by Jan Fennell
It is worth mentioning at this point that toilet training is one of the rare occasions when the owner can go to the dog with a reward. In my experience, it does not confuse the dog, in fact it adds to the powerful message being sent out when he is rewarded for the right behaviour. It makes the occasion something special which in turn gets the dog to try that little bit harder. This practice need usually only continue a short time, until the puppy understands.
D’Arcy reacted well to the routine and soon stopped eating the faeces. (This process can be helped, incidentally, by the addition of courgettes or pineapples to the dog’s diet. For some reason, both make the faeces unpalatable.) Buoyed by this success, I got the family to begin leading him to appropriate places when doing his toilet. Again, I asked them to remain calm and consistent, to keep their pulse rates low. When he went in the wrong spot they were to simply pick up the droppings and say nothing. They were to do the same if they had missed the moment when he misbehaved. I explained that chastising the dog was even more pointless after the event; the dog would have forgotten about what it had done and would be bewildered by the sudden anger. Again D’Arcy responded to his owners, and within two weeks he was doing his business in the same spot and leaving it there afterwards. The family was overjoyed.
Chapter 17
The House on Pooh Corner: Soiling in the Home
Despite having been toilet trained correctly as puppies, some grown dogs develop a problem with soiling in later life. While stress in humans shows itself in a vast range of different ways, from physical illness to alcohol abuse, dogs display the problem in their own way. The least pleasant symptom is undoubtedly soiling the home, a problem no dog owner enjoys having to deal with. Over the years I have had to deal with dozens of cases involving dogs that soil their homes: I have been called by people with dogs that urinate when a stranger comes into the house, or that urinate on furniture, on curtains or even on their owners. It is a deeply distressing problem, and we must once more look to the wild for the explanation.
Wolves and wild dogs are highly territorial species. At liberty in their natural environment, they urinate and defecate to mark the boundaries of their areas. The smells send out a clear signal to other animals: any violation of this space will be met with resistance. It is invariably a job carried out by decision-making dogs, that is the Alpha leaders. It is for this reason, incidentally, that dogs have evolved with the ability to urinate in short bursts. The ability to maintain urine in the bladder allows them to mark out the widest possible area.
While this is the most acceptable behaviour in the wild, it is the absolute opposite in the domestic environment. And when a dog instinctively starts soiling, it can be devastating for the owners. Two cases I have been involved in illustrate how the problem can be dealt with quickly and, most importantly, cleanly.
One of the first cases I had to deal with was that of Callie, a Labrador-type mongrel living with a couple in the city of Newcastle. The dog, very much like its owners, Susie and Tom, was a gentle animal. At first she had begun leaving wet patches on the carpet but her soiling had become much worse. She had now begun to climb on to the couple’s sofa where she would urinate freely. The problem had become so acute they had been forced to cover their furniture in rubber sheets.
Like so many of the genuine dog lovers who call me in, Susie and Tom were not angry with their dog. They simply didn’t understand what was going on and felt the only way they could help was by learning more about her problem. During our initial phone conversation, the couple had concentrated on the dog’s habit of wetting the sofa. People are often so blinded by one overwhelming problem that they fail to see it is connected to many others. So it proved in this case. From talking to Susie and Tom at their home, I discovered that the soiling was far from the only symptom the dog was displaying. Callie was also nervous about going out into the garden on her own, for instance. She would not go out in the dark at all. It was clear to me that this was an example of a dog that was stressed out. And she was stressed out because of the responsibility she had been inadvertently given by her owners.
In this particular case, my efforts to explain the process were made all the easier by the fact that Tom was a fireman. I have often compared the operation of a wolf pack with the way his profession works. The analogy helped him and his wife grasp the principles quickly. Such is the dog’s respect for the pack mentality, it will do whatever its job is, at the best of its ability, to maintain the survival of that pack. The prevailing philosophy is ‘all for one and one for all’; there is no such thing as ‘I’m all right, Jack’. It is precisely the same in a fire crew. In times of danger, they pull together in a manner that we rarely see in our competitive and inherently selfish society. It is, of course, a hierarchical society. Yet from fire chief to new recruit, there is a respect for each other and the community in which they operate: there has to be, each of their lives depends on it. What we had here was a dog who was stressed because it was being asked to do a job it was not equipped to do. I likened it to a situation in which a new recruit to a fire station, a probationer, was being sent out in charge of an entire crew on his first day at work. The couple understood what I was talking about instantly and soon set about applying the Amichien Bonding techniques.
No two cases are ever the same of course. There are often additional routines that owners will need to go through to get success. In this case, in addition to working on the four elements of bonding, I got the couple to concentrate on the ‘clean dog’ techniques I teach owners of new puppies. I encouraged them to follow her around and to reward her when she went to the toilet in the right way. Equally, I ensured there were no great dramas if she did not get it right. Calmness and consistency were, as ever, the key. They were not going to relieve the dog of its stress by creating stressful situations themselves.
