Barbara Woodhouse

Now there was a women who took no shit at all when it came to training dogs. I remember watching, back in the eighties, with an uncomfortable feeling those supine hounds had been beaten with a big slipper before the cameras rolled.

Our dog would just eat that slipper. Last night he was reintroduced to both Puppy Training and half of his twelve siblings. I wonder if you are as unsurprised as I to hear that this combination augured ill for a set of technical exercises where the pack leader was expected to maintain absolute control over her dog.

Murphy spectacularly failed to sit, lie down, wait and heel. He did however hone his signature move of tearing off up after his brothers with Carol gamely hanging onto the lead. Sadly she was no longer standing at the time, rather ploughing a lonely full length furrow as the not-really-a-pup showed no obvious lessening of velocity even tugged down by a human anchor.

When commanded to “COME” he gave it the full “who me? you’re kidding right?” before disappearing in a twenty four legged Labrador scrum with an excitable whelp. The other dogs weren’t much better, but apparently Murf was a) extra specially bad and b) a bit of a ring leader in whipping up naughtiness in his brothers and sisters.

Carol returned with a look like thunder which she soon drowned in a very large glass of wine. The dog – obviously – just looked very pleased with himself. I’m not sure whether to try and train him properly or just attach a carriage and use him as a canine taxi.

Next week, my attendance has been mandated. Which consideirng my legendary low boredom threshold is unlikely to improve discipline. Still it’ll be nice for someone else to be in trouble for arsing about for a change.

And, on the upside, he’s not tried to eat any of the “Fat Four” chickens. On the downside, he doesn’t like raw egg, and they are starting to pile up a bit. So how many fried egg sandwiches can a honed athlete such as myself be expected to eat?

8 thoughts on “Barbara Woodhouse

  1. Dave

    definately 2 a day. minimum.

    and just think with summer upcoming you can have poached egg salads, boiled eggs, egg and soldiers, raw egg and a pint of guiness (for the trained athlete), the list is endless

  2. Alex

    Dave. Outstanding, your letter confirming the position of “Duke Of Egg and Shells” will be with you once I’ve made up a new world domination seal.

    Huey. Got to applaud your terrier like grip of an idea. And don’t think because you may be right, this is any way allows you to bang on about it. That’s my job. Banging on about stuff, not being right obviously.

    Actually we should do that; what kind of dog would you be (in a blind date styllleee). For me it’d have to be a bit knackered, limping, dribbles, snores and is largely ignored by other dogs especially on fiftieth retelling of some story or other.

    What kind of dog is that? Oh yes, an old dog 🙁

  3. Ian B

    Speak to Kate about eggs when you see her Al.. she was in Bangladesh with work and they served Boiled egg curry every day.. 🙂

    Training Murphy sounds like when we tried to train ours, we were sent out of the room at recall time, the trainer feared he’d be too excited, as it was when it was our turn he ran the length of the hall before ploughing into an alsation at full tilt.. still, it made me smile!

  4. Alex

    Tim, the fattest of the four – Nugget – is laying eggs that don’t FIT in a standard box. Best bring “the back of your car”. We’re up to three a day now and the backlog is starting to become disturbing!

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