January 21st, 2012
A stranger comes to say Hi
This is what I call it when the owners of a lovely dog decide the time is right for a second dog – and the second dog bonds to the first dog, not the owners.
The bond between dog and owner is lovely to see, and it’s essential for training purposes, especially if you want to take your dog off the lead for a run.
Before I explain any more I’ll tell you about the incident that gave me the idea for the blog.
A walk in Thorndon Park, on a weekend, so it was a busy day, lots of owners out with their dogs, and lovely to see. We walked past a couple with a Greyhound and a young white Lurcher. We’d seen them before, and the lurcher had a run round with my dogs before heading back to his owner as we increased the distance between us. This time though, I had another dog with me, and they made friends and had a play together as we walked. The owners of the lurcher started whistling for their dog, but he decided he was coming with us. In the end we got quite far apart, with their dog showing no interest in returning. So we stopped walking so they could catch up and get their dog.
The Lurcher tries to get Scamp to play with him.
Five minutes later, still no owners – they haven’t moved and are still whistling. I’m now left in an uncomfortable position, because I’m not just out for a walk – I’m working and on a timetable. I could carry on walking, with their dog still with us, and effectively create a ‘lost dog’ if it stays with us all the way to the car park and I drive off, or I can make myself late for the rest of the day by walking back to the dog’s owners with their dog. Neither of which I am very happy about. Luckily, another family with a dog went past – they had also seen the lurcher on previous walks enjoying the company of everyone but its owners – and they swept the dog along with them as they were heading that way.
What the owners have inadvertently done was allow their young dog unlimited, 24/7 access to their older dog, while limiting its access to them (going to the loo, to bed, out shopping, possibly working etc), so all the dog’s social needs were being met by a dog. The result was what I say that day in December. A dog who wanted to play and be with other dogs, and because the owners kept up a constant whistle, the dog was able to cock his ears every few minutes, check the whistling was still within his comfort range, and carry on. Owners are still near enough to return to when he was ready. By the time I stopped walking though, he’d stopped checking in. He was quite happy being with my dogs and obviously saw no need to go back. He had no real idea he was suppose to go back to his owner when called.
Happy to be walking with a similar dog
My dogs have no real interest in other dogs after the initial sniffing and greeting rituals. Their social needs are met mostly by me, with a smaller amount of time playing with each other at home. Had my dogs also been playful, I might have lost them too – or worse, the lurcher might have decided he wanted to move in with us!
So please, when you get a second dog, or even your first dog, ensure YOU are the most important thing in your pup’s life from early on – if you need professional advice, it’s out there for the taking, just call a good local trainer.
The poor lurcher has been on a lead every time I’ve seen him since then, which is a sad thing for a breed that just loves to run.
What are your views on having a second dog and problems with recall?
November 5th, 2011
I went to a DVD launch party on Tuesday night (Family Guy Season 11), just for something different. The invite said it would be ‘Fine Dining and Cocktails for Dogs’, so anything a bit out of the ordinary, that treats my dogs well and we’re in! I took Fred and Beauty (Scamp would not have been happy so stayed home). Our invite was originally just for the party, but on t
he day the organiser phoned and asked if we could arrive early to take part in the press photos. How exciting, of course we will!
There was a big white Northern Inuit there, supposed to look like the dog from the show, but he wouldn’t do anything he was asked in front of the camera, so they put a bow tie on Beauty ready to try her. After 10 mins of standing about (filming is SO BORING!) they put the bow tie on Fred and popped him on a chair at the dinner table next to the Ugliest Dog in Britain, where Mugly wouldn’t do what he was asked either. Nor would Lola (Mugly’s wife), or a Chihuahua they tried. Through all this Fred is patiently sitting on his cushion. Don’t eat the food right in front of you. Eat it. Stop eating. Sniff it but don’t eat it. Eat it. Don’t eat the biscuits, now eat them.
They didn’t do any filming with Beauty in the end, but I got my photo taken with her by the photographer so hopefully that will look good, and they’ve promised to send all the photos out – although that’s quite unusual, and I haven’t had any so far, so we’ll wait and see. They also interviewed me, I talked a bit about making sure my dogs behave well in public so I can take them out and how Guide Dogs are allowed everywhere, yet our dogs are not allowed ‘near food’ and they are the same species. I also pointed out the benefits of choosing an adult (ie rescue) dog rather than a puppy as you can match it to your lifestyle. What bit did they use on the TV? Where they asked if the dogs had tried the food and my profound reply was ‘they scoffed the lot’. Very deep!
Fred in fashion show
Shortly after that I visited the Little Girl’s Room ready for the drive home – when I got back Fred was dressed as a reindeer! He had been chosen for more photos for the Pet London fashion shoot.