Even I was surprised at the speed with which it worked. I remember I went to see Susie and Tom on a Saturday afternoon. The following day, Sunday, they rang me to pass on the news that the dog had urinated on the floor. In other circumstances this would, of course, have been dreadful news. In this instance, however, it was real progress. By Wednesday that week, they were on the phone once more telling me she had begun urinating in the designated toilet spot outside the house. She had not soiled the house or the furniture in any way that day.
The ease with which they cured their dog of its problem contrasts sharply with another case, that of a television presenter I got to know during my time on Yorkshire Television. Georgie was a young, attractive and very lively lady. She doted on her dog, a bichon frise called Derek. Unfortunately, Derek had developed the habit of defecating all over her home. She would return in the evenings to find faeces all over her living room. Derek had also got into the habit of doing the same during the night.
As if the problem was not unpleasant enough, the fact that her living room was covered in a dark brownish, rippled carpet meant that she often couldn’t see Derek’s deposits. Her first job each morning was to lie face down on the floor and scan the floor for any overnight additions. Even this wasn’t foolproof. One morning she came down barefoot and stepped right into something Derek had left behind. She confessed to me that she had spent a fortune on rubber gloves and bleach. It was typical of Georgie’s humour that she had re-christened the place The House on Pooh Corner. In reality, however, it was no laughing matter.
When I went to the house, the first thing I saw was that Derek followed Georgie everywhere. And whenever she sat down, Georgie would submit to his wishes and pick him up on to her lap. She was, of course, making all the classic mistakes, paying him homage when she was coming in. It was also clear that his soiling was connected to separation anxiety. I learned that Derek was concentrating his activities on the doorway, again marking the entrance to the den.
Like many people, Georgie greeted my method with mild horror. The prospect of withdrawing attention from the dog seemed awful to her. Her natural reaction was to fuss all over him at every availab
le opportunity. I think this was, in part, down to the guilt she felt at leaving him on his own each working day. She felt she had somehow to make things up with him. She quickly saw the benefits of doing things my way, however.
As usual, I entered the home environment displaying all the signals necessary to persuade this dog I was its leader. As a result, after the usual attempts to get my attention, Derek had wandered off and begun entertaining himself, walking off into the kitchen where he started playing with a chewstick. It was only a few minutes later that Georgie realised he had never done this before. I told her that it was because he had sensed I was the leader from my actions and had been able to give up his role as a babysitter. Her job was to convince him in the same way.
We went through the bonding process again focusing on the techniques I use in teaching puppies toilet manners. I recall imparting another useful tip to Georgie: always use biological washing powder rather than disinfectant when cleaning up after a dog. This is the only way to break down the fatty enzymes within the faeces. Otherwise, the dog can still recognise the smell and will almost certainly come back to the same spot to repeat the procedure.
Georgie was, of course, royally fed up with cleaning up after Derek. Unlike the fireman, Tom, and his wife, however, this owner found it hard to adhere to the method. When I saw her two weeks later in the television studio, it was soon obvious she was not following the process properly. Derek was apprehensive in the studio and was looking around at other people rather than to his owner for reassurance. I couldn’t help noticing too that she had a pair of rubber gloves in her dressing room. It meant she was not doing the job properly. If she had been, Derek would have been looking to her.
That day, on television with another presenter, we talked about Georgie’s problems. Georgie admitted Derek had made huge strides: he would not follow her around as much and he had got out of the habit of soiling overnight. She had not, however, rid him of his daytime soiling habits. I remember she sat there apologising for failing Derek as a mother!
Afterwards, Georgie admitted to me that she was not adhering religiously to the five-minute rule. I had to tell her this was not something she could deal with in a twenty-minute bulletin to Derek each night. My method involved a permanent change in her life and her attitude to her dog. It was clear she had not grasped this.
Because Derek was not getting the message, I asked her to extend the five-minute rule to 15 minutes. The extra time was needed, less because of the strength of character Derek had been displaying, but more because of Georgie’s inability to be strict and therefore convincing as a leader. It was a situation I have come across time and time again: Georgie could not move her affection in a different direction.
In my experience, anyone who truly wants to improve the quality of their life with their dog is, however, capable of overcoming any of the obstacles my method throws up. And so it proved in Georgie’s case in the end, I am delighted to say. Two weeks after I had last seen her, Georgie sent me a letter telling me that Derek was a reformed character. She told me she had spent the last fortnight muttering my mantra to herself. She had been calm and consistent with Derek and, as a result, he was going to the toilet in the right place. There had been no more surprises on her carpet. I was overjoyed to get the letter but even happier to see the photograph that accompanied it. It was a snapshot of Derek with his owner’s favourite rubber gloves resting by his paws. No longer required around the house, they had become his most treasured toy instead.
Chapter 18
Situations Vacant: The Problems of Extended Packs
One autumn evening in 1997, I got a phone call from an Irish gentleman called Ernest. Ernest was about to get married but had rung me because he had quite a severe problem, not with his wedding or his bride-to-be I hasten to add, but with his dog. Ernest had known the lady he was marrying, Enid, for more than thirty years. She, like him, was widowed. They had met through their previous partners. The friendship had continued even though Enid lived in the north of England and Ernest was now in Ireland. They had decided to marry and set up home in a new bungalow they were building across the Irish Sea in County Louth.
