Top Of The Pups

 

It’s now three weeks to go till our chattels arrive in Somerset and we become proper residents. Of all the things that might be occupying our minds connected with a house move, the most dominant is the fact that we are supposed to be bringing our new puppy home when she reaches 8 weeks old. Which, by my calculations, is the day after we move. I know there’s no point expressing any anxiety about this to Helen, whose answer will be the standard “but just imagine her little face”.

I don’t actually need to imagine her little face. I have seen her little face just last weekend, along with the little faces of her four week old sisters and brother. We have to look at all their little faces, for we won’t know which is ours for a few weeks. How many weeks we’re not clear about. Our breeder Sue is – what’s the word? – “mercurial”. She was very definite that puppy selection would happen at six weeks. Then last weekend she told us very definitely that she tells all her clients they can’t choose until seven weeks. 

Helen, never at her best when someone tries to impose a restriction on her, even a nebulous one, had been influencing towards us having the runt of the litter (don’t write in, I know you’re not supposed to choose the runt of the litter). Being, er, petite and feisty herself, she saw in “Mrs Diddles” (as Sue calls her) a kindred spirit. Anyway, last weekend it seems Mrs D has been claimed by an interloper, a “famous actress client”, who apparently wants a smaller dog so she can take it in a bag on aircraft. I know, I know.

So we wonder whether the puppy will be ours to choose or whether Sue will present us with a fait accompli. To be fair, they are all equally cute and healthy looking – apart from the one who dances about on her own, twitching and chewing at the empty air – so we are philosophical about it.

Puppy response to training – Helen's expectation

So, back to the possibility that our new family member will arrive before we have even located the soup spoons. I happened to be down at the house this week as I’m working with a client in Exeter, so I took the opportunity to visit the Taunton branch of Pets At Home. Twenty minutes and a helpful store assistant later, I staggered out with a crate, bed, bewildering variety of toys with varying degrees of chewability, bowls, poo bags, carpet cleaner and dog toothpaste. Dog toothpaste? Since when was this a thing? How am I supposed to train a puppy to hold the toothbrush? I took advantage of the fact Helen wasn't there to drag me away, and engaged the young woman serving me with a rant about this being a plot by the toothpaste conglomerates to create a need that isn’t there. She waited politely till I finished and told me dogs frequently arrive at vets with tooth decay. This left me in a quandary. Should I stick with my principles and leave toothpasteless, giving the finger to The Man? I imagined the puppy’s little face crumpled with toothache. I gave in.

My sister is a dog behaviourist, but unfortunately she lives five hours away, so rather than try and get her to drive over and give us a free puppy lesson (and ask her if dog toothpaste is a thing), I bought a book. It’s by the man who trained Graham Norton’s dog and it’s endorsed by Adrian Chiles so, er, well it was cheaper than the others. The author has a stylistic conceit of referring to the reader’s dog not as “your puppy” or “the puppy” but as simply “puppy” as if you are so devoid of imagination that was the name you chose for your pet. Apple do the same technique in all their manuals (“Take iPad out of the box” etc) and it presumably is supposed to make me feel I’m dealing with a person. Well, if you know a person who defecates on your carpet after you give them a treat and then chews your table leg, maybe this book is for them.

Puppy response to training – my expectation

I’m not sure how I feel about the puppy stage - yes, yes, super cute and endlessly entertaining, but I find myself wanting to fast forward to the bit where it’s a companion who knows all the rules of the house and just wants to sit and watch TV with you after a hearty walk across the fields. I may have to delegate to Helen much of the training agenda – she is a teacher after all, from each according to his ability and all that. I’m not sure I have the patience and consistency. Also the man who wrote the book is adamant you have to do everything through positive reinforcement, which is really Helen’s department, my approach being more along the lines of passive aggressive tutting.

To take my mind off worrying about training a puppy surrounded by unopened packing boxes, I’m worrying about next Monday when the scaffolders arrive to prepare for the removal of the broken guttering, at the same time as the bathroom fitters arrive with vansful of bathroom furniture, with the decorators caught in the crossfire. I wonder if they’ll all still be here when our removal van turns up, and there’ll be an ugly standoff by the geraniums. At which point we shall arrive with the puppy, wrestle our way to the middle of the melée, hold her up and solve everything by saying “Just look at her little face!”