A Dog’s Best Friend: The Secrets that Make Good Dog Owners Great. Jan Fennell

the fair. ‘You want them to frighten the right people,’ he said, at one point, gesturing to me. ‘They’re no use to me if they scare little girls away from my rides.’

      It was clear that this was someone who knew a lot about dogs. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’ I said nervously.

      ‘Not at all, young lady, fire away,’ he said, smiling.

      In recent weeks, one problem had been obsessing me above all others. It had all begun with a prank played by a kid called Ronnie in Rowallan Road in Fulham, where I lived at the time.

      The most popular toy of the day was a thing called a ‘cracker’ – a triangular piece of cardboard with a piece of paper folded inside it. It looked innocuous enough, but when you flicked this thing it made a really sharp cracking noise.

      I was walking down Rowallan Road with Shane one day when Ronnie jumped out and let out this huge crack. It made me jump, but it sent Shane into the most terrible spin. It was the beginning of a nervous streak that had grown progressively worse. It was now so bad that he even became agitated at the sound of rain rapping on the windows outside. Bonfire night was still some way off, but it had already become a date to dread as far as I was concerned.

      I had tried all sorts of things, but mainly reassuring Shane with a cuddle. It had somehow made matters worse rather than better. Here was someone who clearly understood dogs more deeply than I did. What was there to lose in asking?

      ‘How do the dogs cope with the noise? What with all the squeals and whoops coming from the rides, it must be frightening for them?’

      ‘No, love, none of my dogs are afraid of noises,’ he said. ‘I just leave them to it.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ I said, a bit confused.

      ‘Well, there’s nothing to fear, is there? We all know that. So if we behave as if there’s nothing to fear, they’ll get the message eventually.’

      I thought perhaps he had a point, so I decided I’d try his advice out the next time it rained. I didn’t have to wait long. A few nights later, there was a particularly heavy downpour. Shane went into a funk as usual – but this time I tried to resist the urge to cuddle him. I carried on reading and playing records in my room as if nothing was happening, trying desperately to relay the message that there was nothing to fear.

      At the age of fifteen, you expect everything to happen in an instant. As far as I could see my behaviour was having next to no effect on Shane, who was now cowering under my bed. I loved Shane so much, I couldn’t bear the sight of him distressed. Soon he was cuddled up alongside me on top of the bed, shivering as the winds drove the rain against the window pane with even greater intensity.

      Hindsight is, of course, a marvellous thing. Now I know I was doing the complete opposite of what I should have been doing. More than anything else Shane needed to be assured there was nothing wrong. And he needed to be assured by a figure in whom he had absolute trust and confidence. Instead, I had made two cardinal errors. First, I had been inconsistent, changing my mind about how to deal with the situation and giving poor Shane mixed signals in the process. Then, when I came to cuddle him, I had confirmed his worst fears – the rain was something to feel threatened by and to hide from after all. My intentions had been good, but in the end I had only added to his anxiety.

      Eventually I would see the wisdom of the words of the man from the fair. The ideas he implanted in my mind would grow into one of the fundamental building blocks of my method. But if only I’d been old – and wise – enough to have understood them at the time, Shane’s life might have been a slightly happier one.

       ‘WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?’

       Why great owners work with, not against, their dogs

      Dogs operate according to a simple rule – the ‘What’s in It for Me?’ principle. In essence, any owner wanting to get willing cooperation from their dog has to work on the understanding that it – like them – works according to fundamentally selfish instincts. It is not going to do something unless there is a tangible benefit from doing so. This was something I first glimpsed with my cousin Doreen and her attitude to Tinker. But it was another forward-thinking member of the family who taught me how productive this idea could really be.

      My Uncle George was the oldest of my father’s five siblings and he lived with my Aunt Ellen at their home in West London, near Heathrow Airport. We visited them often and I always looked forward to the trip, again mainly because it meant I could spend time with a dog – in this case their black and tan crossbreed, Rex.

      Rex was a mixture of all sorts of breeds – he probably had some German shepherd in him somewhere – and had a curly tail, big pointy ears and a slightly foxy look. He was a hugely affectionate dog and always made a beeline for me when I visited George and Ellen. While the rest of the family chatted away, I’d sit out in the garden, stroking him or playing ball.

      George was in his late fifties by then, retired from his job as a lorry driver. He was a straightforward, down-to-earth man and his relationship with his dog was absolutely typical of the period. They were very relaxed with each other. Rex would sit by Uncle George’s feet most of the time and would go out with him every morning to get the newspaper. There were no big shows of affection or emotion, but that was the way in those days. As for training, I don’t think the idea had ever occurred to him.

      Rex was a happy dog and I have no doubt George cared for him deeply too, but he did have one habit that drove George round the bend. On a regular basis, he would go into the garden and begin digging ferociously around the large flower beds, and the roses in particular. George wasn’t best pleased with this, to say the least. He and Ellen were very proud of their garden, and spent long hours tending it. Their lawn was immaculate, as smooth as a billiard table, but their roses were their pride and joy.

      They were not a generation to analyse things in depth, so there was little discussion about the reason for Rex’s behaviour. Whether he was marking territory or simply digging for a hidden bone, they were not interested. All that concerned them was how this was going to be stopped.

      George had tried all sorts of things. He had shouted at the dog, and at one point thrown his slipper at him out of frustration. On one occasion, he confessed, he had given Rex ‘a good kick up the backside’. But nothing had worked. People had made all sorts of suggestions and my dad had suggested he build a fence around the rose beds, but George had rejected that.

      Ellen, to her credit, tried to defuse the situation. At times, there was an echo of my cousin Doreen’s caring philosophy in her comments. ‘Don’t blame the dog,’ she said on one occasion. ‘It’s only in our eyes that he’s doing bad. He doesn’t know any different.’

      This did little to ease George’s frustration – all he could do was curse Rex every time he attacked his roses.

      Then, one summer, the solution presented itself in the most unlikely form of Freddie, one of George’s nephews (and my cousins). Freddie was three and the son of George’s and my father’s sister, Mary Ann (known to everyone as Sis). Just as no one referred to Sis by her real name, so we all called Freddie by his nickname – Sticky Fingers. Sis was very relaxed in her parenting and she allowed Freddie to eat as many sweets as he liked. As a result, he constantly had his hands in the sweet jars that sat on everyone’s sideboards in those days. What was really unpleasant was the way he would remove half-eaten sweets or bits of chocolate from his mouth and save them for later. By the time he had left someone’s house after a visit, there were bits of sweet or chocolate stuck to the floor, carpet, furniture – everywhere. It was