Clever Dog: Understand What Your Dog is Telling You. Sarah Whitehead

vet was now sporting a plaster on her wrist where she had been bitten. The bite was quite nasty, and unexpected – primarily because the dog was only fifteen weeks old!

      Amber’s owner, Tina, called me soon after. She said that she was shocked, not because her beautiful puppy had bitten the vet but because the vet thought she needed behavioural help. In her view, the vet must have really hurt the puppy to make her bite. We arranged to meet.

      Amber was indeed a beautiful puppy. The Cocker Spaniel lay cradled in her owner’s arms as I was led into the hallway of her new home. I put up a hand to touch her but she turned her face into the crook of her owner’s arm and trembled with fear. At fifteen weeks of age, this was not a good response to the careful hand of a stranger. Puppies should be outgoing, curious and friendly, not fearful and withdrawn.

      We went into the lounge and Amber’s owner placed the puppy carefully on a fleece blanket next to her on the sofa. The puppy glanced at me over her shoulder then slunk down, tucking herself behind her owner’s back, clearly hoping that if she couldn’t see me, I wouldn’t be able to see her.

      Amber had come home only a few days before. Her new owner had chosen the breeder carefully and she showed me her puppy’s pedigree forms with reverence.

      ‘She has bred Cocker Spaniels for years,’ Tina told me proudly. ‘I saw Amber’s mother and grandmother – they were all stunning. Her grandmother was a champion, you know.’

      The puppy had crawled round behind her back and was now heading towards the edge of the sofa. Tina jumped up and scooped it up in her arms, lest the puppy should get too close to the edge. ‘The breeder told me how fragile puppies are at this age,’ she said. ‘She kept them on their own in a warm, padded box, and wouldn’t even let other people handle them. They’re just too precious.’

      Indeed, I thought.

      ‘I think she might need to go to the bathroom,’ Tina said suddenly, and carried the puppy towards the kitchen. Following, I expected to see Tina heading towards the back door but instead she turned off down the hallway, and then – to my surprise – took her into the downstairs loo.

      There she placed the puppy on a special ‘housetraining mat’ to do her business. Now, while these ‘flat nappies’ have become very popular with new puppy owners because they mean that the pup doesn’t have to go outside, they effectively condone indoor toileting. This means that owners often need to housetrain their puppy twice: first to the mat, second to the garden. Worse, in my opinion, is that using puppy pads may limit a dog’s experiences and mean that it risks being under-exposed to the world at large.

      Some years ago, I appeared on a national TV chat show where the topic of discussion was whether people who live in apartments or flats should ever have dogs as pets. Most of the experts on the show condemned the idea of keeping dogs in high-rise accommodation, saying that they need space both indoors and out. I stood out as a lone voice. As someone who had been one of those city-dwelling owners who lived happily and responsibly with a dog in an upstairs flat, I felt I could speak from experience. There are actually some positive behavioural advantages to raising a pup in an urban jungle. Not least of these is the fact that when you don’t have a garden or yard, you are forced to take the puppy out and about to meet the world a minimum of eight times a day just for him or her to go to the toilet – potentially seven times more than a puppy living a country existence.

      Poor Amber. With so little in the way of life experience and such a sheltered start, she had no coping strategies to fall back on when life threw a minor glitch in her path – in the form of having an injection – and she had over-reacted horribly as a result. The harsh fact is that dogs of all ages need to learn how to cope with being examined, having their teeth cleaned, their nails clipped, their ears inspected, their tails held. They need to put up with minor discomfort in the form of injections, anal gland emptying, temperature-taking and a multitude of other common procedures. All of these trivial little annoyances need to be accepted, not fought over or fussed about, and it is only through extensive amounts of handling, exposure and repetition at an early age that dogs learn to take them in their stride.

      At fifteen weeks old, Amber’s reactions to other people already represented a behavioural emergency – but getting Amber’s doting owner to see that she needed to loosen the apron strings and let her little dog stand on her own four feet was going to be tough. Knowing that the best understanding always comes from experience rather than explanation, I invited Amber and her owner to attend a ‘puppy nursery class’ that my practice colleagues and I were running during the evenings in a nearby school. I told her it was an ideal opportunity to meet other puppy owners in a gentle social environment. It was also a dramatic eye-opener. On Amber’s first session, she sat on her owner’s lap and hid her face, not once so much as glancing at the other puppies who were quietly practising training, sniffing each other or enjoying short play sessions with each other.

      ‘Is your puppy ill?’ asked a little girl who was there with her family training their Cairn Terrier pup. ‘Why can’t she come and play with the other puppies?’

      Amber’s owner looked at me with tears in her eyes. ‘None of the other puppies are reacting like this,’ she whispered. ‘I hadn’t realised how painfully shy she is.’

      It was a turning point. Very gently, very gradually, Amber’s owner tentatively allowed her puppy to explore the house, and then the garden. She practically had to sit on her hands not to dash over and save the puppy from clambering down her six-inch-high rockery. She took her out in the car, let friends touch her and hold her – and even on one occasion left her overnight with a friend (although she did admit to calling almost every hour). Amber’s transformation had begun. The following week when she returned to the puppy class, Amber sat on the floor – although admittedly under her owner’s chair. She managed a sneaky sniff of another pup’s tail as it walked past and even ate a treat given to her by the little girl with the Cairn Terrier.

      By week three of the course, Amber could practise ‘sits’ and ‘downs’ with the rest of the class. She couldn’t yet cope with playing or walking on the lead in the middle of the room, but she wagged her tail and looked more relaxed than I could have hoped for. By week five, she was offering play bows to the Cairn Terrier and had made a friend in a Bichon Frise puppy who was also a little shy. Everyone could see her progress now.

      On the final night of the puppy course, Amber’s owner arrived with her pup on a new pink collar and lead. She walked into the room with confidence, sat down and watched as her puppy was happy to be petted by the little girl and a friend who had come to watch the puppy ‘graduation’ ceremony, in which I say a few words about how each puppy has developed during the six-week course and comment on their achievements. When it was Amber’s turn, I hardly needed to remind the class how much more confident Amber had become. They burst into a spontaneous round of applause in their genuine desire to congratulate her owner for all her efforts. They too could see that a crisis had been averted.

      Packing up that evening, I was surprised to hear a voice behind me. Amber’s owner held out a brown paper bag.

      ‘I just wanted to give you something,’ she said. ‘You know, for the teacher, from Amber and me.’

      I opened the bag. It contained a round and shiny apple. It was undoubtedly the best I’ve ever eaten.

      TOP TIPS FOR ‘STRESS IMMUNISING’ AND SOCIALISING PUPPIES

      » Start young. Even if your puppy has not yet completed all his vaccinations, you can carry him out and about to meet the world. The first critical window of opportunity for puppies to learn to cope with everyday life is before twelve weeks; after this, every day becomes potentially more difficult.

      » Try not to wrap your puppy in cotton wool. He or she needs to learn how to cope with life. The balance between protection and exposure is an important one.

      » Dogs need to be exposed repeatedly to all the sights, sounds, touches, smells and even tastes of their environment. Treat your puppy as if he is going to be a guide dog by taking