After that there was nothing else to do but pick up our Goody Bag, find Beauty (flopped out under a table after one too many dog cocktails) and make our way home. We enjoyed our night out, and I got to show off my dogs, what a great evening!
If you’d like to watch our star performance, you can watch the Live with Gabby episode for 6 days from the date of this blog (piece starts at 39 minutes and runs for about 90 seconds, don’t blink or you will miss us), or there is a press release for the Family Guy launch party with more photos of my wonderful Fred, and makes him look as if he’s speed dating as he has a number of different dinning partners!
Fred’s previous television appearances include The Gadget Show testing pet gadgets in 2009 where he is filmed killing a Zombie and testing a dog treadmill(all within the first 5 minutes). You can read my review on Fred’s own blog, A Dog Named Fred, and watch the TV clip on The Gadget Show’s website (we’re only in the first five minutes). We also appeared on Trinny and Susannah meet their match – dog lovers also in 2009 as ‘supporting’ messy badly dressed dog owners. Here’s Fred and I doing a twirl on the cat walk. I’m sure I’ve still got those jeans…
October 17th, 2011
It’s a busy life looking after pets – I aim for the calm peace and grace of a swan, gliding along the water, with legs going like the clappers under the water where no-one can see. I’m not sure if I manage this, but I’ll give you some idea of what it’s like behind closed doors, from midnight to midnight on a typical Sunday.
Midnight: I should be asleep, but I’m on the sofa because one of the boarders is sad (and noisy) to be alone so I’m downstairs in a sleeping bag. Scamp is curled up inside with me so I can’t turn over, Fred is on my legs so I can’t stretch out, and Sally (the lonely girl) is quietly woofing air at me because she wants to come up too, but there’s no space.
3am – I must have dozed off because I’m awake again, Fred’s heard something, probably a cat, and it barking at the back door. Sally is now on my legs instead, but jumps off to have a bark as well. Scamp’s on his back, legs akimbo so not only can I still not move, I have a very attractive view. Could have done without the full moon. Both literally and figuratively.
6.10am A cold wet nose appears in my face – Ted’s awake and wants to start the day. Sally’s having another little woof from her bed. Fred is nowhere to be seen, and Beauty’s on her bed giving me The Stare because she wants to go outside to have a drink (3 full, clean water bowls indoors not to her taste it seems). I give up and get dressed. Let the dogs out who want to go out, and insist Sally and Scamp go outside as they seem not very impressed with the cold morning. Go out with them and clear up any overnight deposits.
9am Slow start to the day b
ecause I’m tired from two nights broken sleep. Gather dogs up ready for a walk, harnesses, leads, keys, diary, extra bits of equipment, money. Lovely, lovely walk where the dogs are all well behaved, they come when called, don’t bother people or other dogs, and I get the chance to stock up on dog waste bags (3000) and enjoy a drink. 4 children stop to talk to us and are amazed I can walk 5 dogs at once. I’m amazed Dad can handle 4 kids at once without a single lead for back up.
11am Collect 4 month old puppy Luna for daycare on the way home from the walk. I get home to find she’s messed the van as she’s not used to travelling. I had been told she may be sick. Feed my 3 and the 2 boarders, clean up Luna’s paws while they eat. Scatter food in the garden and let her out there with them – this helps stop them all wanting to investigate her all at once and making her anxious. She can check them out in her own time. Load the washing machine with soiled bedding and spend the next hour cleaning the van, scrub all the food and water bowls, and while I’m at it I disinfect the wall in front of my house as all the boys like to pee on it when they come in, and wash down the path (badly because I’m tired and can’t find the broom).
12pm Take a call that my 1pm was cancelled, means rescheduling, but I can’t help feeling a bit relieved. Go back to scrubbing.
12.30pm finally get a chance to sit down. I beg Fred to make me a coffee, but he’s not being very responsive. All the dogs find a place to 
settle as soon as I sit down, except Luna, who is here for the first time (although I’ve worked with her for 4 weeks so she does now me, and she’s met Fred before), so is carefully watching everything. Think about lunch, but the morning’s work has put me off a bit. If I’d still had my 1 oclock I’d be frantically trying to get myself cleaned up so I could meet a client. Washing machine finishes, so I get up again (followed by all 6 dogs in case something exciting is going to happen), hang out the van bedding, load in more (it has to be half empty or doesn’t get washed properly when it’s dog stuff, especially when it’s Dog’s Business). Make a coffee while I’m up.
2pm Washing machine finishes, hang that out, machine is now filthy so put it on empty at 90 degrees. Too late after that to wash anything of mine, let’s hope the warm weather continues! All the dogs are now sleeping off the excitement of the morning (they won’t settle until I do) so I get on with some paperwork. Start to feel hungry, but if I get up it will disturb all the dogs, so decide to hang in there for a while.
