The Dog Listener

by Jan Fennell

  This is not a problem that is solved in an instant. And the importance of achieving the bonding process before attempting a walk is paramount. I have in severe cases asked for a dog to be confined to its home for a week before it goes out into a potentially confrontational situation. These confrontations occur because dogs believe they are repelling a potential attack on a pack for whom they are responsible. If they have been demoted within the order of that pack, they will defer more easily to their new leader.

  Miss Artley stuck rigidly to what I asked of her. Within two weeks she was out walking during normal daytime hours. The transformation in her life was obvious when she rang me a year later on the anniversary of my visit to her. She told me that she, Ben and Danny had just returned from the beach where they had been walking and playing with some canine friends of theirs. Their reintegration into Bridlington society was complete.

  Chapter 14

  Tales of the Unexpected: Fear of Noises

  People often question what is wrong with a dog believing it is the leader because, as humans, we are taught that self-esteem is an important, empowering force. By relieving a dog of its rank, they ask, aren’t we stripping it of its self-esteem, its self-confidence? If the world we inhabited had been created by dogs for dogs, then the answer might be different. The fact is, however, that dogs live in a world exclusively geared to the needs of humans. That is where the problems begin. And that is why the answer to that question must be a resounding ‘no’. The dog’s belief in the hierarchical system from which it has evolved is absolute. If it believes it is leader then it is also convinced it knows more than any of its subordinates. Its logic is simple. If a junior member of the pack knew more than it, it would be the leader! As long as a dog believes it has this status, it will take on the mantle of decision making in every situation it faces. The reality is that it is extremely dangerous to allow a dog to do so; in an unfamiliar situation, a dog will make up its own rules as it goes along.

  The obvious comparison again is with young children. No matter how smart the child, no matter how self-confident he or she may be, would a parent allow a five-year-old to drive the family car or to take charge of a shopping expedition in the middle of a city centre? Of course not; a child is simply unable to deal with the situation. The difference is, of course, that child will one day grow up. Dogs, as I have explained, remain puppies for life; they can never be given this responsibility.

  The danger of allowing a dog to believe in its leadership status is never more acute than in situations in which it is confronted by sights and sounds it does not understand. It perceives these situations as potential dangers to its pack members. As anyone who has seen a dog chase after a car or become distraught at the sound of thunder will know only too well, the reality is that they are a far greater threat to the dog.

  I have been asked to look at many cases of this kind. They have ranged from dogs who go berserk at the sound of a passing car or lorry, to pets who howl and bark continuously at the sound of thunder and lightning or the exploding of a firework. Any of these can cause a dog an enormous amount of distress. I am sure we have all heard stories of dogs who have run into an open road at the sound of a car backfiring, and have been run over. It is a hugely important problem area. In each case, it is a symptom of the same problem: the dog’s inability to cope with leadership. What makes this situation more dangerous than most is the fact that as well as being unequipped for its responsibility, the dog senses it is out of its depth. Its reaction is, quite simply, to panic.

  Much of the knowledge I now have came from working with my own dogs. A few years ago I used to dread November 5th, Bonfire Night in the United Kingdom, and the noisiest evening of the year. Over the years my home, adjacent to a showground where the local council organise the area’s main fireworks display, had become something of a refuge for traumatised dogs. As the fireworks exploded one night a few years back, I recall I was summoned by a frantic knocking on the door. A passer-by had found a dog sitting in the middle of the road outside my house, literally paralysed with fear. The caller had assumed wrongly it was mine. There was no sign of an owner. I had to smile when I saw a man trying to coax the dog with a biscuit. No food on earth was capable of taking this poor dog’s mind off the terrible noise erupting all around it. I carefully picked the dog up off the road and brought it into the house. I later discovered her name was Sophie. She sat petrified in my kitchen for hours. I just left her alone, offering her food and drink. It was three days before her owner reclaimed her.

  It was much the same the following year, when a black and white Border collie was brought round. She had clearly run away from her owner amid the explosions. I calmed her nerves by putting her in my car with the engine running and the radio blaring until the display had finished. Fortunately, her owner found out where she had been taken and was relieved when he collected the dog later that evening.

  The dramas were not confined to other people’s dogs, however. The display also used to terrify my little beagle, Kim. I think the first time it happened, I simply sat there cuddling this poor pathetic trembling creature. Another year, I loaded her and the rest of my dogs into my car and drove into the heart of the Lincolnshire countryside to be away from the explosions. My reaction was, I now realise, precisely the same as it had been when my children had woken up in the night, frightened by the sound of thunder and lightning. At times like this our natural instinct is to gather our loved ones around us and to comfort them. Instinctively we are all acting out the scene from The Sound of Music when Julie Andrews gathers the young Von Trapp children around her and starts singing about her favourite things. I remember I used to tell my children that thunder was the sound of the angels playing skittles!

