Communication is a skill. Like all skills it requires practice to perfect it. It we want excellent performance when it comes to communication, it requires that we have some kind of guidance and help. When I was learning photography, for instance, I went to classes, went out in the field, appraised my work and that of others. We can do that with communication too. We learn about positive ways to communicate and we practise. As rational, thinking beings, we still get it wrong. That’s why we have anger management classes, and why public speaking is our number one fear. How many times does communication go wrong between humans? And we are capable of reasoning, processing and learning through imitation!

Communication also is a transaction, an interaction. We need others to do it with. We can’t practise communication in isolation, neither can we practise it without going beyond our family.

These two aspects of communication are vital for our own progress as well as that of animals. What we learn about animals raised in isolation is that they present many behavioural issues and that if these isolated animals reproduce, their offspring are likely to also suffer from their impoverished situation.

I’m going to explore very specifically about one particular aspect of socialisation: dog relationships. In its broadest sense, socialisation means introducing the dog to the world. Here, I’m going to focus on the interations between dogs. Thankfully, most people recognise the importance of socialising their dogs as young puppies. Well, educated owners do. We understand that when you pick up a dog as a puppy, one of the most important things they need to learn is doggie body language. Socialising young dogs is one of the things we’re getting much better at understanding. Preventing your young Tarzan from being so rambunctious around other dogs, or your Garbo from being more withdrawn only comes from a series of high-quality, positive doggie encounters with a wide range of well-socialised dogs. I don’t think there are many who would quibble with the fact that early socialisation with a large number of skilled older dogs is absolutely crucial to turning your dog into a well-mannered dog. Here, quantity and quality count.

But there are many difficulties in socialising puppies. We now know that the peak window for socialisation is from 7 – 11 weeks. After that, it becomes very difficult indeed. The first problem with this is that it doesn’t fit with the vaccination schedule and many puppy owners are not happy to socialise their dog without at least their first vaccinations, if not their second. In France, those vaccinations happen at two months of age. The second vaccines happen four weeks after. The vaccine is considered ‘true’ two weeks after this. This means that for many puppies, they are not completely vaccinated until they are 14 weeks of age – and the socialisation window is all but closed.

Puppy schools are finding ways around this issue and you can now socialise your puppy with a number of other dogs who are up to date with their vaccines and who present a much lower risk than the general public. But you can understand why many people only socialise their puppies with a very small number of dogs, when the recommendations are that they are socialised with hundreds! Even if you live in a very doggie world as I do, it can be hard to find a number of well-socialised dogs to introduce your own dog to.

For this reason, many conscientious owners end up with dogs with poor social skills, simply because they didn’t introduce them to as many other well-socialised dogs as their puppy needed to meet.

Then there are the owners who are not quite so conscientious, or who are busy. After all, many dogs grow up in busy families, or with people who work. Puppy leave isn’t something your boss will pay you to take. There are owners like me, who work full time and whose dogs often meet shouting dogs running fence lines as we pass on walks. Is it any wonder my dog Heston ended up thinking that meeting another dog is a hostile and tense event when most of the dogs he met from seven weeks onwards, other than puppies, had serious barking issues or lack of tolerance towards other dogs?

Then finally, there are the owners who do not take this guidance seriously, who think that it doesn’t matter, who do not have the skill to raise a puppy and do not seek out expert help. Although the shelter is not by any means filled with dogs like these, many adult dogs available at our refuge have come from homes where owners didn’t understand the commitment needed to raise a dog, didn’t understand a dog’s needs, didn’t understand why they needed to socialise their dogs or didn’t understand why it is so important to have a secure space if you want your dogs to be outside unsupervised. I’m guessing this is a true picture for many shelters. These are dogs who sometimes arrive with behavioural issues concerning other dogs. No wonder we sometimes have a hard time with them at home. I often receive calls after adoption, including one dog who I’m going to see this weekend, and another dog who I saw a couple of weeks ago. This weekend, the dog is barking on approach to other dogs. Two weeks ago, it was a dog who wouldn’t accept a friend’s dog coming on to the property. Both dogs are adults who need to be socialised, and whose 7-11 week window is very, very far behind them.

Jean Donaldson’s excellent book Fight! introduces you to six different types of dogs who present aggressivity issues towards others. Five of the six types are dogs who have often impoverished socialisation as part of their history and are dogs who often end up at the shelter:

