Home Front
Alice Pitman
I’m pleased to report that our Greek rescue hound, Destry, is settling in well with most of the family (except Mr Home Front, who keeps threatening to buy him a one-way ticket back to Alexandroupolis).
I would quite like him to stop growing now, though, as he is nearly as tall as a small pony. The mindless destruction is also trying. If Destry is left at home alone, so much furniture has to be moved from the living room it looks as though no one lives here. He has chewed Mr H F’s spectacles, speaker wires, a pair of shoes, a dozen pens, three lamps (the electric shock from one thrilling rather than discouraging him), half a chair, and a chunk of the kitchen wall. He also shredded a copy of Wolf Hall (something I witnessed and, admittedly, did nothing to prevent).
Oh, and Mr H F’s black leather jacket. I secretly didn’t mind about this either, as I always thought it gave him an unappealing look of Francis Bacon crossed with David Brent.
There are other irksome Destry traits: lead-pulling and no ability to respond to commands. Bribing him with tasty dog treats didn’t work. After losing Destry at Polesden Lacey for half an hour, I phoned an ex-police dog handler called Ron, recommended by a fellow dog-walker. Ron told me about the psychology of difficult dogs, and detailed some of his more challenging cases. There was the sniffer dog who attacked a group of Japanese tourists at Heathrow; another who chased cars; and a German shepherd who wouldn’t let anyone go in the garden (‘I straddled him, showed him who was boss… he never misbehaved again’).
Although I didn’t much like the idea of Ron straddling Destry, I was so desperate I booked a lesson (£20 an hour). The night before our first meeting, however, I came across a dog trainer on Youtube
called Doggy Dan. This genial New Zealander uses no flashy training tools or vocal commands. It is all done via body language in a way that dogs really seem to respond to. I was so impressed that I phoned Ron back and cancelled. ‘Destry comes back now,’ I fibbed. ‘Oh, right,’ said Ron not sounding all that convinced. ‘How d’you do that, then?’
Too embarrassed to say I was going to copy someone I’d found online called Doggy Dan, I found myself blurting out, ‘Greek honey-glazed sausages!’
Doggy Dan’s ‘powerful but simple’ method to stop lead-pulling did eventually work with Destry (every time the dog pulls, you turn in front of it). The responding to commands, though, continued to be hopeless. D D says that if you hide in a ditch, your dog will come and find you. Not Destry, who ran to the other side of the common, and ended up on platform one of Bookham railway station, where I just managed to prevent him boarding the 09.48 to Waterloo.
A week after I cancelled Ron, Destry bolted, at Norbury Park. I eventually spotted him in the distance, jumping up at a man trying to train a boxer with a 20ft lead. Instinct told me this could only be one person.
‘It’s Ron, isn’t it?’ I called in a confected voice of cheer, tinged with slight hysteria. Ron yanked back the boxer, straddled him and stared. ‘I’m Destry’s owner! We spoke on the phone?’
‘Ah yes, that’s right. Greek, honeyglazed sausages stopped working, then?’
Then there was a breakthrough. Daughter Betty purchased an ultrasonic dog whistle – which had an instant effect on Destry. With just a few toots, the Greek adolescent now comes galumphing through the Surrey woods as though in thrall to some supernatural force.
No more dramas, other than the New Year’s Day near-massacre. Destry fell out with Bertie, an intact, elderly whippet cross who came to stay while his owner, BBC reporter John Sweeney, was abroad.
Destry’s overtures of friendship were rejected by our perpetually growling guest. When Bertie appropriated his pig’s trotter, all hell broke loose. Mr H F whisked Bertie up into his arms for his own safety. Son Fred restrained our very own Hound of the Baskervilles. And I screamed like a girl.
From then on, the atmosphere between the two dogs became so tense that it was like living with Gauguin and van Gogh at Arles.
I’ve since read that neutered and intact males don’t get on. Not quite sure what we can do about this, unless Doggy Dan has any ideas…