The Darling Dog Company

Grimmy and Puppy: the story of how a rescue dog met its match!

Throughout life we are taught to not judge a book by its cover. When you are looking for a rescue dog, its what you end up having to do! You are having to make a decision based on its kennel behaviour, its interactions from behind bars or on a lead in the most stressful environment it will probably encounter. And this behaviour either hinders a dog or pushes them forward.

I work with potential owners to find them their forever friend whether it be a puppy or a second hand hound and one of the things most people get frustrated with is the time it takes. We are a society that is used to things instantly, when it comes to sharing your life with a dog, timing is key.

Puppy's first experience of water and swimming

I wanted to give you an example of a situation, a dog and a client who demonstrate all of the above perfectly and will hopefully inspire those of you who are thinking about taking on a rescue dog. I don't generally write about any of my clients who are in the public eye but I feel quite strongly about this one.

I first met Grimmy last year, a few days after having my baby. We were trying to work out about the kind of dog he wanted, he has a busy lifestyle presenting the Radio 1 breakfast show every morning, he is out and about and he has alot of commitments and friends with dogs but was adamant he wanted a rescue dog. Since that meeting it took me around 6 months to find him the right dog. That is a long time and we saw a lot of dogs in that time, never once did he whinge or moan, he paid attention to every dog I introduced him to. But above all I kept saying that you have to go with your gut instinct, it guides you through life I think.

We first met Smarty a couple of days after coming into the Dogs Trust kennels, she had been a stray and not much was known about her. She was nervous, she favoured Aimee (Nick's friend) and I and was unsure about Nick. But something clicked for Grimmy so we left it a week for her to be assessed and waited. The feedback was that she was reactive with other dogs which was an issue as Grimmy lives in London and there are dogs everywhere. She was barking alot, she was lunging, she was vocal and was finding life hard in kennels. In honesty, there were easier looking dogs out there but I knew that if he was prepared to work on her then there was so much potential.

To cut a long story short, we then spent time re visiting her, taking her out, and the Dogs Trust allowed me to test her in situations relative to Nick's lifestyle and she wasn't perfect at all but she showed eagerness to learn and enthusiasm for life. With all of the checks done on Nick  the date was set to bring this little Jack Russell Terrier home to her new life.

We are a couple of months in and I feel like I could burst with pride, for both of them. Grimmy has followed everything I have asked him to do, he has channelled time and effort into this little terrier. He has showered her with love whilst showing her how to react and teaching her what her new life involves. Her coat is shiny, she is lean and loving life. Nick and Puppy (as she is now known) are a shining example of a dog that on paper might not have seemed like the ideal dog but the thing is, you have to take time to get to know a dog and we didn't just judge her on her behaviour in kennels because that isn't fair. We still have work to do but the key to all of it is tackling things slowly and methodically. You need successes to spur you on and the progress she is making is so great to watch.

Recall was top of our list to teach Puppy. Off lead and long grass are her favourites.

There is a saying "you may not change the world but you will surely change the world for that dog you have taken on" and it applies to any dog that you choose to share your life with. Which is why it is worth putting the time, dedication and effort into finding the 'right dog' for you and if you need assistance, you know where to find me.

Relaxing with Thurston. Once reactive to other dogs we have taught her how to behave in a controlled and disciplined way.

My work with dogs and youth offenders

For a while now I have been working on a pioneering project alongside the Dogs Trust, I have been involved from the very beginning and it is brilliant to see the project going from strength to strength. I work with youth offenders who have community hours to serve and we use those hours to work with Dogs Trust dogs looking for homes, to teach the youths about responsible dog ownership and how to train a dog using positive methods.

The youths achieve a huge amount from the project and so do the dogs. Recently the Youth Justice Board came to make a video about our work and here it is. You will see in it that I am 9 months pregnant, I don't usually look like that!!

 

Huxley the huge dog

Meet Huxley. A 7yr old stray brought into the Dogs Trust rehoming centre in Harefield (West London) who I have fallen head over heels in love with!

