Bad Dog: Great Plan

Is there really such a thing as a bad dog? Or are there just bad owners? In any case, Marty Kihn and is Burmese Mountain dog, Hola, were a perfect match. The 85-pound Hola chewed furniture, jumped on (and tackled) people, and chased people on the street. Marty wasn’t much of a prize himself: he was an alcoholic whose wife had just left him. Rather than drowning his sorrows, though, Marty said, “I finally realized I could actually lose everything that mattered to me – that it was an actual possibility. That’s what it took to get me to open my mind and get help.”

He found help in an unlikely place: yes, Hola became an integral part of Marty’s recovery, which he details in Bad Dog: A Love Story. Marty replaced his bad habits, and filled the time formerly taken by drinking and being hung over, with dog training. He decided to put Hola through the paces and have her master the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen test, a rigorous test of “obedience, good manners, and grooming.” Hola, the 85-pound tackle, had to learn to accept a stranger, sit politely for a stranger, and other tests that Marty thought would be “impossible.”

While Marty worked on the 12 steps of AA, Hola worked on the 10 steps of the Canine Good Citizen test. “Both are structured programs of recovery – from alcohol and from bad behavior. And both work better if you do them alongside others. The prize for them is not money or fame or anything material – both programs reward the human and dog with the greatest gift of all: A better life.”

Hola passed the AKC’s test – and on that same day, Marty and his wife got back together.

This story has an incredibly happy ending for all and serves to illustrate just how many benefits there are to owning pets. From lowering blood pressure, stress, and depression to sniffing out tumors or alerting caretakers to seizures, dogs really are man’s best friend. Hola helped Marty because he was committed to both making a change and caring for his dog. While dog training probably won’t replace AA anytime soon, Hola deserves an extra treat or two.