Kerasote gets inside dog’s head for new book

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

By Melanie Stein

I never thought I’d read a nonfiction book about dogs. Never. I don’t even like movies in which the primary storyline revolves around animals.

But my attitude changed when Kelly writer Ted Kerasote’s new book, “Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog,” arrived on my desk last week. I reluctantly picked it up and found I couldn’t put it down as it stirred emotions and questions I had never considered.

Kerasote kicks off the national tour for the new book with a talk and a reading at 8 p.m. on Tuesday at the Teton County Library. The event is free.

“Merle’s Door” tells the story of Kerasote’s chance meeting of a reddish golden retriever-Labrador mix on the San Juan River in Utah back in April 1991 and their subsequent partnership in Jackson Hole. Merle is no ordinary dog, and Kerasote is no ordinary dog owner. The reader gathers this immediately as Kerasote talks with, rather than at, Merle throughout the book, as if he were talking to a human peer.

While camping outside of Yellowstone in below-zero temperatures, for example, Kerasote and Merle have the following conversation:

“You can come into the tent anytime you want,” I’d tell him, holding open the tent door from where I was lying in my sleeping bag.

He’d look away with an air of mild irritation, indicating, “What good will it do me to be inside when I have to keep a lookout for bears?”

“I have pepper spray,” I told him.
He’d hunch his shoulders and peer into the forest with a steady, sweeping gaze: “I must watch while you sleep.”
And he did watch – all night.”

Kerasote acknowledges that many people told him he was being anthropomorphic and projecting thoughts and emotions onto Merle, but he insists he simply paid attention to his dog in a way that many people do not.

“I had several goals,” he said. “One was simply [to write] an entertaining story about an interesting dog. That’s gotta be the first rule of writing any book.

“My second goal was to change people’s minds about the breadth of a dog’s mental capabilities and personality,” he continued. “Dogs are beings from another culture, but if you pay attention, you can translate what they’re saying. Not precisely, but you can if you make the effort. A lot of research has shown that many animals use grammatical constructions similar to human language and in fact call each other by name.”

Kerasote also wanted to show that dogs don’t in fact want to be an alpha and aren’t looking for constant direction from their human owners. To prove this and many other theories, Kerasote did his homework.

“I had all these theories from living with Merle, and I’ve read dog books over the years,” he said. “But when I decided to write this book, I decided I really needed to read the entire dog literature. It took about a year … I probably read 100 books.”
“Merle’s Door” alternates between a beautifully written recount of Merle and Kerasote’s life together in Kelly – hunting trips, backcountry skiing expeditions, horseback rides and daily life in town – to scientific, though easy to understand, explanations for why Merle behaved the way he did.

Throughout Merle’s 14-year life, Kerasote let the dog make his own choices, with a few exceptions such as Merle’s inclination to chase cattle and his affinity for leftovers at a neighbor’s home. After Kerasote installed a dog door on his cabin, Merle had free reign of the town of Kelly, earning the nickname “the Mayor,” building relationships with other dogs, and endearing himself to community members.

Ultimately, Kerasote believes that giving dogs freedom to be outside in the natural world is essential.

“If you get a dog, they’re not a goldfish,” Kerasote said. “You can’t leave them in an apartment for eight hours a day and come in and say hi and walk them for 15 minutes. Those little dogs are still gray wolves mentally, physically. They need exercise.”

You might say Merle lived the ideal life, alternating between the creature comforts of an owner and a home and the wild, unpredictability of nature.

“Merle had the ability to morph between this half wild and half civilized dog,” Kerasote said. “He felt really comfortable on this porous boundary between wilderness and civilization. This book weaves back and forth between this boundary.”

One comment Kerasote has received about the book came from a veterinarian: “In the course of 20 years of veterinary practice I’ve never completely looked at anything from a 100 percent view of the animal. That perspective was foreign to me until I read this book … I think people who read this will be forever changed in the way they see animals in general.”

Ultimately, “Merle’s Door” is extremely touching and thought-provoking, and it should serve as a lesson for all dog owners to get outside in the natural world, listen to their dog, and put themselves in their dog’s shoes.

Call the library for more information on the event: 733-2164 ext. 135.

Courtesy Photo
Ted Kerasote and Merle pose for a photo atop Sheep Mountain. Merle climbed the mountain 13 times.

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