  It was only as my method began to evolve that I realised the awful mistake I was making by replicating this with my dogs. What I was doing was praising my dogs’ behaviour in reacting to noise. What I needed to do was the complete opposite, to ignore the whole situation, and show it was nothing of consequence. It all fell into place as I understood the dog’s absolute belief in leadership. If a dog has elected its owner leader, it will always implicitly believe that leader knows more than it does: if he or she didn’t, they wouldn’t be leader. I realised that what I needed to do in instances like this was to display disdain for the whole situation. To remain calm and simply ignore the noise. It was back to Kipling again, the leader must keep his or her head while others lose theirs. I realised that if a dog believed in its owner and they were ignoring the noise, the dog would do the same thing.

  The principle really proved itself when I worked with a similar problem, that of a dog that was frightened by the noise of cars. In my experience, the sound of a car or lorry engine roaring within a few feet of its face can be one of the most frightening and disconcerting things a dog has to deal with. I have met owners who are unable to take their dog anywhere near situations in which it will encounter traffic of any kind. For those who live in built-up areas, it can condemn both dog and owner to a kind of imprisonment.

  Soon after I had begun using my method, I was approached by an elderly gentleman who was having severe problems walking Minty, a very pretty, blue merle Border collie he had taken in on behalf of his son who was working overseas. Every lunchtime and evening, this gentleman liked to visit his wife, who was resident in a nursing home nearby. The problem was that his visits to her were being disrupted by the fact that Minty panicked completely whenever she saw or heard a motor car. The walk to the home took them along an extremely busy road. The owner had been forced to turn home on more than one occasion, and was becoming increasingly distraught about the situation.

  I set to work with the owner at his home, going through the four elements of bonding first. It is worth mentioning at this point that the work I do is always done in the home environment if at all possible. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the dog is far more likely to be its real self at home; once you take a dog off its patch, it will behave completely diffe
rently in my experience. Even the most contented and confident dogs can become terrified when they go outside. The other beauty of working at home is that the owner sees everything you do. There is no suggestion of secrecy or mystery to what I do. Invariably, too, an owner feels more relaxed at home. And the more relaxed he or she is, the more likely it is that the process will go ahead smoothly.

  In this case, the owner grasped the main areas of the bonding process well. But it was clear that the key area with Minty was going to be the walk. The strategy I devised was based on a simple idea. When Minty went out on the road, I wanted it to be an experience with which she made a positive association rather than a negative one. Therefore, after an hour or so building a relationship with Minty, and with my status as leader established, I attached the lead and took her off for a walk.

  The road was busy with traffic, precisely as I wanted it to be. As soon as the dog started reacting to the first passing car, I said: ‘Minty, come’, offering her a small piece of cheese as I did so. I did the same thing with each subsequent car. If Minty failed to come to me and continued barking at the car, I ignored her: I was not going to treat undesirable behaviour positively. But if Minty came to me, I rewarded her with cheese and gentle praise. I continued doing this as we carried on walking down the road. It was a busy street, and we hadn’t got very far at all before Minty was looking at me rather than the road whenever she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. By the time we had been passed by a dozen cars, I was able to dispense with the food association. We had been out for only a quarter of an hour. It was simple: I had made a good association out of a bad one. I handed Minty back to the gentleman, and he was soon making his way to the nursing home to share the good news.

  Of course it does not require a car backfiring to drive a dog to distraction. In cases like Bonnie’s, a black and tan cross corgi-Border collie who lived with his family in Revesby, Lincolnshire, even the ringing of a telephone could be the cause of enormous anxiety. As is so often the case, Bonnie’s owner Pat called me for a variety of reasons. Bonnie was suffering from many of the symptoms of nervous aggression: pulling on the lead, jumping up and barking. It was while talking to Pat that I learned of something very specific to Bonnie: her reaction to the phone. Pat told me that whenever she heard it ring Bonnie would become frenzied, panting, rushing up and down and even crying. Her reaction had become so extreme, she had even begun going through a strange ritual where she licked the carpet until the ringing stopped – and for a full fifteen minutes afterwards!

  I was interested to see this for myself and decided to test Bonnie’s reaction by visiting Pat’s house and calling her from my mobile phone while I was in the same room. Sure enough, Bonnie went into a complete spin. The exercise helped me learn as much about Pat as Bonnie, however. I saw that Pat was chiding her dog, and would shout ‘stop it’ at the top of her voice. As I talked to her, I was not surprised to learn that Pat had also got into the habit of rushing to the phone whenever it rang. Of course, all these things were simply exacerbating the problem.

  Bonnie’s anxiety was rooted in her belief that she was the leader of her household ‘pack’, and the sound of the telephone ringing represented an unknown threat to it. Bonnie’s inability to negate or deal with that threat was sending her into a blind panic. Pat’s highly excitable reaction was only adding to the tension. Bonnie’s licking of the carpet was her own highly obsessive demonstration of her hopelessness. My task was firstly to take all the drama out of the situation, to begin to persuade Bonnie that the sound of the phone was nothing worth worrying about at all.