I worked over at the centre for 3 days last week & had him out every day. He is a delight. A great big lummox of a boy who is huge, slow, affectionate & loves his food.

The Dogs Trust are looking for a retirement home for him, one with no kids or kids over 14+ which rules us out. Every now & then you meet a dog that you are just smitten with & he is one of them. If you know anyone prepared to take on a big breed whose a bit older then contact the Dogs Trust & ask about Huxley.

Selling Dogs in Pet Shops - Disgusting...

Yesterday I walked past a pet shop in Chelmsford and saw this sad advert...

The shop was selling two American Bulldogs X English Bull Terrier puppies. Both bitches and both kept in a crate in the middle of the shop. What worries me the most is firstly where have these puppies come from, no decent breeder would ever pass on their puppies to be sold in a shop. So from a new owners point of view by buying that dog you know nothing about its parentage, genetics or background. Not a great starting point is it?!

The other thing that also concerns me is that the people going in that shop will generally know nothing about the breeds that make up those puppies. From the photos you can see that the puppies look quite small, Jack Russell size really. So people could be mistaken that they will be small adult dogs. Little will they realise that the potential size of these dogs is fairly large and being two bull breed crosses they will need firm but fair handling.

You can also see from these photos that these puppies are receiving virtually no socialisation.They are contained in this crate all day and night. They have no different surfaces to use to learn how to house train, they have no people to interact with and they certainly aren't immersed in the real world. I know that these puppies look sweet but by purchasing one, you could be fuelling the world of puppy farming.

Below are photos of an American Bulldog and an English Bull Terrier so that you can see the potential size of what these puppies will be.

      

Those of us working within the world of dogs are constantly trying to educate people about how to find and buy a puppy. Puppy farming is the most horrific practice. On a puppy farm people are breeding dogs and pups that are usually kept in horrific dark conditions, totally unsocialized and riddled with both infectious and inbred often incurable diseases. These poorly pups are then sold en masse to pet shops, online or from free newspaper ads and usually die soon after reaching their new home.

To find out more and how you can help visit Pup Aid 2011

 

The Fantastic Pet Society

On Friday we (DT and I) spent the afternoon working at The Pet Society on Church Street, NW8. We had such a brilliant and productive day. The Pet Society was set up and is run by volunteers to provide an affordable pet shop for the community to access - so we go along and provide free microchipping, flea treatments, worming, clipping of nails, behaviour and training advice and so forth.

We met some truly great people who needed some help with their dogs, ranging from the teeniest tiny puppies to rescue dogs that brought us all close to tears. The team there do a brilliant job, if you are ever in the neighbourhood, pop in and pick up some treats for you happy doglet and support their work.

Here are just a few photos from the afternoon:

Jacky talking to Sampson's owner and completing the microchipping paperwork

Sampson was found roaming a housing estate after being dumped. His owner had depression for 14yrs and since owning him she is off all her medication and out for 3hrs a day with him. He is just gorgeous!

The lovely Brian who works at The Pet Society with me - we share a love for donkeys!

 

Coco the teeniest 9wk Chihuahua that came in for advice

Zola the nervous 2yr old GSD

And David with Roxy the terrier X - his friend saw her being beaten by the side of the road and they broke one of her back legs. So he stopped and persuaded them to swap the dog for his motorbike. David's friend then passed Roxy to him who has cared for her and they now share fishing trips together! She is still slightly nervous but is doing brilliantly well after a horrible start. Roxy and David are a lovely example of a rescue partnership of adoration!

The Rotti that Pulls the Wheelchair & the Bull Breed that Jumps!

One of the things that I adore about my work is the variety of it all. Which is why I thought these two were a great example that some might find interesting to read about.

Through my work with the Dogs Trust we meet various people and dogs and two of the people are great examples of the diversity of the work but also how the DT are really putting the work in on the streets.

First up is the lovely dog Tanya, a gorgeous 8mth old Rotti X who was given to her disabled owner. Tanya obviously isn't a trained assistance dog and I'm not an assistance dog trainer! However, she needs some help with a few things - such as pulling her owner and his walking aid along the streets of London. The photo below is a great illustration of what she is getting up to.