1. Tarzan: a dog that “comes on too strong” and is “hyper-motivated” with “coarse social skills”. If they also have an impoverished play history, they are most likely a Tarzan. Tarzans like other dogs (although they may also have other issues) but they may bark, lunge towards them, hump them and engage in generally inappropriate doggie greetings, like standing at a right angle to the new dog and trying to get their head over the other dog’s back etc. Heston is a Tarzan. He loves other dogs really, but he’s just not got beginner stuff perfect yet. Other dogs excite him very much indeed, but he is very playful and actually very good at play (no impoverished play history for him!) My dad’s dog Robin is also a Tarzan. He too is hyper-social but a humper. He tried to hump Ralf. When you’re a 45kg lab/shepherd cross of 13 and elderly cocker spaniel tries to hump you at the gate, you’re going to take it badly. We have lots of Tarzans at the refuge. There are a good number of introductions that go badly because a dog moves in too quickly to smell, sniff, eyeball, hump or play with other dogs in a rambunctious manner. The prognosis is pretty good for Tarzans, though.
2. Proximity-sensitive dogs (I call them Garbos after Greta Garbo) who don’t like other dogs in their space. They can be fearful or they can be snappy around other dogs. They’re hyper-vigilant around other dogs, with hard bodies and aggressive displays to get the other dog to back off. They may also ‘seem’ to be okay but when you look more closely, you’ll see pinned ears, slight grimaces, hard bodies. These dogs are dogs who are very still. Honestly, I think other dogs find them a bit hard to read. There was a fight at the refuge the other day – these are often the ones who end up in bites because there’s no displaying so you have no idea that the dog is about to react. With Jack, for instance, a setter x beauceron, you know damn well he hates dogs in his space. It’s all BARK BARK “I CANNOT ACCEPT THAT COURSE OF ACTION! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!” bark bark until the other dog is out of Jack’s safety zone. But the dogs who present no warning, or very little, allow other dogs – even well-socialised ones – to get too close before deciding that it is too close. We have a good few of these at the refuge. They’re always the ones I end up yelling at people over, since some people have no concept that the dog may not give all these warning signals before attacking. I think there are two types of proximity-sensitive dogs: Jack types who warn the other dogs off with successful aggressive displays, and Fiesta types who let other dogs cross the safety line and then attack with little warning.
3.  Dogs who harass or ‘haze’ others. Tobby my Malinois is one of these. He’ll single out a dog and chase it, follow it, lick it, try to hump it arthritically. It’s obviously very rewarding for him to do this. He has a type: passive young males. Not interested in girls if they’re sterilised (he has nuts – I thought he was only going to live two weeks when I got him a year ago, and at 14, putting him under the knife for his nuts off is a bit extreme) Tobby is also not interested in Tarzans or playful dogs, castrated males or sterilised females, puppies or older dogs. He’ll run away if harassed himself or if he can’t get any rest. But give him a passive, non-confrontational young intact male and he stalks the dog without rest.
4. Dogs who start playing and end in a fight.
5. Dogs who have a “strong genetic predisposition to compulsively fight”

I would say at the refuge, without any exact figures, that the majority of dogs who have impoverished socialisation and who are in need of better socialisation fall into the first two categories. Tarzans and Garbos. Luckily, both can be socialised effectively as adults. Unluckily, this takes a massive amount of time and energy, as well as dedication from the owner. It is not impossible for a well-prepared owner to do themselves, but having a behaviouralist to help out would make a big difference.

Going back to what I said about communication, it is clear that both these types of dog need better communication. That is only going to come through socialisation. I would argue here that socialisation is both quality and quantity, starting with quality interactions first. But unlike humans who can go on a course for anger management or for assertiveness, dogs can’t take away this kind of input in order to improve their behaviour. Think of it this way: you’re not going to get over your anger issues simply by getting in more and more situations that make you angry. In fact, it’ll probably just make it worse. For a dog, putting them around other dogs will probably just trigger a stress response. They might learn a new behaviour such as barking, teeth displays, posturing, hard bodies, staring eyes, but you will have no control at all over what they learn. Quantity is not your starting point when it comes to socialising an adult dog. And since you can’t show them a short informative video, teach them neurolinguistic programming or self-soothing, YOU have got to take responsibility for the environment, the interaction and changing the way your dog feels about the situation.

That means you are responsible for setting up the situation where your dog meets other dogs. You are responsible for the dogs they meet. You can also prime them and help them make new associations.

Here are ten tips rooted in Jean Donaldson’s work on socialising adult dogs with aggressivity issues that will help a dedicated dog owner rehabilitate their hypersocial Tarzan or their antisocial Garbo. You’ll also find tips from Karen Pryor, Donna Hill and Emily Larkham.

1. Before you start, make sure your dog is in a positive, receptive kind of mood. By this, I mean they are at their calmest and they will listen to commands and respond. If your dog cannot do a basic sit and a range of other simple commands, start with those first and don’t go any further until you can get a rock-solid ‘sit’ in a range of environments. Practise this every day around a variety of distractions. On the day that you are ready to move up to distractions of the canine variety, make sure your dog is well-exercised before you start. No point setting them up to fail just because they’re not really in the right frame of mind. As this article by the Karen Pryor Academy explains, “learning happens in a mind that is engaged.”
2. Watch this great video from Donna Hill explaining about counter-conditioning and systematic desensitisation.

