CHAPTERS on dogs
and the things no one tells you 🐕
Last week I wrote about cats so it only seemed fair that this week I pay homage to another of our four-legged friends - dogs. According to new figures 4.7 million households got a new pet during the pandemic but an estimated 3.4 million have given one up since 2021. I was one of those who got a pandemic puppy and I can sympathise with why so many people gave up after a year. I know that sounds harsh but read on and you’ll understand. However, with that said, my experience of pet ownership has had a profound and irreversible effect…
The other day my dog Ralphie wasn’t very well. He lay flat on his side for hours, a shadow of his former self, devoid of any of his usually cheeky personality. He was completely wiped and I was worried. The next morning the problem became clear. It was stomach related. I won’t go into gory detail. All I’ll say is that, as I bent over the bath scrubbing remnants of a poonami from his Pomeranian fur, I was questioning my life choices. Mainly, why I ever thought it was a good idea to get a dog.
It’s not the first time this has crossed my mind and it probably won’t be the last. To be honest this week’s poogate isn’t even the worst of times. There have been far more stressful occasions where I have been in real a state of regret, wishing to turn back the clock and to never have met this brown-eyed mischief maker. This was a particularly recurring thought when he was a pup. Followed by, ‘why does nobody tell you it’s this hard?!’
No matter how much I trained him, how many Zak George YouTube videos I watched, how long I walked him for, how many treats he had, he would never tire of being a great pain in the neck. I knew he was smart because he learnt tricks within minutes and understood every command I taught him. He just chose to ignore them when they mattered. All the dog trainers I binge-watched blamed the owner, so I had constant guilt that I was clearly getting everything so wrong. Studies show that interacting with animals decreases levels of cortisol (the stress-related hormone) but I think I can safely say that my blood pressure was the highest it’s ever been. There is much conflicting and terrible advice out there on how to train a dog, it is a minefield. And seriously, nobody tells you how hard it is. So no, I am not shocked that millions of people threw in the towel (covered in paw prints and mud.)
For the first two years Ralphie had a penchant for chewing - wires, chair legs, my glasses - but his real thirst was for human skin and I had the bite marks to prove it. He ran away several times, thinking a game of chase next to a main road would be my idea of fun too. He once ate an entire fox poop then vommed it up all over his brand new dog bed. The worst case, when I was really at my wits end, was one dark winter’s night when he knew I was about to go out. He hid from me in a park for over an hour. Yes, I honestly believe it was a calculated move on his behalf to hijack my love life. Other people’s dogs seemed to walk nicely on the lead, mine would rather bite the lead and drag it from my hand! So eventually I accepted that I had been cursed with a dog version of Satan and there would no taming him.
BUT. I refused to become an a dog-related pandemic statistic and would not be beaten by a fluffy cream canine. I took him to a dog school where he was the smallest, cutest dog in the field. Within five minutes he had been relegated from the small dog area as he had stirred up a cavapoo and sausage dog to fever pitch. This resulted in me being yelled at by a terrifying ruddy-faced woman in a fleece. “CAN RALPHIE’S OWNER PLEASE REMOVE HIM FROM THE PEN.” Hilarious looking back but oh the shame.
I was ordered to put him in another fenced off area with the big dogs where a husky gave him a side eye and he sat completely still, possibly for the first time in his life. All this time and I should have just set a husky on him?! This was when I realised the standard dog training methods did not apply here. From then on I encouraged him to play with bigger scary dogs in the park (even though it made my heart race out of my chest). He started to realise his actual size (4.5kilos) and would run to me when he was out of his depth in a game of chase with a greyhound. Rather than using the trainer’s approach of yelling at him for his bad behaviour, which only seemed to make him rebel more, I decided to kill him with kindness, creating a rewards based system of negotiations between us. He started to be a good boy, to trust me and even, dare I say, to listen. I’m not saying this as any form of recommendation to be followed by the way, it was purely desperate, potentially dangerous attempts on my part to communicate with a wild animal. I am certainly no dog training aficionado and he is nowhere near perfect still. Although we have come a long way since the puppy days.
What I really wasn’t prepared for was the affect having this feisty fella would have on me personally. Despite all the anxiety-inducing early stages, this fur-ball taught me some huge life lessons which have ultimately made me a better person. I didn’t know, for example, that I could love something so unconditionally. He tested my patience, something I am generally low on, but I grasped an understanding of waiting for things to get better over time. Put in the work, a little every day, and the improvements add up. I learnt to make sacrifices and compromises for something other than myself and found this surprisingly grounding and meaningful. I witnessed the importance of routine for mental health. Just as Ralphie was much calmer when we followed daily patterns, so was I. Regular meal times, sleep, getting out and about for walks at similar hours all seem like trivial, quite boring things to care about but added together give stability, energy and a palpable boost in mood. (You don’t need a dog to do this stuff, but it does force your hand). When I first got Ralphie I’d had a few hard knocks to my confidence but I started to find my voice, rediscover my outgoing side and make new friends in other dog owners. Turns out, it wasn’t just me struggling with the puppy years, phew! When it comes to holidays, we don’t always want to leave Ralphie behind so have visited beautiful parts of the UK that we would never have chosen before - the Isle of Skye was a particular highlight. And remember to never underestimate the power of the small things.
Ralphie will turn four this year and honestly he still has his rebellious moments - this very morning he found a slice of bread in a bush and wouldn’t drop it. (Dogs will be dogs?) But throughout a huge period of change in my life he has been a source of happiness and companionship . We started out in a lonely global pandemic and have come a long way since - living in four different places, changing jobs, finding his dog-dad! He’s been a huge part of making me feel at home wherever I go, a great comfort when life hasn’t gone to plan and most of all, he is a reminder that sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty.