CAMBRIDGE, New York (AP) – After he and his fellow monks sang morning prayers in their church nestled in a forest, Brother Luke returned to his residence to be greeted by a different kind of choir.
Lucy and Iso hooted excitedly when they saw the Orthodox monk who heads the monastery’s breeding of German Shepherds arrive to take them and 10-week-old Pyrena on their morning walks.
For nearly six decades, the monks of New Skete in upstate New York have done just that supported their community financially and deepened their spiritual lives by raising German Shepherds and running on-site, week-long training programs for all kinds of dogs.
“One of the things a dog learns is about God – forgiveness and love and connection, those are God’s attributes,” said brother Luke on a sunny October morning as Lucy sniffed around fallen leaves and Iso kept a watchful eye on his monk. . “In the rough and tumble of life, we don’t always show God’s love as well as the dog does.”
Brother Luke, an Orthodox Christian monk, walks his German shepherds on the hillside trails around New Skete Abbey, which for decades has operated both a dog breeding and dog training program outside Cambridge, NY, on Oct. 12. 2024. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
The new monks made their way from Catholic to Orthodox
The small community – today consisting of 10 monks and about the same number of adult German shepherds – was started by Franciscan friars who sought a more contemplative yet rooted spiritual structure than the Catholic orders provided them, Brother Marc said. One of the founders – and now 82 – leads the choir at New Skete with brother Luke.
They were inspired by the “explosion of awesomeness” of Second Vatican Council to return to ancient but simpler and more accessible practices, such as those of the first ascetics in the Egyptian desert from whom the name happened to originate, who also received pilgrims and performed other community services. The monks officially joined the Orthodox Church in America more than four decades ago; icons of male and female saints from Eastern and Western Christianity adorn the golden walls of the larger of the monastery’s two churches.
In the late 1970s, what had started as a gift from a German shepherd, Kyr, to protect and keep company with the small group of brothers on a wooded hillside where New York and Vermont touch, revolutionized their monastic life .
The Church of Holy Transfiguration, built by monks in 1970, is seen through fall foliage on the campus of New Skete, a Christian Orthodox monastery known for dog breeding and training programs outside Cambridge, NY, on October 12, 2024. (AP Photo /Giovanna Dell’Orto )
“He became part of the emotional life of the community. All these celibates living together, where is the heart in all this?” Brother Marc recalled Kyr and how his presence brought joy and smoothed any tension.
When Kyr died, the monks decided to get more dogs and to breed them to help maintain the monastery, which like most monasteries around the world has to pay for its own upkeep. Then they would begin training so that the growing flock could peacefully share dormitories, dining rooms, and even church with the brothers.
Training for dogs – and people – starts at the Orthodox monastery
Visitors were impressed by the well-behaved German shepherds and asked the brothers to train their dogs as well. One of the early clients turned out to be an editor who encouraged the monks to write about their training philosophy, which was far more lenient than the norm at the time.
More than half a dozen wildly popular books and a television series later, the monks today train about 120 dogs a year at the monastery, said Brother Christopher, the prior and head of the training program.
“Training dogs became for me a means of seeing more broadly the mystery of God’s presence in creation,” said Brother Christopher, who joined the monastery in 1981. “Dogs are completely faithless, they don’t lie. They mirrored me back to myself in a way that was very helpful for my own self-knowledge.”
Brother Luke, an Orthodox Christian monk, holds a five-week-old German Shepherd puppy from the latest litter in the dog breeding program that for decades has provided both financial and spiritual support to New Skete Monastery outside Cambridge, NY, on Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
Building a sustainable relationship between dog and owner, based on connection but also structure, is the key to training. Far beyond obedience to basic commands like sit or heel, the pets—and their people—need to learn the balance of letting dogs be dogs while providing the affection and emotional support their owners seek.
The vast majority of America’s 100 million pet dogs do not need a professional trainer. But many do if their owners want their company in public places or they struggle with behaviors ranging from chewing furniture to lashing out at neighbors, said Marc Goldberg, a Chicago trainer and past president of the International Association of Canine Professionals .
The monastery certified by the association is the only religious institution among its thousands of members, he added. And while owners of all faiths or none are welcome, the monks infuse their spiritual principles into their relationship with the dogs—in keeping with a tradition of including animals in spirituality that ranges from Native American practice to the medieval legend of St. Francis taming a wolf portrayed in New Skete’s refectory.
“Monks work very hard, but there is a peace in life that is palpable,” said Goldberg, who has co-authored several exercise books with the brothers.
Dog training is expensive – the monks charge about the average for boarding and training, $3,500 for 2.5 weeks, which has become a more reliable source of income than the breeding program. The latter is kept small to give all the dogs attention and avoid turning them into a puppy mill, brother Christopher said.
Brother Marc, center, one of the founders of the Orthodox Christian community in New Skete, and its current prior, Brother Christopher, right, holding a book, finish morning prayer in the Church of Holy Wisdom, the larger of two churches in the monastery that is known for dog breeding and training programs outside Cambridge, NY, on October 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell’Orto)
From dog to God, what the new Skete monks learned through training
Whether in the breeding or training program, the dogs bring society closer to God’s creation, encourage awareness of each present moment and, of course, model Christian virtues, the brothers say.
“A relationship with a dog can sensitize us to a deeper connection with all of creation. It’s humbling,” said Brother Christopher. “We’re simply part of this wonderful world that is ultimately interconnected.”
For Brother Luke, who had never been around dogs before he came to the monastery in 1995, the first raucous welcome from the German shepherds that jumped out at the dormitory came as a bit of a shock. Today, he is in awe of witnessing the “reality of life,” whether he is observing the competition during the mating season or one of his dogs pupping.
“They are forgiving, all natural, they are what God made them to be. Those are lessons we could learn,” he said. “Over time, dogs teach us a lot about ourselves. They think we’re better than we are.”
And among all the hard work of running a monastery—hosting visitors, supporting community services like a food pantry in the nearby village of Cambridge, studying the scriptures and praying intensely—the dogs offer simple, nurturing devotion.
Most monks keep their dogs in their rooms, so they return to furiously wagging tails and melting eyes that signal the happiest moment of the dog’s day.
“God, it just does something very deep,” Brother Christopher said. “It is an experience of unconditional love.”
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