They lived together on the fringes of society. But together, they both found redemption.
In the fall of 2008, Marty Kihn had reached rock bottom: He was drunk most of the time and his wife had left him, but he wasn’t completely alone. He had his Bernese Mountain dog Hola, although she wasn’t the best of company.
This 85-pound canine had no problem tackling strangers, chewing up new furniture and running after drug dealers in their Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City.
Hola’s behavior was so atrocious, it was one of the reasons Kihn’s wife Gloria left him. Well, that and the fact that he was an alcoholic.
Having his wife move out is when Kihn, who details his story in the book Bad Dog (A Love Story), finally realized he needed help. Yet Kihn soon discovered that one of the hardest things about becoming sober was figuring out what to do with his time.
That’s when Kihn came up with a plan: he would become a full-time dog trainer and have Hola master the American Kennel Club’s rigorous Canine Good Citizen test which was created to encourage dogs to become “better members of society.”
In order to get certified, a dog must pass 10 tests of obedience, good manners and grooming.
“To say that these tasks would be challenging is an understatement,” Kihn said. “Before the training, Hola barely knew how to sit and stay.” But Kihn figured if he could tame Hola, he just might be able to win back his wife’s affections, too.
As Kihn soon discovered, the CGC test’s 10 steps aligned perfectly with the 12 steps at Alcoholics Anonymous as both programs required the participant to admit he or she had a problem: in Kihn’s case, he had to admit he was an alcoholic; Hola had to ‘admit’ she was unmanageable.
And the prize for being successful “is not money or fame or anything material – both programs reward the human and dog with the greatest gift of all: a better life.”
And a better life is exactly what Kihn and Hola got. After a lot of hard work and patience, Hola passed the CGC test with flying colors on the very same day that Kihn reunited with his wife.
Kihn sums it up best when he describes his and Hola’s long road to recovery:
“To get sober, we have to focus on something other than ourselves. I chose Hola, and she was happy to help.”