   Counter-conditioning takes your dog’s negative experiences about dogs and helps them associate the presence of other dogs with pleasurable experiences. This is great for proximity-sensitive dogs. Systematic desensitization can work with dogs who are Garbos, afraid of other dogs getting in their space, and dogs who are Tarzans, over-excited by the presence of other dogs, moving them towards a neutral point.

3. Your aim is to ensure your dog finds other dogs a positive experience, and to break the cycle of negative feelings. Counter-conditioning is really useful here. That can be really simple. Find some dogs, find your dog’s safe space and reward for non-reactions. For example, one of my dogs is very reactive around houses and gardens where there are fence runners and barkers. I walk up to the houses with my dog, asking him to sit or do some simple commands as we go. I will get to a point when I am too close to the houses and Heston is hyper-vigilant. I’ll usually back off fifty metres or so. We sit and I’ll reward him every time I see him looking towards the houses, or if he hears the dogs and doesn’t bark, lunge or pull. If he reacts, we’re too close, so I get some space in there. Amazing how a dog who is reactive at 10 metres from a fence isn’t reactive 100 metres from one. Move in a little and continue marking any acknowledgement of the houses, dogs etc with a marker (like a clicker, or “yes!”, however you normally let your dog know that they’ve succeeded) and a treat. If they look towards the house but don’t react in any other way, mark and treat. If the other dog barks and you have no reaction, even better! Remember that food or toys are for rewarding, not bribing.
4. Don’t take on too much. If it takes your dog three weeks to understand that if they look at some houses with dogs in without any reaction, they’ll get a treat, soon, those houses and those barking dogs will mean that something nice happens. Move in as gradually as you need to and don’t be afraid to back up if necessary. If your dog’s not in a learning frame of mind, don’t stress out – just leave it for another day. Set your dog up to succeed by choosing less stimulating environments first. For instance, I noticed that Heston was less stressed by some houses with dogs mid-way through our walk. We worked there and built our way up. We had empty carparks on Sundays, then carparks at closing time with fewer people about, then carparks at peak time when I was sure he was ready for it. The same is true for doggie meetings. Work up in very gradual increments when you are sure your dog will succeed at the next point.
5. Make sure you have super-high value treats. I’ve found that most dogs – even very nervous, stressed-out ones, or hyper-reactive dogs – respond well to very smelly cheese. But use whatever your dog likes the most. This is not the time for cheap, low-budget treats. I’ve seen so many times people say that the dog isn’t treat-orientated, or they’re not able to focus for a treat, and it’s just not the right treat. The dog below is Jamaïque. She spent the first ten minutes lunging up the path, barking at every single dog and every single person in a very agitated state. Though her walker was sitting calmly with her, Jamaïque didn’t care. She barked constantly for five minutes, didn’t settle, wrapped herself around her walker’s legs, lunged at other dogs and humans. She was one of the most agitated dogs I’ve ever had to photograph. Not only did I get to photograph her, but she also did a sit and looks, for all intents and purposes, like the calmest dog on the block. In two years, I never had a dog so stressy – and never a female – sometimes the smells drive the uncastrated boys mad. So what worked? A huge block of aged Edam.
   I’m not sure you’ll believe just how agitated she was, but she did stop barking and give me a sit for a piece of that cheese. Scaredy hounds, over-excited Tarzans, pups, blind dogs… they all give it up for the cheese. But use whatever works for your dog. A tug-toy or squeaker might work too. The thing is, it has to be high-value. A “good boy” isn’t enough here. What I want to do when I’m socialising my dog is reward my dog for noticing the other dogs and not reacting. A look or an ear prick is what I’m rewarding. The behaviour has to come first, then the marker to help your dog know exactly what it is they are doing right, and then the treat.
6. Watch this great video from Emily at Kikopup and make sure you understand how to use treats effectively. Getting Jamaïque to focus on cheese when I want her to stop shouting for a photo is one thing. Conditioning her to accept other dogs is different altogether. There, the behaviour needs to come first, not the treat. With Jamaïque, the treat was definitely the focus.
   Emily explains really well how to mark and feed, as well as some of the common pitfalls of counterconditioning.
7. Get your dog used to seeing dogs and not reacting from a distance. You want them to think, “here’s a dog. I get a reward.” so that they think of other dogs as a positive thing. You will want to do this with a good number of dogs. Sitting opposite a park, outside your dog’s proximity boundary, and watching dogs going in and out is a good way to get your adult dog used to seeing other dogs and not reacting like a hellhound.
8. If you have a Tarzan, set up a series of dog meet-and-greets. For this, you will need three or four bombproof dogs who are not going to be fussed by your dog’s unrefined sniffing or posturing. You want all the dogs off the lead and in a secure area, not too big that you can’t intervene if a fight should break out. Normal dog socialisation classes for puppies end with the puppies wanting more, rather than having reached the end of their interest. But with your adult dog, you want them to get bored of the other dog and return to you. It might take an hour! If they end up playing, so much the better, but don’t give up the supervision. This is why I bring home bombproof dogs to foster – because it’s a good experience for Heston to meet dogs who are not shouty arseholes behind a fence. One-on-one meetings can be super-intense. When I had Hista and Galaxy here at the same time, he ran out and didn’t know who to go to first. Three or four dogs take the sting out of the meeting. For these meet-and-greets, take account of age and sex. Introducing a male Tarzan to a group of similarly aged females is less likely to cause an issue than trying to do it with an all-boy group or a mixed group. Remember too that older dogs can lose their tolerance for Tarzans and find it all a bit much. But a well-socialised dog will take the sting out of those meet-and-greets. The proof is in the pudding. Shouty Tarzan of the Hestons last met Florette, a statuesque shepherd x griffon of ten. He raced up, slammed on the brakes before he got to her, and took it easy for the first time ever. Within ten minutes, ALL of the dogs had met each other and were relaxed, lying down in the living room. That includes two Garbos, one old bully and one young Tarzan. Good job, Florette!
9. Keep mixing up the groups of dogs that your Tarzan meets, but keep them meeting them. Gradually, you can introduce same-sex dogs or dogs who are less than bombproof. You want to hit triple figures with your dog, knowing that they have successfully met a range of dogs and will have seen a whole load of different things about body language.
10. Above all, don’t put your dog in danger or move too quickly. You simply cannot move carefully enough where socialisation is concerned. One poor experience can turn a dog from a bouncy over-excited dog to one who is afraid of others. It can also put your dog in danger. This is why you are best to engage the help of a behaviouralist to help you socialise your dogs with others, counter-condition them in ways that reward the right behaviour and set your dogs up to succeed, and desensitise them to the presence of other dogs.

