My Life with Panja

By Kenn Knowlton

I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I am sixty-eight years old and a retired (or semiretired) teacher. I had wanted a dog since I was twelve years old. In my sixth-grade class, a boy named Mike had a collie named Laddy. Every day Laddy walked from Mike’s house to Crestview Elementary School, arriving at the end of the school day, and was waiting at the bottom of the school steps for Mike to appear. Mike and I would greet him, and he would run and play with us in the schoolyard until Mike told him, “Let’s go home.” Laddy would walk at his knee as they disappeared down the street. That memory is what prompted me after I retired to entertain the possibility that I might get a dog with whom I could share the kind of relationship I had witnessed between Laddy and Mike. I’d had space for a dog in my life many times over the years, but from my point of view that was not enough. Many friends and acquaintances had the space in their home for a dog, but not time for a dog. What kind of life did their dogs have when everyone was off at work or in school? In retirement I now had both time and space for a dog (as well as an agreement with AIC School of Design that Panja would be allowed to attend any and all classes I taught for them). I questioned whether I had the energy to start with a puppy and train it. I thought (even though I had some experience training horses) that my amateur status as a dog owner did not bode well for training a young puppy. I went to the internet, googled books on dog training, and found How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend. I was inspired to realize that what I had witnessed between Mike and Laddy was in fact the “best friend” relationship described in the book.

I knew then that I did not want a pet. I was looking for a companion. I applied to New Skete for an adult dog and was rewarded (not a strong enough word—actually blessed) with Panja, a six-year-old female German Shepherd. With How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend in hand and with the help of Julia Gates, a very patient veterinarian, and friends with dogs, I steeled myself for the challenge. My first reaction to Panja was amazement at how well behaved she was. I knew from the book that New Skete dogs were trained with love: not bribed with food, struck, or psychologically intimidated. Their dogs are receptive to being a “best friend”: they do what you ask because they love you and want to make you happy. I thought, great: I have a dog trained by some of the best dog trainers anywhere! My rejoicing was premature. The problem was that Panja didn’t love me; she didn’t even know me. Essentially, I needed to take her home and earn it!

Panja came to me in April 2017. She didn’t really come to me; I drove with a friend to Cambridge and picked her up. I could hardly believe how beautiful she was. On the trip back to Cincinnati—eleven hours by car—she was not restless, she didn’t bark, she didn’t whine or make any fuss at all. When we made “pit stops,” she got out and did her business and hopped back into the car when instructed to do so. To resolve the “she doesn’t know me” issue, my plan was to never be out of her sight 24 hours a day for at least a week. That was easy; she followed me everywhere I went quite naturally, with no prompting need. When I placed her bed in my bedroom, I didn’t realize that when she was in her bed, I was not in her line of sight. Every night she followed me up to the bedroom and got in her bed, but after I went to sleep she always got out of bed and moved several feet to the right, where she could actually see me! She was so good. She never ran to the bed to greet me in the morning until I had both feet on the floor. If she fell asleep in the living room and I quietly left the room, when she woke, she frantically searched the house. When she found me, her reaction was as if I had been away for hours. In fact, my absence from the room was rarely more than a few minutes. She ran to me, licking me and dancing around with her tail wagging furiously. (Her tail? Heck, her whole butt was wagging?) My bonding mission was complete! Over time I decided it was not necessary for her to get up and follow me to the kitchen if I was just getting a drink of water. I decide to teach her the “I’ll be right back” command. She learned it quickly. Some would say that dogs do not have the cognitive skill to grasp the concept of a contingency or an action to take place in the future. Maybe that’s so. Why is it, then, that if I tell her “I’ll be right back” and leave, when I return she is calm and exhibits no signs of anxiety at all, seemingly unconcerned about my being gone? But when I tell her to “stay” and leave the room for the same amount of time, when I return she will be anxiously watching the door, licking and panting—all common signs of anxiety. Panja wouldn’t even go out to do her business unless I went with her. I was OK with that, as my goal was to have her find it unacceptable to ever look around and not see me. The end goal was for her to not need a leash when we went outside in the yard or when we walked alone in the woods, a meadow, or a nearby nature preserve. I had fenced in a small section of the yard around the patio so she could be outside enjoying the fresh air (and a view of the woods behind my yard). That never happened for more than a minute or two at a time. When she realized I was not there, even if I sat just inside the double sliding doors where she could see me, she wanted back in. Panja was very smart. She knew the difference between my saying “Want to go in now? (where she could indicate her preference by staying where she was) and “OK, let’s go in” (in which case she moved immediately toward me)! Even after the decision to “go in” had been established, she would look at me and wait for me to say “In the front” or “In the back.” Then she would head toward the designated entry before I started to move in that direction. And when we went for walks around the neighborhood, as we did twice a day, every day, seven days a week, she could “heel” so unerringly that it made no difference at all whether a leash was attached to her collar. The leash hung completely slack for the entire walk.