3.30pm Take Luna home as she’s not staying for tea, think I see Mark Wright from The Only Way is Essex drive past, but one cocky young man looks much the same as another when you get to my age so can’t be sure. No mess this time, but the promised sick arrives. Clean out van again, change bedding, put soiled bedding for a wash tomorrow (AFTER human clothing is washed!). Spot mess on road that fell out of van earlier, so clean that up too. Also realise just how badly I cleaned the path, as the water I sluiced round after scrubbing has dried a kind of murky grey (why did I choose light coloured flagstones??). Put ‘stiff broom’ on shopping list.
4.30pm Feed hungry hounds, only 5 now, so plenty of room to all eat together. I sit with them to make sure they only eat their own, and once a bowl is finished it’s picked up. Let them out to the loo, clear the garden of any mess that’s been deposited since this morning, bring in the dog laundry and put back into the van. While we’re outside spent 20 mins playing on the playframes. Scamp pinches Ted’s toy in hope of being chased, but despite my urgings Ted is far too polite. Wonder if I have time to eat something before Ted’s owners arrive to collect him.
5.00pm Sit down with a salad, Scamp comes running in with Ted’s toy and barks at me to play with him. Decide I really must eat. Get up and find Ted another toy. Then eat.
5.30pm Finish eating just in time for Ted to be collected. Sing his praises to his owner as he was such a star and how much we enjoy having him.
5.40pm curl up on the sofa with Scamp and Sally. Beauty likes her own bed, and Fred’s made a nest in the dining room. Find time to watch ‘Dragon’s Den how to win in the den’ in hope I’ll learn something.
6.45pm I can’t sit and watch TV for too long and the dogs are all too sleepy to play. So I get the business plan project out again and start researching and planning.
8pm Back is aching so last 15 minutes of ‘work’ has been 4 minutes of reading through factsheets, and 11 minutes of gazing at the laptop wishing it was a tablet so I could do the research on the sofa instead of at a badly designed desk. Give up for the night, read business PDFs on the Kindle instead. Wish I’d bought one with a browser. Promise myself the Kindle Fire for Christmas, sooner if possible.
8.30pm tuck myself back into a sleeping bag with Scamp and Sally and wait for Jacob to come home so he can switch off the lights.
11.30pm woken by Sally woofing and wanting to get up. Didn’t even realise she’d got off
Midnight: ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
September 7th, 2011
You can find information on my home dog boarding services on my main dog walking website, but I want to give you a Dog’s Eye View of what it’s like to stay here.
First – our town.
Brentwood is a suburban town situated in the green belt –which means although we are a busy and interesting town, we have large areas of country parks, public footpaths, woodland areas, green spaces, wetlands and agricultural land. As little as ten minutes drive from the town centre (which contains several Listed Buildings and an Ancient Monument – the St Thomas a Becket Chapel) there is a very much a ‘countryside’ feel to the area, with lots of pretty villages with outstanding walking areas, while still having as many pet shops, health care providers and grooming parlours as your dog could possibly need!
All this – and only one hour away from central London.
Our boarders come for their holidays from all over Essex, but we’ve also enjoyed the company of dogs from as far as Suffolk, Kent & London. Our boarding is much in demand for London dogs – your dogs love the freedom our large back garden and secure front garden (supervised only) bring them. They enjoy the green areas around my home on their way to the local park and I can see them light up as they get to run and run and run when we visit one of our large country parks. Of course, some dogs just want to sniff, and sniff and sniff!! Whatever your dog wants to do, we find a safe, secure and fun way for them to do it.
Your dog is not a ‘guest’. They are a treasured friend and family member – you won’t hear us say ‘our own dogs have to come first’ because each dog is equal in its need for love and affection, exercise and play, and house rules and guidelines. Each dog has its needs met in a way that compliments all the other dogs. Your dog is as welcome on my lap as my dogs, as deserving of that last biscuit! They all need love and companionship and we have enough love to go around. As I work with dogs, mine get a lot more of my time and attention than many family dogs and can be relieved to have some peace and quiet while I play with your dog! You may find me hard to get rid of at collection times, as I don’t want your dog to leave us. Your dog, of course, just wants to be with you!
A Day in The Life of a Boarder
Days at Aunty Linda’s always start before 7am. Dogs really enjoy being busy and active at dusk and dawn so it’s only fair to share that time with them. The morning walk takes place at 8am weekdays, around 9am on weekends. This helps everyone build an appetite for breakfast, which we have on the return from the walk. This helps avoid digestive problems, and mimics the ‘natural’ way – the hunt and chase comes before the meal!
More active time around the house and garden while I tidy up the house, before I settle to some paperwork. The dogs settle to sleep very quickly, and usually like two-three hours of nap time. By that time I’m usually fed up with papers and want to get back to the dogs, so we either go out for an activity dog walk (Wild Agility, Find It, Trick Training), or we play dog games around the house and garden.