With these ten strategies, you have much of what you need to help your adult dog practise, refine and develop their socialisation skills. When they make progress, you’ll be absolutely delighted by that. There is nothing like seeing an adult dog who reacts aggressively or inappropriately aroud other dogs becoming a dog who is great at dog communication, knowing when to play, when to back off, when to move in and how to handle all manner of doggie situations. The more dogs they meet, the better.

With this in mind, just be sure you are meeting dogs who also know how to speak dog. Watching a puppy dancing around a rather antisocial Gaza this afternoon could have ended very badly for the puppy and been the experience that defined his understanding of other dogs. Luckily, no harm was done. And speaking of the rather antisocial Gaza, who a vet recommended only be rehomed as a guard dog, a shy and timid female called Jolie snuck into his enclosure a couple of weeks ago. She went through the gutters to get there. We don’t know if she intended to stop where she did, whether she just found an opening she could get out of, if she was just trying to escape, and I wish I’d been a fly on the wall when her head popped up in Gaza’s enclosure, but watching her play with him, a dog entirely written off as one who could never be rehomed with another dog, and you’ll understand why I was quite so delighted.

We never know what dogs are thinking about other dogs. I’ve always been of the mindset that dogs operate with each other in ways we haven’t yet understood, and there is so much we have yet to know about why some dogs get on and others don’t. Quite why Heston played so long and so hard with Galaxy and not with the equally game and friendly Hista is anyone’s guess. One day we will understand better why we choose some friends over others, and why dogs do the same. Until then, we must understand that dogs are highly social creatures, but in limiting their exposure to one another, we are limiting their ability to speak dog. Overcoming that lack of exposure is hard but it’s not impossible. There is hope, after all, for our Tarzans and our Garbos.

In France, we call all pets ‘animaux de companie’ or companion animals. They’re right in there with guinea pigs, gerbils, cats and hamsters. That said, dogs are a bit different aren’t they? We don’t expect pet snakes to live in a house or know not to sleep on the bed when we’re out. Nor do we expect our guinea pigs to sit in the car when we go in the supermarket, and we don’t expect our cats to know how to ride in the car without being scared. Dogs are the only species that we invite to share our lives in this way, sharing our experiences, so we have higher expectations of what they can cope with and what they can do. But dogs are just visitors in the human world, especially in our houses and towns, and we have just expected them to adapt and cope with these changes within a few generations. Our pointers, setters and spaniels now lie on couches instead of working fields. Our German shepherds, Malinois, collies and Australian cattle dogs are no longer helping  us out with our herds. And we’re not sending our Yorkies out ratting every day. In order to help our dogs cope with the human world, it’s only fair we give them the education to deal with everything we expect them to experience throughout their lives, especially when we are asking them to leave genetically coded behaviours at the door. Dog ownership is not for the faint-hearted or the under-prepared.

