At this time of year, many Irish households have new puppies. New dog owner Jane Powers gets inside the canine mind.
Dogs are not people. But plenty of dog owners think their pet is some kind of honorary person - albeit a second-class, unruly and infantile one - and governable by the same regulations as human beings. "He thinks he's a person!", they remark. But no, I can assure you, he doesn't. He knows he's a dog. And here's the rub: he thinks you're a dog too. You may not look like a dog, but as far as he is concerned, your strange ball of a head is filled with dog ideas, and you lead your life by the ancient codes of doggery. How could he possibly think any differently? He's a dog, not a psychologist.
So, the sooner we start thinking like dogs, the better. I've been getting in touch with my inner dog in a pretty big way recently, as we've brought a young canine into our house - to fill the emptiness left by the death of our beloved collie last summer.
There is much to be learned and much to be communicated in these early months, in order for the new dog to integrate into our lives, and we into hers. I've been helped in my search for canine understanding by reading The Dog Listener by Jan Fennell (£8.99 in UK, HarperCollins). Her thesis is simple: that dogs are pack animals akin to wolves, and if we want a happy relationship with our canines, we must establish ourselves as leaders of the pack. Alpha wolves, she points out, show their leadership by taking control during various everyday events, and we must do the same - in terms that a dog can understand. (Thank goodness wolf packs are captained by mated pairs, so both my husband and I can be alpha in our own mini-pack.)
Soon after bringing her home from the Wicklow SPCA, we set about demonstrating to the small brown-and-white collie-cross that we were more alpha than her. Demonstration number one involved going in and out of the room, and steadfastly ignoring the bundle of puppy that bounced out of the basket each time we moved. The book recommends five minutes of remaining aloof before proffering a greeting; I don't think we ever managed more than 90 seconds.
And the point of such seemingly unnatural and cruel behaviour? Actually, the logic is quite sound: when they return from hunting or scouting, alpha wolves don't glad-hand lesser pack members. They greet them when they're good and ready (for us, this means as soon as the dog calms down). Such a stratagem certainly reinforces our own top-doggery, but it also gets the puppy to accept without any fuss her humans' comings and goings. The result is no separation anxiety, no wailing, no barking, no eating of furniture. When we have to leave the dog for a couple of hours, she rolls up and goes for a snooze, knowing that we'll return in the fullness of time.
We have been less successful in our second mission, taking control of the hunt (or in human language, the walk) - possibly because Mr Alpha and Mrs Alpha have different ideas of what is acceptable behaviour from Omega. But, during another important event, when the pack is in danger (when the postman arrives, for instance) we've managed to prove that we're confident there's no threat, so she no longer launches into hysterical volleys of barking. Daft though it may seem, instead of telling the dog to shut up when she barked, we thanked her for alerting us, and then ignored her. After a couple of days she gave up barking.
And we're doing well on the food front, especially since our little dog was a reluctant eater in the beginning. It may surprise visitors to see us "eating" from Lily's bowl before handing it over, but alphas always feed first, and only when they are sated do they leave their scraps for the lesser members. Such a ploy (together with removing the bowl after 10 minutes, whether or not it's empty) has worked miracles. She hasn't left a morsel of food uneaten in weeks.
The point of continually reinforcing her lowly position is not just to gratify our need to be in charge (although, as the youngest of five human siblings I do quite like being a top dog). Being bottom dog is not a bad place to be - if you're a dog. There is security in being the subordinate member of a pack. She knows that all the important things are taken care of, and that she has no responsibility to hunt or guard, or make decisions. She can just get on with being a dog.
All of which sounds like a neat, well-rounded idea. And it is, but we can't think like a dog all day. Someone's got to be a human. Someone has to buy the tennis balls (the best toy for a dog), roll up the rugs and put them out of little teeth's way, and clean up the poo (accidents will - and do - happen).
Someone has to wash her bedding, so it's acceptable to human noses (and please, never send your dog to bed as a punishment, her bed is her safe place). And someone has to make her dinner (snippets of meat and veg with Burns natural food, 061-330534).
Most of all, someone has to have buckets of super-human patience. But it is a patience that is beautifully rewarded - in that curious, ancient and superbly fulfilling friendship that has survived to this day between our two species.