Respect and Affection.