Over time, our trust in each other grew. I took Panja with me to school, the library, post office, bank, hardware store, Macy’s department store, friends’ houses, and the mall. The only place I did not take her at first was the grocery store. Ultimately she started going to the grocery store with me as well. In all of our time together, I went out and left her at home only four times. By May I never left her at home alone again, not even to shop for groceries. We also went to car shows, baseball games, flea markets, amusement parks, and even the Cincinnati Art Museum, one of the most prestigious art museums in the United States. Many friends noted and commented with some variation of “Kenn, look at how Panja looks at you! I never saw a dog look at anyone the way she looks at you!” The “oneness” that Panja and I shared was obvious to everyone who saw us. That’s my explanation for why I could take Panja with me everywhere I went. We just looked like we belonged together. Panja was such a charmer, and everyone could see that she and I were completely in sync. There was never any doubt that she was completely under my control. Nor was there any question that by my side was where she belonged. In the winter when it was snowing and very cold, I got the idea of mall walking, to keep her off the salt and chemical-laden streets and sidewalks. In the most exclusive mall in Cincinnati, the Town Center Mall, we were questioned for the first and only time. The Sergeant of mall security approached us, although we had already made five or six or uncontested visits, and asked if Panja was a service dog. I stammered a bit and confessed that technically she was not a service dog; she was my constant companion, very well trained, and would not be any trouble. I won the day by convincing him to walk with us! We walked together for a short distance, and he finally said that he guessed she would be OK. And if any of his staff questioned me, just tell them I had the OK from Sergeant James. Panja was standing between us, and I said “Panja, thank Sergeant James,” and to my surprise as well as his, she took two steps forward and licked his hand. No kidding! All I really expected from her was her patented charming dog smile.

After several months, and having read the book Let Dogs Be Dogs by Marc Goldberg and New Skete’s own Brother Christopher, I realized that the question asked in the first book, How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend, was largely answered by the title of this newer book. Only after I came to understand that paying attention to Panja’s true nature, planning some activities every day around what a dog wants and values, and trying to see life from her point of view would I bring our relationship to a higher level, an almost spiritual level. I discovered that the less I corrected her and attempted to make her respond to my slightest whim, the more responsive she became when I gave her a command I really cared about. Eventually, Panja began to look at me every time I spoke to her, then immediately and energetically obeyed with a smile. It was like she somehow knew or sensed that her happiness was as important to me as my own. Now, every day would include plenty of time in the yard together, walks around the neighborhood, and trips to the park or the woods. Included in our outings to the woods or park would be an hour or two off her leash, constrained only by a “with me” command. These trips were really about letting her be a dog, with me following her. She could take all the time she wanted: going on point when she saw a rabbit, rolling in the grass, sniffing, retracing her steps to pick up a scent she wanted to explore. You have heard of the four-minute mile in track and field—Panja and I perfected the forty-minute mile. Even though I was following her, she was always looking back to see that she was no more than twenty feet away from me. If I stopped for any reason, she would stop, not turning around to face me but turning her head, as if to say, “What’s the hold-up?” I never stopped looking for new fun locations for our morning outings. Panja had her favorites. She was partial to West Fork Dam/Bird Sanctuary, with plenty of songbirds, lakes, and marshes. Farbach-Werner Nature Preserve was a favorite because the tree-covered trail stayed dry unless it rained really hard. She also liked the park district hiking trails: Great Oaks Trail, Kingfisher Trail, and Fox Knoll Trail, some of which I’ve illustrated here with photos. With two daily walks “heeling,” a trip to one of the parks off leash, plus going with me wherever I was running errands, we walked a lot. I got Panja a FitBit Zip at the end of October. These were made to fit nicely on a dog’s collar, tracking and even graphing the dog’s activity. I checked the FitBit for accuracy at least once a week. I mention this because people find our mileage together hard to believe. Panja and I walked one thousand eighty-four miles between November 1, 2017, and September 14, 2018. I would guess that at least forty percent of those miles represent time with Panja off her leash and leading the way. Why did we walk so much? Reason One, I had walked every day before I getting Panja, so I was just continuing to do so. Reason Two, Panja loved to go, and it was an opportunity to “let a dog be a dog.” Reason Three, I just could not get over the sublime joy of watching her walk! Panja was beautiful and had a gait that was almost pure magic. But the greatest motivation of all was watching people’s faces light up at the sight of her. Young or old—it didn’t matter. Nearly everyone who saw her smiled. My greatest pleasure was seeing ultra-serious people, trying very hard to stifle a smile. Try as they might, they just could not help themselves. It is clear to me that if there is a crossword puzzle out there somewhere with a clue, “What can cause a sixty-plus-year-old man to walk one thousand miles in ten months?” the correct answer is Panja!

I believe absolutely that Panja came to me as an answer to daily prayer. The day I picked up Panja, I told Julia Gates that I believe she had played an important role in a “match made in heaven.” I was retired and facing days lacking the structure that one’s working life provides. In my mid-sixties, and for reasons I will not go into, I was alone in a city away from a rapidly dwindling family (one brother and one sister two hundred miles away). Fortunately for my peace of mind, I was solicited by a school, the chief competitor of my previous college-level employer, to teach for them a couple of days a week. This lightened my mood substantially. I did, however, continue to pray for an answer to my lack of enthusiasm for getting out of bed every day. I think it was providence that I found out about the dogs of New Skete and applied for a dog. How Panja made my time with her some of the happiest times of my adult life is not really clear. A good part of it is that dogs have no concept of time. Dogs are always “in the present” and joyously so. Their awareness of everything around them and their enthusiasm for the “now” is contagious. Panja had a way of anchoring me into the “present.” And it became impossible for me to dwell on regrets about the past or anxieties about the future when I was with her. And I was always with her. When Panja came to me, it was like I was in the dark and someone had turned on the light. She taught me so much about myself. Her guileless unconditional love was an antidote to all my regrets and anxieties. Every single day I could not wait to get up and have Panja run to me for hugs. I started each day with this thought: how can I make Panja happy today? In return, she taught me patience, sacrifice, and to see the beauty of the world in her unbridled enthusiasm for life. I learned that giving her my love was even more healing than receiving her love. Panja was so much more than a pet could ever be. We were best friends. We were soul mates. Just a silent exchange of glances between us immediately reassured me that Panja knew that I lived for her, and that I knew she lived for me. When people meet someone with a dog, the question most often asked is “Is she a rescue dog?” And my answer is always the same: “Yes, she is; she rescued me.”