  From the moment I arrived, I gave Bonnie signals consistent with my leadership. Satisfied that she saw me in this light, I put her on a lead, sat down calmly with her and then began calling Pat’s number again from my mobile phone. When the ringing began I remained totally relaxed. I did not react in any way for several rings. Bonnie was anxious but soon realised there was something different happening. To encourage her to stay calm, I rewarded Bonnie with a special tidbit, a piece of cheese. The idea here was to desensitise her, to help her to make a positive association rather than a negative one whenever she heard the familiar ringing sound in the future.

  Bonnie reacted well and, while agitated, remained at my side, under control. During the space of the next hour, I tried the same thing again every 15 minutes or so. When the phone rang for the fourth time, Bonnie did not react at all. The frenetic behaviour of earlier had disappeared, as had her habit of licking at the carpet. Her attitude to the phone has remained the same ever since.

  It took three of my own puppies to finally drive home to me the particular message of good associations. My German shepherd, Sadie, Sasha’s daughter, was approaching one year old while Molly, a little springer spaniel, and her half-brother, Spike Milligan, were seven and five months old respectively. As they approached their first Bonfire Night, I had made all the preparations I could to make sure they were not distressed. I had kept them indoors and had put a little television set on in the kitchen where they were eating and resting. The idea was that the noise from the television would act as a useful distraction when the fireworks began.

  I was so wrapped up in other things, however, that I forgot to close the door when I went out into the garden to watch the fireworks. Before I knew it, all three puppies were bounding after me. Their timing could not have been worse (or better!) Almost immediately, the first rocket of the evening screeched up into the dark sky above us and exploded in a blaze of colour.

  I didn’t have time to admire it; as soon as the explosion happened, Spike in particular panicked. He dived to the ground and wrapped himself up around my feet. At the same time, the other two stood there, crouching close to the floor, looking wide-eyed at me for guidance. By now I was experienced enough to know I had to act decisively. So I simply smiled and said: ‘That was a big one wasn’t it,’ in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, and carried on doing what I was doing. It was enough for the dogs to relax. Moments later, all three of them had picked themselves off the floor and began to move away from me. They spent the next half hour watching the remainder of the display. The following year when the fireworks started, they were scrabbling at the door trying to get out. I think it is their favourite night of the year now.

  Chapter 15

  New Dogs, Old Tricks: Introducing Puppies to the Home

  Much of the work I do is with remedial dogs, animals with behaviour problems ranging from pulling on the lead to destroying the home. Invariably the root of these dogs’ problems lie in the past. Their owners, through no fault of their own, have spent years giving them signals that have in turn given the dog a misplaced sense of its own importance. My task is to redress this balance, to offer signals that establish a new order and a kinder, calmer future for both the dog and its owner.

  It does not take a genius to work out that the ideal way to avoid such problems is to deal with a dog at the very beginning of its life. A puppy offers the perfect opportunity to start as we mean to go on. Some people are surprised to learn I am often called out to help owners with their new puppies. The truth is, I really welcome these cases. By definition they are coming from the ideal dog owners, people who care, who respect and want to understand their pet from the beginning of its life with them. To live with animals, people should learn about them beforehand. Far too few people take the time and trouble to do so.

  I must say that I have strong views on who should and should not be given puppies. Quite simply, many people are unfit to look after dogs of any kind let alone vulnerable young animals. Puppies should certainly never be given to young children as a present. I make no apologies for saying this. If a child wants a plaything then I suggest their parents give them a doll or a train set. A dog is not a toy.

  My opinions on this have upset people in the past, I have to admit. It is very rare indeed that I agree to give people a puppy when they first visit me. I prefer to be certain that a dog is going to the right sort of home, and I have to be
firm about that. I recall refusing to give a puppy to a family who had driven two hundred miles to see me once. On another occasion, I refused to part with a puppy that a family wanted for Christmas. They wanted it for their children and, when I refused, their initial reaction was that they’d go elsewhere. Of course they would have found someone who would have sold them a puppy. There are people who will breed or sell dogs without any concern for the animal’s welfare. In this case, however, they understood my motives. My argument against giving dogs at Christmas is simple: calmness and consistency are central to everything I do. Christmas is the least calm, least consistent time of the year.

  The family talked about it. I am glad to say they understood what I was saying and agreed. Rather than having a present on Christmas Day, the family came to my house on Christmas Eve instead. The children got the excitement of seeing their new friend but understood they would have to wait until after the holidays, when everything returned to normality, before they could return to take it home with them. Apart from anything else, this would ensure that they were genuine in their desire to take the dog and that they would train the puppy in the right environment. I handed over the puppy in the New Year, happy it was going to a good home.

  There are one or two golden rules about taking in a puppy. The first is that the dog should be no younger than eight weeks when it leaves its original home. My reasoning here is again connected to the dog’s nature. All puppies are born into a natural family environment, the litter. It is here that it must learn the fundamental facts of life. It has to develop social skills within the litter and it has to learn the language of its peer group. To take it away from the litter environment before these first intense eight weeks are over is, I believe, hugely damaging to a dog.