With that in mind, we come to another debate having explored the widely-held misconceptions about dog-human relationships and dog-dog relationships. Education. Whether you are a carrot or a stick kind of a person doesn’t always come back to whether you are a ‘dogs are dogs’ kind of person or whether you think ‘dogs are wolves’, but there’s a noticeable correlation between the two arguments. Many of the people who assume we need to be the ‘Alpha’ to our dogs also choose methods of training that are corrective, coercive or based on punishment rather than based on capturing and rewarding good behaviours. That is not to say however that everyone who believes dogs need us to be a pack leader in order to stop their global bid to rule couches also believes that we should correct our dogs’ behaviour. You could, I guess, think dogs are out to dominate us all and still believe that positive methods are effective. But largely, those who believe in dogs’ dominant tendencies also believe in correction as a method of learning rather than in affirmation. Simply put, if you think dogs might be dominant over humans, then seeing yourself as a human reward machine probably doesn’t fit with your philosophy about the pack hierarchy relationship you want with your dogs.

Personally, doggie education and how we go about it is something I feel strongly about. With a teaching background, you’d expect me to know a little about learning. Of course humans are different: we are infinitely more complex, capable of forethought, of reasoning and of controling our impulses. That’s not to say that dogs don’t share some things in common with us and how we – as fellow mammals – learn.

A study published this week is the first to capture information from MRI scans of dogs and is bound to be incredibly useful for future studies. We’ve already learnt from MRI studies of dogs that they can show emotion when seeing their owner. We literally make their brains light up. What you want to take from that is up to you. Do dogs love us? Some would say they have the capacity to do so. Is it affection? Love? Pleasure? Excitement? Who knows. But those MRI studies show us what we’ve known from the beginning: a dog’s waggy tail when they see you is a doggie emotion of some kind. Joy, affection, love, happiness, pleasure… it’s impossible to say which. But dogs feel something pleasant when they see us.

We can also see from MRI studies that dogs “do not have large frontal lobes” – the bit of the brain linked to reasoning. Studies are beginning to show the extent to which dogs can reason and the extent of their impulse control.

These different studies are massively interesting in themselves. They teach us a lot about dogs, but they also have implications for training. One of those implications is that dogs have positive feelings about their owners. Another implication is that dogs have poor impulse control, but there are ways we can build on their abilities. This has implications for training too.

And although I almost dare not suggest that dogs are similar to humans, we form habits in the same way. Creatures do, even microbes. We all have repeated behaviours. Behaviour is just those habits we have built up, and habits are just things that, once-upon-a-time, we found reinforcing or rewarding, or contrary to that, we found unpleasant and unrewarding. Ask a Catholic and you’ll get the other side of those habits too: fear of punishment. So before anyone accuses me of turning dogs into people, we should accept that creatures learn in remarkably similar ways.

Normally, it works like this: I do something; it feels good or it brings me reward; I do it again. Alternatively, I do something; it doesn’t feel good; I avoid doing it. I think it’s important to accept that even the most evolved species on this planet follows the same notions of habit-forming behaviours. I eat a biscuit. It tastes good. It gives me a sugar rush. I eat another biscuit. I have an alcoholic drink. It tastes good. The alcohol relaxes me and gives me a sugar rush. I have another drink. On the other hand, the smell of Thunderbird & vomit aged 15 put me off ever drinking Thunderbird again. And despite our infinite wisdom and understanding of habits and how they are formed, we are still a species with impulse control disorders: smokers, drug-takers, sex addicts, morbidly obese nations, gamblers and exercise-addicted thrill-seekers.

When you apply that to dogs, it’s not much different. I bark at the post van. The post van goes away. I bark at the post van. The post van goes away. I bark at a cyclist. The cyclist goes away. I break into the food cupboard. I stuff my face. I feel great. I’m bored. I chew the sofa. It is interesting to chew and has great textures. I chew it more. I rip it because that’s really fun. All of these behaviours are clearly reinforcing for a dog. If on the other hand, they leave a puddle and get their face pushed in it, they may learn not to toilet inside or that to do so will elicit a punishment. We call this operant conditioning.

If we accept then that we can learn by both positive association and negative association, we should ask ourselves both “which is more effective?” and “which is ethical?”

There is no doubt that negative association works. Prong collars, electric shock collars, fly swatters, spraying water in dogs’ faces, shaking coin bottles at them, alpha rolling them, pinning them, shouting at your dog, “checking” your dog with your foot, using your body in any way to “handle” your dog into position are all methods which have a high enough success rate that trainers have continued using them. Aversive methods such as these can work very quickly too. This is why people choose them. On the other hand, science shows that sometimes these methods can have disasterous consequences and provoke aggressive reactions from dogs. More and more organisations from animal behaviourists to national veterinarian associations are saying that they approve of “force free” methods and that punishment or force is not only ineffective but also incredibly damaging. We also run the risk of needing to up the punishment level and having to do more to get the desired effect. Thus, dogs with bark collars may quickly become accustomed to the shock – or the pleasure/release they get from barking is more reinforcing than the collar is aversive. So what do you do then? This is where punishment methods can go badly wrong, because you are faced with a “give up” or “increase” situation, where you need to increase the pain to overcome the pleasure your dog gets from the unwanted behaviour you are trying to eliminate which is clearly very reinforcing.