Over time we plan to iron out the pulling and get her walking by his side. We are also aiming to teach her to retrieve the ball so that it makes playing with her in the park off lead easier and ensures she gets the exercise she requires. As well as a few other things that will make her owners life much easier.

For the past couple of months we have been working with Tristan and his Bull Breed X called King. King is due to be castrated next week and Tristan has done brilliantly with putting the work into the training with his young dog. As we all know Bull breeds can be energetic and rambunctious so we have had to spend a lot of time teaching him some manners. In the past few weeks he has learnt to leave food and toys when asked, to not jump up for items that he wants, to walk on the lead, to wait and to sit and stay when asked. All of this has been done using toys, starting with low level ones first and working our way up to the more stimulating items that King adores - like squeaking tennis balls!

Tristan walking King to the end of the room to practise his sit and stay

Tristan demonstrating his 'wait' command beautifully

Time to Hug a Hoody's Dog - The Times

A couple of months ago Bridget Freer, a journalist from The Times followed the Dogs Trust and myself around for the day, whilst we were out working at Wells St Common in Hackney. The article was published today, you can read it for yourself below. 

Whilst I don't like the title I'm really pleased with the article, it is at least highlighting the work that we are doing in London. 

Time to Hug a Hoody's Dog - Bridget Freer - The Times April 22 2011

Elvira Meucci-Lyons aims to rid our cities of dangerous dogs with good training and lots of TLC. Can it work?

The scene is the bleakest of cityscapes: Well Street Common in Hackney, East London, on a grey, grey day. A young man in a tracksuit, hood pulled up, walks across with his big bulldog-type pet pulling hard on her lead beside him. Most people would swerve to avoid them, or at least drop their eyes. But not Elvira Meucci-Lyons. She skips up and says: “Hello Angel.” She is talking to the dog but its owner cracks a broad smile.

No sooner has Meucci-Lyons introduced herself to man, Luke, and dog, Qasar, than she is trying to find out if there’s anything that she can do for them. She’s a woman on a mission: to stop the scourge of dangerous dogs in urban areas. Not so much hug a hoody, as hug a hoody’s dog. As head of campaigns and community at the charity, Dogs Trust, she launched City Dogs a year ago. She says that it was prompted by “a series of headlines in which people were talking about dangerous dogs and not analysing the real problem”.

“The media always focuses on attacks and there was a lot of talk about handling the problem of dogs and youths from an enforcement point of view,” she says. “People seemed to want draconian measures and we felt that a more educational and holistic approach was needed.”

Meucci-Lyons does not deny that these dogs are potentially a threat. After research, however, in London, Manchester and Liverpool, the Dogs Trust found that there were two distinct groups of young men (and it is almost exclusively men) who favour these powerful dogs. There is, she explains, “the general group from 16 to 29 who choose their dogs for street cred and then there’s the slightly older lot who use banned breeds or powerful crossbreeds for dog fighting and trading in public”.

“ We don’t want to mix the two groups up. The ones who breed or train their dogs for fighting are criminals and not the type of owners that we can reach,” she says.

So who can they reach? “We work with big dogs in urban environments that require extra care and attention. Our typical clients are young males, between 16 to 30, who live in an environment that necessitates them looking like they can look after themselves. They want a dog that reflects what they like to think of themselves: I am not to be messed with.

“A bull type or Staffie cross looks powerful and gives them credibility just like a pair of trainers might.”

Meucci-Lyons’s first port of call was Hackney council to whom she proposed a pilot scheme. Initially reluctant, for fear of being seen as soft on a tough problem, Hackney agreed. A year after the launch, a spokesman says: “We have worked with the Dogs Trust to encourage responsible dog ownership in the borough. They’ve held more than 50 events — in schools, youth clubs, on estates and in open spaces. More than 1,500 people have received advice from experts, 250 dogs have been microchipped and 50 dogs have been neutered. We are encouraged by how many dog owners actively seek advice.”