Their problem was that, while they were looking forward to settling down together, their respective dogs were not. Ernest had bought a cross bred bitch puppy called Gypsy shortly after his first wife died. In the seven years since then, Gypsy had become the absolute idol of his life. Similarly Enid had a deep affection for her dog, a 13-year-old Labrador-cross called Kerry. Ernest had begun visiting Enid in her home each month and had tried to introduce Gypsy to Kerry, but neither dog was having any of it. The couple had tried everything, including an animal behaviourist who had produced a long five-page report but who had done nothing to actually improve relations between the two dogs. They were very depressed.
I arranged to meet the couple and their dogs at a friend’s boarding kennels and, firstly, decided to take them all for a walk. It was soon pretty obvious that the two dogs were eyeing each other up – if I am honest, Gypsy more than Kerry. There was definitely a strained relationship there.
Everybody who calls me out cares about their dog enough to want to sort out its problem, whatever it is. They don’t just put the dog down because of its biting, or put them into a home because they can’t cope with them. Ernest and Enid were so determined to solve the problem, they were willing for me to take charge. The problem here was that Kerry was protective of Enid and Gypsy was protective of Ernest. Both dogs perceived themselves as leaders within their individual packs. They were now challenging each other for the vacant position within the new, extended pack. What I wanted to do was make the two dogs dependent on each other for comfort and companionship, to form a pack of their own. I would then set about establishing them as equal subordinates in that pack.
The first thing I asked the couple to do was to leave both dogs at the kennels near Enid’s home. For a couple of days we put them in kennels side by side, so while they were deprived of their beloved owners, they did sense each other’s presence. On the third day, I went there and took them into the large exercise area. The reason was that I wanted the dogs to have room to separate from each other but at the same time be in a common environment. They both had their comfort space.
The dogs gave each other quite a wide berth, they were pretty dismissive of each other. For me this was cause for a lot of hope. I did this for three days running, and by the third day they seemed to want to get to know each other. They were wagging their tails, offering playful gestures to each other. This was the sign I needed to take them on to the next step. The next day I put them into the same kennel. There were two beds, two bowls – everything was separate if they wanted it to be that way and there was plenty of space too, it was a large, double kennel. That evening I had a phone call from my friend who ran the kennels. She told me that one of the beds was already redundant, they were sharing. I was delighted.
I resisted the temptation to tell Enid that it was going well because there is nothing worse than building up people’s hopes and for something then to go wrong. Instead I went on to try the next step. We left the dogs like this for a good week, during which time they were coming on nicely.
With Ernest in Ireland, I asked Enid to come to the kennels first. The important job now was to establish both dogs below the two owners in the pecking order of the extended pack, to show them it was pointless jockeying for the job of leader because the role was not vacant. I asked Enid to totally ignore them when she saw them. My reasoning was that Kerry would automatically think ‘This is my baby, let’s have fun,’ and that Gypsy would feel left out. I wanted her to leave them both feeling left out, so that they turned again to each other. We had a nice session of about half an hour, during which time Enid showed the dogs no affection whatsoever: she did not stroke either of them, she did not even make eye contact. This may seem very hard but I wanted to establish to the dogs that there was no challenge to each other while Enid was around. We did this several times and, each
time, Enid got slowly more friendly with the dogs, stroking them, giving them rewards but always very quietly. She knew calmness and consistency would be the key to everything we were doing.
On his next visit over, I asked Ernest to repeat what Enid had done. I wanted him to do it alone, as Enid had done. When Gypsy saw him, she got very, very excited indeed. She grumbled at Kerry more than once. Had Ernest made a fuss over her at that moment, it is quite possible that Gypsy would have become quite aggressive towards Kerry, which was the last thing we wanted. Again Ernest was determined and even though it was difficult, he did it. We repeated the process again during the two days he was over, very successfully.
Before Ernest went back to Ireland I decided we could try one run together, all five of us. The great day arrived and we were standing in the exercise area relaxed and happy. I can’t begin to tell you the joy I felt at this time because these people had put their faith in me to do something that would quite dramatically change their lives for the better. And it was working.
Shortly afterwards, I was invited to Enid and Ernest’s wedding. After the service, I was to my surprise invited back to the reception and, as we went through to the dining room, they pointed to a seat for me at the top table. Ernest began his speech by thanking me for all that I had done for them. I felt overwhelmed to say the least. It was then that it hit me what this process could mean to people. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I knew that for them to be really contented in their lives, these dogs that they loved would have to get on. I didn’t realise how much it meant to them until that day.
The following week, it was arranged that the dogs would go over and join Ernest and Enid in their new home. There were a few phone calls but only minor problems. The new family settled down together wonderfully. It was about a month later that I got a phone call from a distraught Enid. She told me they had been into Dublin shopping that day and that somehow Kerry had got out of the car and got lost. She had disappeared into the streets. Enid and Ernest had been to the police station, made an appeal on the radio station, put posters on the streets, everything, all to no avail. They were devastated, as I was for them.