Positive association is not glamorous or quick in many cases. Building up connections between something your dog does right and a reward can be time-consuming and difficult. You can accidentally reinforce the wrong behaviours and there can be many set-backs. Positive trainers don’t have the same number of television programmes because it’s not interesting or exciting to watch.  When you’ve got big bad behaviours, giving a dog a bit of chicken to rehabituate them is not a simple solution. This is why stores sell chokes, prongs, shock collars and the likes. France is so far down the line of these colliers de dressage that you can buy them for about 10€. Doesn’t that sound easier than a year’s worth of retraining with praise, toys or treats? When you factor in the view that the dog is doing something “wrong”, then why would you “reward” it?! Aversion trainers joke about “cookie comas” and see positive or force-free training as something akin to passivity and permissiveness – seeing anyone who doesn’t use negatives as “permitting” poor behaviours (because positive trainers will ‘ignore’ behaviours which aversive trainers would tackle) That’s not true, of course. Karen Pryor, who popularised clicker training, literally had animals jumping through hoops. But it’s wise to understand both ends of the spectrum – and all that lies between – before making choices about “bad behaviour” and how to correct it.

The way I see it, dogs are doing what is reinforcing and natural. They chase stuff because they are dogs. They chew stuff because they experience the world via their mouths just as we do with our hands. They bark because it makes stuff go away. I don’t see these behaviours as “wrong”, just behaviours I don’t want them to do – or that I want them to be more selective about doing. Instead of these behaviours, I’d prefer the dog does something else, like they stay calm when they see a post van or a cyclist, a car or a jogger, that they walk calmly on the lead, that they don’t tear up my sofa. That’s tough when I want them to shout at anyone who comes on my property without permission or when I give them Kongs to chew. Teaching them as a puppy is easy and we can quickly provide alternatives that are reinforcing, such as “don’t chew my sofa, chew this great stuffed Kong” or “let’s never learn that chasing rabbits is fun. In fact, when you see a rabbit, if you stay at my side, I’ll give you a bit of ham… when you see running rabbits, I want you to think ‘ham!’ not ‘chase!'” Teaching them as an adult dog is hard, but not impossible: the biggest factor in successful learning in dogs is whether they have learned to do something before (and they have ‘the learning habit’) rather than how old they are. The more they learn, the more they can learn. With this in mind, if their behaviour is just natural dog behaviour, why would I punish them for being a dog?

To paraphrase trainer Nando Brown (a positive trainer who’ll be airing a new television show soon) when faced with an aversive technique used to stop a dog begging, “I don’t want my dog to think I’m a bit of a knob because I’m constantly telling him off”. We have a special relationship with dogs, one that we don’t have with other companion animals, but since we have such high expectations of what behaviours we want from them, it’s our duty to choose techniques that neither harm them nor our relationship with them. I don’t ever want my dogs to be afraid of my arrival (as Amigo sometimes is if one of the dogs has been bin-dipping or had an accident… his reactions to fly swatters tells me everything about how my rescue dog came to have such great manners) and I don’t ever want to jeopardise that joyfulness we share. As a teacher, I never believed in punishment. Detentions, lines, exclusions… if deterrents and punishments don’t stop repeated bad behaviour in class with the most reasonable and rational species of all (okay… that’s urban teenagers, so I might be overestimating the reason and rationality there!) why would deterrents and punishments work with dogs? Although I’m not a fan of thinking of dogs in human ways, I think this analogy is very helpful when understanding the effects of positive reinforcement training versus aversive training.

As for my approach? I’m not trying to teach Shakespeare to my dogs, but there are commonalities between training dogs and teaching teenagers. Ever tried teaching when it’s snowing? Impossible. Might as well give up. Environmental factors and stress are the biggest hindrances to learning and retention in humans. That’s true of dogs too. This is why I don’t set my kids or my dogs up to fail. I don’t teach by modelling as I do with children, since dogs don’t have the same ability to look at, internalise and mimic. But I do use small steps, achievable targets and rewards with both dogs and humans. You probably won’t believe me if I told you I used gold stars with some of Manchester’s finest 16 year olds. You’re never too old for a gold star, if you ask me. I never used a clicker though. I’ve learned never to underestimate the power of play in learning, and work with natural ability, instinct and interests. My wisest mentor taught me to make learning irresistible. I think that is true for dogs as much as it is true of children. We can create learning conditions for dogs where they are keen to do more and where learning is exciting. I’m glad that when I pick up my clicker, a frisbee or my treat box, my dogs are absolutely ready to learn. That’s what I want.