And seek it they do, either at events such as today’s or by word of mouth. The biggest single revelation has been that, like any other dog owner, these youths love their dogs. Julian, a jobless alcoholic, and Oscar, a Staffie cross, are City Dogs regulars. “I heard about them through a mate and got Oscar chipped for free; that was a good start because my worst fear is losing him or that someone will pinch him. He is anxious when I am not around, but someone could still obviously pick him up and throw him in a car.” Asked what Oscar means to him, he says: “I do like a drink myself personally, but he comes first in my life. He is my best friend 100 per cent.”

However, for all the evident love between him and Oscar, Julian feels the opposite from the wider public. “A lot of people give me a wide berth. They see him and go round me or even cross the road. People naturally assume he bites, he doesn’t.” That said, Julian did have trouble controlling Oscar, especially when there were “lady dogs — I don’t like calling them bitches” around. “One time, he bolted across the road and I thought, ‘Oh, I can’t be having this; if he got splatted by a car I wouldn’t be able to cope so I got him done and he has simmered right down. If anything, all the boy dogs want to rump him.”

Neutering isn’t just a matter of helping dogs to calm down though. There are only four breeds of dog that are illegal in the UK: pitbull terrier, Japanese tosa, dogo argentino and fila brasileiro. If a dog is a crossbreed suspected to have one of those strains in the mix, the police can seize it to determine if it is prohibited. However, even if it is found to be a banned breed, the dog can be returned to the owner if they comply with certain conditions, including chipping and neutering.

A nother visitor to the Well Street Common event, Bobby, is happy to talk about free training and chipping for his eight-month-old Staffie cross, Brandy. But “chopping his balls off?” He’s not so keen on that idea. Louise Glazebrook, a dog trainer and behavioural specialist who works with City Dogs, tells him:

“If you are walking him and a dog registration officer walks past and stops you and asks what breed he is, you can’t prove that he is not a bulldog breed. But you can say ‘He’s been chipped, he’s been castrated, I am training him’, and there’s less reason to take him away.” Bobby takes a leaflet about neutering and says that he’ll consider it.

Shivering in the freezing rain, Luke says that Qasar is a good dog, but she frequently jumps up at people. “It’s not a problem,” he adds hastily. “She mostly does it in the newsagents and they don’t mind.” Glazebrook tells Luke firmly that no matter how many people tell him it’s OK, it’s not. “What if she jumps at a kid and by mistake catches him with her teeth or knocks him over ? Qasar has got the bull breed in her so she could quite easily be on a one-way ticket to the vet to be put down.”

Luke looks shocked but the facts bear Glazebrook out. In 2008 the Metropolitan Police seized 708 dogs — four times as many as the year before. In 2010 the figure stood at 1,152. The force responded to this rise by setting up the Status Dogs Unit.

Meucci-Lyons is careful to stress that the Dogs Trust supports the police, but adds: “Unfortunately it is not as easy as that: you take a dog away and they’ll just get another one.”

Luke takes a City Dogs card and says that he will be in touch to arrange some behavioural training for Qasar. Watching them lope off Louise is delighted. “There’s been an epidemic of abandonment because they take on these dogs without understanding how to look after them, but if we can educate them to redress the problems then that is another dog that doesn’t need to go into the rescue chain.”

Meucci-Lyons says that ultimately she hopes that City Dogs will become available to young people in every borough in the country. “So, just as, if a youth has a problem with housing they call Shelter, and if they have a problem with drugs they call Frank, then I would love City Dogs to be on everyone’s mind if they encounter youths who have a problem with their dogs,” she says.

 

It's All in the Name...of your Dog!

Like everything, names for dogs go in trends and follow patterns, its one of the things that I love, finding out what people have called their puppies, dogs and rescue dogs. A name can say a great deal of things without you even knowing it.

For example, If someone has called their dog 'Mrs Banana Dog Baby Head' then you can quite easily work out that the owner is treating that dog like a surrogate child. So it would be easy to guess that the dog is probably suffering from issues such as separation anxiety.

