And Then a Hero Came Along…….

 A hero is someone who voluntarily walks into the unknown – Tom Hanks

 I have great and good tidings.  The reign of terror is over.  Our home is once more ours, we are no longer living under the cosh of fear and servitude that we have coped with for so long.  For last Saturday, as Mariah Carey once warbled, “A hero came along”.

The dog trainer was here.  His name is Houch and I think I might love him.

His Nibs did everything in his limited power to get out of attending.  He announced early in the week that he would not be able to make the appointment on Saturday morning, that he was off on a mission to find a second hand part for his ancient car. 

This did not please me.

A compromise was reached.  Houch changed the time of the appointment, and His Nibs was allowed to go to the car place if he could swear he’d be home by eleven.  I suggested that I should get up and go with him, just to be sure he got home in time, but he declined.  It seems he doesn’t like being supervised while going about his life.  Also, he made the reasonable point that if I had to be dragged from my bed to go with him, the whole business would have to be delayed by another hour.

He was home by eleven.  And I only rang him twice on his way home to ensure that he was sticking to the schedule and there would be no delays. 

When Houch knocked on the door all three hounds went demented, and we couldn’t open the door to let him in, because the threat of escape had hit red alert.

I really didn’t want to spend the first hour of our training session running around the village trying to coax the little feckers home.

We picked the small ones up and grabbed the big one by the collar and finally Houch gained entrance.  I felt this gave him a good grounding on what the next three hours would be like.

I half hoped training would be completed by our sitting at the table, drinking coffee, with me smoking cigarettes and telling sad stories of canine misbehaviour while he nodded and made helpful suggestions.  In my imagination, His Nibs would be rolling around the floor with the dogs, which he often does, and proving that I’m a poor soul with no support and that it’s no wonder that things have got so bad, that it’s not my fault.

That is the exact opposite of what happened.  Houch instructed us to put the dogs back on the floor, as soon as the door was closed.  He then shepherded us all, as a group, into the kitchen and the training began immediately.

I’m not going to tell you all the things he taught us.  That would be wildly unfair to him, because he’s trying to earn a living and if I set out all the things he does, people will think they can use his expertise to train their bold dogs themselves.  Not that I think that would be possible, but if I could save the cost of hiring a professional by reading  instructions, that’s what I’d do.

So instead I’m going to show you all his business card, so that if any of you have a dog that you think could challenge ours in the behaviour stakes, you can ring him. 

This is not a blog that advertises anything, ever.  I have never recommended or denounced any business by name.  This one I’m recommending, but I promise it won’t be a habit.

Suffice it to say that the boldest cheekiest dogs in Ireland were sitting on the floor begging for his attention and whoring themselves out for his love within minutes.  And this served to prove two things.

That Houch is a good dog trainer. 

And that His Nibs and I are a pair of fecking eejits who have absolutely failed, in almost ten years of dog ownership, to teach them anything remotely useful.

The biggest issue, I informed Houch,  was Poppy’s constant escapes.  No problem, he said, but too early in the session to deal with yet, he had to gain Poppy’s trust first. 

He suggested we deal with their jumping up and down and leaping all over us all the time.  So he taught us how to control that.  In ten minutes flat.  After two years of begging them to behave themselves, they were sitting without even being told to.

To be honest, I was a bit cross.  I thought they were highlighting my failings too clearly.

It became clear, at about this time, that the main problem with the three hour session was going to be His Nibs.  His focus was gone on its holidays.  He was all over the place.  He kept trying to start conversations about random things that could bring us off into long talks about irrelevant subjects.  And disappearing from the room for no known reason.  I felt like roaring at him if he didn’t behave himself he would never live to tell the tale.  Instead I just kept saying “Focus, love, focus.”  For all the good it did me I may as well have been blowing kisses at him.

It was obvious that Houch is well used to this type of nonsense, and can control conversations, but even he was reduced to saying things like “great, yeah, now as I was saying” as soon as His Nibs paused for breath.

He taught us how to train them in not going mental every time somebody rings the doorbell or even walks past the house.  With great success.  He told us how to stop the behaviours that lead to Poppy’s escapes.  Finally it was time to deal with the fact that we can’t open the front door without them legging off into the wild blue yonder.  He assured me this wouldn’t be a problem.  I have to say, even though he had proven himself beyond doubt as a trainer, I thought he was going to have a much bigger challenge than he seemed to expect.

Once again I was proven wrong.  We can now open the front door and walk away, and trust them not to run out.

We talked a huge amount about dog behaviour, why they react to certain things the way they do, and what humans need to do to encourage good behaviours.  It was incredibly interesting, and made perfect sense.

And then His Nibs strolled off, out into the garden.  With all three dogs.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was in the kitchen talking to a professional dog trainer, and His Nibs and all our dogs were wandering around the garden looking for trouble.

When I got up, late on Sunday morning, His Nibs and the hounds were already up and about.  So I decided to challenge them.  I could physically see His Nibs chewing his lip, no doubt visualising himself galloping around the estate in the rain, on another rescue mission, when I opened the front door and then went into the living room.  Poppy and Rory stood looking at the door for a second, then turned and followed me. 

I was so confident that when I took Rory out for a walk I brought my phone and headphones with me.  I was confident that I wouldn’t need to keep saying “keep in, walk on, stop trying to eat dogs eight times your size” and would be able to listen to a podcast as I strolled along, the envy of the neighbours, with my perfectly behaved dog.

That didn’t happen.  In fact, he seemed to sense I was getting a bit over confident and took it upon himself to be even bolder than usual.  I was particularly disappointed by this, because he is my favourite, and when we have the usual messing at walk time, I tend to blame the others for leading him astray. 

His Nibs and Poppy out for their walk too, and we were bound to meet in a village the size of ours.  I was amazed to see how good Poppy was being. 

There’s nothing as disappointing as misplaced loyalty.

So the battle is ongoing.  They will behave themselves, or face the wrath of a human enraged by both their behaviour, and the waste of money.  I’d say they have pains in their bellies from the amount of treats they’ve had, to celebrate every aspect of their good behaviour. 

We’re spending this week handing out treats, shouting “No”, holding the front door open and daring them to walk out, and standing outside our own front door knocking on it to give them a bit of practice in not trying to devour every visitor that rolls up to sell us something. 

Which is far more restful than spending our time wrestling them and fighting off tears of frustration when they go bonkers.

It’ll be totally worth it.