My back row boys might not be paying as much attention as I’d like and my teacher’s pet at the front isn’t following the group “stay” like she should be… but my dogs never stop learning, even if one is 14 and French and another is 11 and dumb as a bag of spanners. And I never stop learning about learning either. It’s not a perfect doggie household by far, but I’m very glad that my little Meegie doesn’t have a fly swatter as the consequence of not getting it quite right, and that my big old arthritic Malinois Tobby doesn’t have to be forced to join in. I love teaching my dogs new stuff. They love learning new stuff. I’m not sure how we’d all feel about it if I had to punish them to get what I want.

Until we as a species know everything there is to know about how dogs learn, I’m going to keep to the positive consequences and the positive associations. Then if there’s ever MRI scans of my four, their brains won’t light up like Christmas trees if someone asks them if they think I’m a bit of a knob.

Imagine the scene: your sister has been having some mental health issues. She’s ended up in hospital and she’s incoherent, delirious even. The doctors are relying on you to give a description of her behaviours in order to make an effective diagnosis. They’re not sure if she’s suicidal or psychotic and what you say is going to be the only evidence they have in order to decide what’s wrong and treat her.

“So, Emma, can you tell me what’s wrong with your sister?”

“She’s crazy! She’s just absolutely crazy!”

“And what does that look like?”

“Well, she does crazy things, you know. She says crazy stuff!”

And every time the doctor asks you to be more specific, you just tell them that your sister is crazy. They can only deduce that she is psychotic and they keep her on a high level of haloperidol until they can talk to her themselves.

When they ask you to describe “crazy”, you might tell the doctors that she counts cars compulsively, that she has to check she has locked the house up fifteen times. Or you tell them that she is counting calories and that she is obsessed with fat grams, that she has dropped 50kg and her knees are fatter than her thighs. Maybe you tell them that she’s been spending money like no tomorrow, that she quit her job, that she seems to be taking lots of risks. Or you tell the doctor that she never comes out any more, that she talks constantly of death, that she has stopped taking care of herself.

Under that umbrella of “crazy” are lots of more helpful ways to describe human behaviours that would help a psychiatrist make a better decision about treatment and would lead to better results.

It is no different with our animals. They are in a powerless position where their treatment for problems relies on our effective description of their behaviour. Telling a behaviouralist or trainer that your dog is dominant or “has to be the Alpha” is as effective as telling the psych team that your sister is crazy. Precision and accuracy are vital in order to find safe strategies to eliminate, reduce or diminish the power of unwanted behaviours. Describing your dog’s personality (rather than their behaviour) and saying “they’re dominant” means that is impossible to identify exactly what is causing the behaviour and how to eradicate it.

Perhaps you find a trainer and you describe your dog’s behaviours to them. If your trainer tells YOU that your dog is dominant or needs punishment-based training, well, think of it a bit like those quacks who used to drill holes in people’s heads to let the crazy spirits out, to stop migraines or to cure them of seizures. Yes, people believed it. Yes, people let them. Who knows – it might have even been efficient had those things been caused by a subungual hematoma. But just because we assume the mantle of the expert doesn’t mean that our expertise dates from this century, or even that it’s based on actual sciencey stuff. Imagine if you gave a detailed and objective description of your sister’s behaviour and the quacks said “She’s clearly quite crazy. We’re going to try a lobotomy.”

So when you tell me your dog is dominant, what would be a more useful description?

With humans

Does your dog not follow commands when you ask? Does your dog do things you don’t want them to do when they are not supervised? Are they “pushy” when seeking attention? Do you have problems because they want to play when you are tired or when it’s not appropriate play time? Do they sit or lie in places you don’t want them to sit or lie? Do they dash out through the door the moment it is opened? Perhaps they don’t have good manners and push past you to go first? Are they growling, barking or snarling if they are with you and someone else approches? Do they protest at bedtime? Do you have a hard time clipping nails, taking them to the vet or grooming them? Does your dog jump up to greet you or when they are excited but you don’t want them to? Are they difficult to walk on a lead? Do they nip people in play or when they are over-stimulated? Do they nip at your ankles? Are they troublesome when people leave or arrive? Do they turn into a snarling menace when anyone goes near their food bowl? Do you find it hard to get a toy from them or get them to “leave” or “drop” something?

Are they unfriendly with strangers? If someone comes onto the property, do they bark, snap and snarl? Is your dog a fence-line runner, chasing off passers-by? Do they shout at the post van? Are they a car chaser? Are they over-excited with guests, smothering them with love and jumping all over them? Are they afraid of strangers, running and hiding from them?

Is your dog having problems if you grab his collar or if you touch a particular part of his body? Are you worried he might take the vet’s hand off at their next dental check-up? Are they mouthy like puppies, putting your hand in their mouths, or your forearms? Do they take a treat like food’s going out of fashion? Are they jumpy if you touch them? Is your dog having issues around children?

With other dogs

Is it dogs in your household or unfamiliar dogs?