This is Sykes.

Below is a photo of a dog that was called Tyson who was in Battersea Dogs Home. He is now called Barnie and lives with my parents in Cambridge. We changed the name to reflect what he was going to be - a friendly, family dog. Tyson on the other hand has conotations of aggression, physical strength and so forth.

When you are deciding on a name its worth thinking of a few things - what does the name say about your dog as the name also gives a first impression to everyone that meets your hound. Imagine coming across a dog called Blossom - it has gentle, soft connotations in comparison to if the same dog was called Nutter!! Its also worth thinking about using a name that is easy to call in the park and that you aren't ashamed to call. I met a lab called Roast Beef recently which was funny but not really the easiest name to use.

Below is the lovely Patcheroo who belongs to my friend Kerry, he is Patch for short.

The most popular dog names in the UK are:

Molly, Tigger, Holly, Max, Oscar, Poppy, Alfie, Sam and Jack.

I think the two examples below highlight what I've been saying perfectly -

The most popular names for Labradors are:

Ebony, Honey, Molly, Millie and Amber

The most popular names for Rottweilers are:

Hercules, Tank, Bruno, Zeus, Titan and Rambo

Below is Ronnie the Rottweiler

 

 

 

 

Having Dogs Around Children

Many couples have dogs before they have a baby, which makes sense. You get the opportunity to become used to a level of responsiblity before the ultimate in responsiblity comes along.

With this in mind though, there are lots of dos and don'ts when it comes to safe guarding a happy and balanced relationship between your dog and child or child visitors to the home.

Above is Maxwell with his uncle's dog Ronnie, who we used to do some agility with a few weeks ago. Maxwell is great at handling Ronnie but we all know that Ronnie is stronger than Max, so at no point is he ever left with full responsiblity for Ronnie.

Its really, really important that right from the beginning you never underestimate kids or dogs! The dogs that share our homes are animals and although we can love and cherish them, there is always a chance of unpredictability. The same with children, they are unpredictable and erratic at the best of times.

It is crucial that boundaries are set for both dogs and children in order for them to co-exist happily and this is certainly the case with families expecting a baby or homes that already have children and then bring a dog into the environment.

Like everything I do, it is based around making the experiences positive for all those involved. If you would like help planning for a child, rehoming a dog with kids or just setting some boundaries in your home between dog and kids, just get in touch.

Under no circumstances should a child ever be left alone with a dog, no matter how much you trust either of them.

A Sad Situation for a Thursday Night...

It's not a great way to start off a Friday morning but sometimes I want people to see that not everything I do is puppies and delight & that sometimes it can be truly heartbreaking to meet some of these dogs!

Meet the Pit Bull Type who was found dumped outside a police station, he is severly undernourished and he has been used for fighting - his face is full of marks, holes, scars and bloodied wounds. And today he goes to be put down.

A young SBT that was dumped in a park for 4 days, no one has claimed her, she isn't chipped, she wasn't wearing a collar, she is incredibly nervous and the rehoming centres have waiting lists of over 6 weeks to get dogs into them. She is going to be put down today.

A dog that is self mutilating in the kennels because she just can't cope with the stress in comparison to being in a family home. She was chipped but the information is out of date, she wasn't wearing a collar when she was found wandering a car park near Barnet and her 7 days of being held to be claimed are very nearly up.

When I see these dogs it breaks my heart, as it would yours. It doesn't matter how long you work with dogs you never lose your love or compassion for dogs. Some of these dogs are being dumped because people can't handle them, they can't train them and they underestimated what owning a dog would be like. I'm working on projects to try and help address these issues but its not going to happen overnight.

Please keep your dog safe, make sure your garden is safe, that their chips are up to date, that they are wearing a collar and tag and don't let them out of your sight on walks. Also, if you see or meet people in the park who look they are struggling with their dog for whatever reason, try and offer some help. Sometimes we all need some encouraging words or advice rather than being berated for doing something wrong. It might just stop someone dumping their dog because they don't know what else to do with it.