Misery
I wanted to title this something like ‘Bad Dog News’ but I was afraid regular readers might leap to the wrong conclusions. The hellhounds are fine.*
But . . . remember Mike? Adorable cocker spaniel puppy given via deepest conspiracy to my friend Daisy? A conspiracy initiated a few months after her last critter died (she had two old dogs and an old cat all go within a few weeks of each other) when she said to me with tears in her eyes that she didn’t know how she could go on without an animal? One of my better blog entries, I still feel, the Arrival of Mike.
But eight months later and he’s turned into the most appalling, mannerless, disobedient little tyrant. I had of course noticed this was happening—and heard about it—but I hadn’t realised just how bad it was. I’m not really used to remedial dogs. I haven’t had that many dogs in my life but I just sort of Don’t Put Up with certain kinds of behaviour so we never get to the remedial phase.** And Mike is still very friendly—and on the very infrequent occasions I’ve needed him to listen to me, he has done—he’s a working dog, for pity’s sake, from a working family: his basic problem is that he hasn’t been given any work to do. But all those genes are still hanging out there waiting for orders, and, in the absence of orders, have found their own diabolical occupations. And he reserves his worst behaviour for his own ‘pack.’ As I say, I didn’t realise just how bad the situation had become. Daisy and Roy have had dogs before! They’ve had working cocker spaniels before! What happened! It’s also the waste of a dog—and Mike has the potential to be a very good dog, instead of a thirty-pound nightmare.
I’ve been talking to southdowner, Days in the Life’s very own professional dog behaviourist and mod extraordinaire, about him, and she, who is far too nice for her own good, had offered a free consult. Which between her schedule, mine, and Daisy’s, has been a monster to make happen. But Daisy and Roy went off on their usual fortnight summer holiday a few weeks ago—leaving Mike behind—and Mike has been really bad since they came back. So when southdowner said she was going to be passing by today I simply nailed her . . . despite the fact that Daisy and Roy weren’t going to be here. Southdowner could meet Mike and cast a steely professional eye over him. Daisy gave me the spare key and her blessing.
Maybe I can get southdowner to do a GUEST POST on basic remedial dog training philosophy. It wasn’t that Mike tried to eat us or crapped on the floor or anything. But as southdowner pointed out, he has no attention span and no boundaries: everything is on his terms, and he has no concept that he might have to behave according to someone else’s specifications. We spent an hour standing in Daisy’s kitchen with Mike on lead . . . while he leaned on his collar as hard as he could and refused to respond to southdowner because she wasn’t responding to him. She was, of course, just not in the way he had in mind. But she’d asked me to put his collar and lead on him while she watched . . . and I knew at that point that the news was bad, because he writhed and struggled and chewed on my hands . . . at the time I was so nonplussed I wasn’t really taking it in beyond ‘WTF?’. . . . And simply preventing him from biting me. But I can’t even imagine having a dog that won’t let you put his collar on. You have all the cards here! Not just the aces! All the cards! Dog wants to go for walk! Only way dog can go for walk is if dog sits quietly to have collar put on!*** It only takes a few minutes—maybe a few extra minutes during puppy adolescence—but along with creating a dog that goes for its walks politely you’re also creating a dog who is accustomed to obeying.†
Southdowner says that she’ll do one more freebie if I can get Daisy, Roy, and their daughter Zara who was my chief co-conspirator in the Great Puppy Search, together. She’ll sit them down and read them her best professional riot act. And then she and I will pray.
Today I can really use the cheering-up of b twin’s pupdate. . . .
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*To the extent that hellhounds can ever be described as ‘fine’. Although I might be tempted to describe them as ‘fine’, on hellhound terms, if we could get one or two little food issues a trifle more straightened out. I have told myself so often that after their first two years of being disastrously allergic to their food, plus all those hellhound genes telling them that eating is beneath them, the miracle is that they eat at all . . . that these words have etched their own little permanent channels in my brain. I don’t have to bother to think them any more. They’re like a ritual object: your lucky pebble or the bracelet you always wear for meetings with your boss. And as you stagger out of the latest disaster zone you think, gods, how bad would it be if I didn’t have my mantra/pebble/bracelet? Reeeeeeeeeeeelly bad. The purpose of the mantra in this case is to give me hope that the Food Issues might yet improve. In our present hot weather remarkably little eating is going on at hellhound food bowl level and I’m having some difficulty maintaining my natural posture of serenity and equipoise. Eat your lunch you damned little ratbag, I at least want your pelt in good condition when I turn you into a hearthrug.
** I’ve also never had a Bad to the Bone dog, which do exist, although they’re rare. It’s rarely the dog: it’s always the human. And I did know a seriously dangerous Jekyll and Hyde dog, who I think must have had a chemical/physiological screw loose somewhere.
*** The other standard ‘you have all the cards’ situation is usually about food. You can reinforce all kinds of things just by mealtimes, let alone clicker training and treats . . . with most dogs. Not with hellhounds. But I do still have the drop on them about hurtling.
† Allow me to reiterate that the hellhounds got their nicknames honestly. But they sit to have their leads put on, they sit before they go out the door, they lie down in the car and they go lie down in their bed when they’re sent there for pestilentialness. There is a bottom line about companion animals. That’s mine.
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