We LOVE Find It, Paddling Pool Dipping for treats and toys, Sandpit Search ‘n’ Scoff, Cardboard Box/Newspaper Challenge (Lucky Dip for dogs), gentle agility on the Outdoor Play frames (or King of the Castle games!), Kong Games plus we have individual activity toys for the dogs. Some of our activities were published in Dogs Today magazine (October 2011 issue), and are also available as articles on our website.
After the activities have worked up yet more appetite, the dogs have their tea, then my family and I have ours. Your dog is fed before us for two reasons.
1) It’s really hard on a dog, who can’t operate a can opener or reach his dog bowl, to have to watch someone else eat when he is hungry and has no means to feed himself.
2) It cuts down the amount of drool!
After tea is clean up time, perhaps time for one more dog walk around the block if anyone looks willing, then it’s settle down time. I like to watch TV with a dog on my lap – this is a relaxing time to tease out the day’s activities from the dogs’ coats, and check them over for anything that might have hitched a lift home, whether it’s parasites, burs, seeds, brambles, twigs or thorns! The dogs love this time too – a comfy sofa (with your permission), a cushion, blanket if desired and your legs in the air. What better end to the day can there be??
If you want to see more of what your dog will do, check out our Facebook photo albums, videos, and of course – Inky Cam!
August 2nd, 2011
When I was a young teenager I once got into a fight with my younger brother and our cousin, who were both a little younger than me. They’d been teasing me for a long time, and I’d snapped and hit my cousin. My dad was FURIOUS and told me that they could push me under a bus and I still could not hurt them. So of course, being kids, they just teased and taunted me all the more, especially when around traffic, as now they had permission from my dad (status by association) to do what they liked to me as I was not allowed to retaliate, and certainly he wasn’t going to interfere now.
Did this decrease the chance that they would get hurt by me? No. It increased it. As I was only a child myself and hadn’t learned self-control. No-one was protecting me (in fact the protection was going to the boys who were ganging up and bullying me) so I had to do it myself. Eventually, the boys were crying, then I got walloped by my dad and I was crying too. We all got hurt.
Why do I tell you something that makes me sound unpleasant and maybe a bit of a thug? Chances are we’ve all got into fights with our families when we were kids and you’ll understand. But why is it related to dogs? I’ll tell you.
When I look after puppies, they get a lot of leeway from my dogs, and the dogs I walk, as they’re all good-natured nice family pets. But they all have different temperaments and different levels of tolerance of being messed about by puppies.
One day I was walking with an older puppy, just on the cusp of adolescence when the tolerance of adult dogs can sometimes drop. He was bouncing around, happy to be alive and in the great outdoors, wanting to play, like every other puppy. He’d bounce off the other dogs every now and then, trying to get some dog games going. None were really interested as they just wanted to do their own thing, and dogs walking with me never know how long they are going to be out so they like to pace themselves just in case.
So eventually one of them had enough, and told the puppy off. He ran off to another dog, who also told him off, which started a bit of noise and nonsense with a couple of the dogs running after the pup and barking at him – really telling him off, but not hurting him. He ran to me for protection, as that’s what I always teach the dogs. If you’re worried or don’t like what’s going on – come to me. Only when the pup got to me this time…
I told him off too.
Why would I do such a wicked thing? Because I don’t want to give the puppy status by association. He has to learn that he can’t just insist on a game. He can’t go up to other dogs and bounce all over them. He can ask for a game, and lots of dogs will say yeah, great! But when they say no, he has to accept that or face sometimes unpleasant consequences. Of course, being a pup who did what he was supposed to by coming to me I didn’t tell him off badly. I simply ignored him. Wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t talk to him. I don’t want him to think coming to me is a bad thing. I just wanted him to know that I wasn’t happy with him either.
This protects ALL dogs, as this puppy is learning that when he’s told no he should gracefully accept it. The other dogs know they do not have to bite or fight because they are allowed to tell another dog to leave them alone. Why didn’t I stop the puppy bouncing on them in the first place? Because it wasn’t excessive, he just hadn’t accepted the no the first time. When pups are really excessive and not taking no for an answer time after time after time no matter what, I will take steps to prevent them being a bother, usually keeping them on a lead until they’ve calmed down. But in cases like this it is beneficial to allow the puppy to learn something without being traumatised by bouncing up to a dog who’s had one too many dogs bounce on him and get bitten.
Two minutes after that I did a successful recall with the puppy which meant I could shower him with love and affection. By leaving it two minutes, pup didn’t associate the fuss and love with the scolding from the other dogs, nor my cold reaction. He just knew he’d done A Good Thing and Aunty Was Pleased.
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