Double trouble
Ross McCarthy
When writing these articles for you to read, I generally pick clients who I have seen recently and who have overcome behavioural issues with their dogs. They are all real clients and I simply write as I find them and include their anomalies and quirks for your enjoyment. Funnily enough, I have an increasing number of clients who say “you can write about us in your magazine of you like…just don't mention…”
The clients that I generally select are those with dogs that display quite serious problematic behaviours that could get dog and owner in to a great deal of trouble. It is fair to say that when I leave my clients, I never know how successful they will be at reforming the dog and resolving the issue. I always do my best to motivate, support, help, nag, harass et al. and encourage much contact with me so that I can add or amend advice as they progress with their pets.
It is fair to say that on occasions, as a client leaves my office, I do not feel that they are necessarily the best person to embark on what they need to embark on, nor essentially the right person to own the dog that they do. That said, I always recognise that they have spent their money on advice and spent their time with me in a bid to understand and learn to communicate with their dogs more effectively. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than when I get e-mails from clients reporting good results…well I do get greater satisfaction I suppose from seeing the improved dog personally, a nice card and on occasion getting a hug!
Unfortunately there is no magic wand sitting in my desk drawer that I can wave away longstanding issues…what solves canine behaviour problems is an open mind, real determination to achieve your goal, knowledge and damn hard work! Once people leave my office, or I leave their home – it is all down to them.
I have found one thing to be true in this job; the more difficult and more serious the behavioural problem; the more likely people are to resolve the issue to complete satisfaction. Bizarre, but true! I could list many cases where I have initially thought that due to circumstances/owner/dog etc that they would not achieve the required level of improvement and they have gone on and surpassed my expectations greatly.
About eight weeks ago I went to visit Bob and Muriel and their three little dogs – a Chihuahua and two French Bulldogs. When I arrived at their home, Bob and Muriel were pleasant enough. Before I had chance to introduce myself, Bob started to tell me about the problems. “Trouble is they're little buggers” he informed me. To cut a long and relatively unnecessary story short, these three dogs were all under 18 months of age, all urinated and defecated wherever they like (including Muriel's pillow!) and it was quite apparent by Bob's frank tones that they were fed-up with standing in it.
The house looked clean enough – it didn't smell as though there were three dogs merrily defecating all day, but there were wet ‘puppy-pads' in most every room. Basically, Bob retired and thought he would get a dog – “Mist”, the Chihuahua . At that time, the couple lived in a flat with no garden and made no attempt to house-train little Mist. I presume that the pee's and poop's were so small it wasn't a big deal for them at that time.
Shortly before they moved out of their flat and into a bungalow for the elderly, they obtained “Storm” and “Ice“ – the French Bulldogs from a breeder when they were eight weeks of age A) to help with Mist's toilet training and B) because their new sheltered accommodation would allow existing pets to live with their owners, but would not allow the replacement of any pets once deceased.
Upon the arrival of the two puppies, Bob and Muriel made seemingly no effort to train them in any regard and they copied Mist's example of how to behave – and so now, the result is that we have three adult dogs powerfully conditioned to toilet in the house and never outside!
Bob and Muriel thought that as soon as they moved to their bungalow with a garden, the dogs would immediately use the lawn for all toilet needs – not so! In fact, Bob and Muriel had done such a good job of teaching the dogs to urinate all about the house that the dogs simply would not toilet outside – they could hold themselves for hours whilst being walked or left in the garden until they were back inside before emptying bladder and bowels on the puppy-pads, pillows or kitchen floor!
After listening to Bob ranting for twenty minutes and explaining how he gives them a ‘wallop' when he comes home, if they have “made a mess”; I then took over the consultation and began to inform them of why the dogs weren't intrinsically clean in the home, why shouting and physical punishment compounded the problem and then got on to how we begin resolving this longstanding matter with three dogs.
Whilst Bob felt it quite acceptable to give the dogs a ‘smack' – he didn't find the idea of a crate a suitable one. However, after a thirty minute conversation, they relented and agreed to purchase three crates.
The outcome of my advice is that the dogs, by default simply do not have opportunity to toilet inside. I imparted my advice in full and left.
A few days later, I contacted Bob and asked how it was going…all was good. Mist, Storm and Ice were all getting used to the crates and were completely clean when in there (thankfully!). The puppy pads had gone and the dogs were slowly getting the message that the garden is the place to ‘go'.
An exchange of a few e-mails led me to believe that all was going relatively ok. The dogs had done their first few pee's and poo's outside and I felt that the dogs would be fine.
A few days later, I got an e-mail from Muriel informing me that the dogs were coming inside the house to pee whilst her and Bob were sitting in the garden. I reiterated my advice in that the dogs were either inside or outside – no free access to both. She said she couldn't possibly keep the door shut, because it was most inconvenient.
I then received an e-mail the following day telling me the crates had gone and they had received information that it was impossible to toilet train an adult dog and so they were just going to live with it as it is!
I offered a free home consult to see them again, tried to call and sent e-mails, but to no avail. That was the end of our relationship.
I know that if I had the dogs living with me for a few weeks, there would not even be one ‘accident'.
Bob and Muriel, are, I assume still allowing the dogs to pee and poo and I have unfortunately lost the influence I had over them to improve the dogs lifestyle! What is terribly sad is that I know they can not continue to live with these dogs forever and they will probably be a statistic in the rescue home.
Cases such as this really do upset me – I know these little dogs can be trained with relative ease, but the owners just can't or won't do what is required for just a short period of time!
I, of course wish them luck, but if they have decided that it is impossible to achieve cleanliness, with that mindset, they will never achieve it.
Bob and Muriel's own negligence and irresponsibility bought about these issues and their reluctance to follow advice maintains them.