Do you mean they are over-stimulated when they meet another dog? Is this just when they are on a lead or when they are off it as well? Do they bark at other dogs they see on a walk? Do you find it hard to get past dogs who are running along fences barking? Do they ‘go in too hard’ to doggie meet-and-greets, sniffing and smelling, perhaps humping or trying to mount the other dog? Are they male and aggressive towards other uncastrated males? Are they over-excited to see another dog, yipping and bouncing, trying to get to them? Are they staring at other dogs or have ‘hard’, stiff bodies when other dogs are about? Do you have a hard time trying to get their attention if they can see another dog?

Do they not like it when other dogs get in their space or when other dogs have unrefined greeting skills? Do they show their teeth to new dogs if the other dog gets too close? Perhaps they seem afraid of other dogs or avoid greeting them? Do they seem really antisocial and not want to play with other dogs? Are they fussy about which dogs they are friends with? Do they bark, growl or lunge until the other dog is far enough away?

Perhaps your dog singles out another dog and makes a beeline for them? Do they harass or are they rough with particular other dogs who are clearly not enjoying it?

Maybe your dog has problems with play, always ending in a fight? Do they start nice and end nasty? Do they get frustrated with other dogs who don’t want to play or who stop play? Do they find it hard to know when play is over and end up getting snapped at by other dogs?

Are they resource-guarders around other dogs? Do they show their teeth or snap at any dog who gets too close when they have a toy? Do they have problems if other dogs approach their food bowl whilst they are eating? Do you feel you have to feed your dogs separately because a fight might easily break out? Does your dog get “jealous” if another animal is getting your attention and they are not?

Is your dog a compulsive fighter, never giving ground or letting up? Are they scrappy and unable to back off? Despite great socialisation with 50+ dogs, are they still compulsive fighters?

Have your dogs become increasingly bad tempered as they’ve got older? Are they snappy when they’ve been woken up or disturbed? Has your previously bomb-proof dog suddenly got issue with another dog in the household?

These are a good hundred ways to better describe your dog’s behaviour. All of these behaviours are ones that good behavioralists and trainers will be able to help you address or overcome with positive training methods. You’ll no doubt find that your dog doesn’t have just one simple unwanted behaviour – how great would that be?!

In describing behaviours more neutrally and clearly rather than describing your dog as “dominant” or “an alpha”, you’ll find common approaches to help you address the issues at hand. A good dog trainer will help you prioritise the behaviours you want to address and will give you strategies to help you overcome them, other than “being a pack leader” or “having a calm assertiveness”. Modern dog trainers see that both owner and dog must do things differently, and overcoming a dog’s behavioural issues is something you do with the dog, not to the dog.

Going back to your sister waiting for assessment… imagine that you describe these behaviours to a psychiatrist in minute detail on your sister’s behalf, and they decide that the treatment is a frontal lobotomy or electro-shock treatment, or even drilling a hole in her head. Though you know that the people in white coats are supposed to be experts, you still worry about the efficiency of such treatments. “Aren’t they a little old fashioned and barbaric?” you ask. “Well, they are things we’ve been doing for a very long time and although they may seem cruel, it’s for the best. There are thousands of years of practice behind this method. People have been doing it since we lived in caves! It must be effective, otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it.”

Do you still go along with what the doctors say, despite your nagging doubts?

This is why, when you describe your dog’s behaviours effectively to your dog trainer, know that you should not be afraid to check whether your dog trainer or behaviouralist has a modern, scientific approach that is based on effective and humane treatments. Just because they’ve chosen to call themselves an expert doesn’t make them so. And a modern dog behaviouralist, even one who believes in dominance theory, will still ask you to explain what you mean more exactly.

We should strive to describe our dog’s unwanted behaviours more carefully. To do so means that we can avoid situations in which our dogs are likely to fail and we can find solutions that actually work. When we see problems with our dogs as behaviours rather than personality, we give them hope for improvement. Behaviour is transitory, reactive and circumstantial. A personality is set in stone. To me, describing a dog as “dominant” is as helpful as calling them an arsehole or a tin-pot dictator.

Instead of ‘diagnosing’ them with an ugly personality, isn’t it more helpful to think of them having some behaviours we don’t like and we can change? After all, dogs are not power-hungry despots and there are better explanations about why we see the behaviours that we do, as you’ll know if you’ve these posts about why dogs aren’t trying to rule your life and why dogs aren’t trying to get one over on every other dog they meet.

In my head these days, when I hear people say “my dog is dominant”, I’ve just replaced “dominant” with “arsehole”. And anyone who calls their dog an arsehole, well… I’m pretty sure both that dog and I know who the real arsehole is.

Before I start, I need to say that there are sometimes situations in which animals are abandoned where there are just no words to say. For the soldier, recently split up with his family who has to deploy for nine months and with nobody to look after his dog, what solutions are there? Sometimes life throws us curveballs that we just don’t expect.

That said, there are curveballs we should expect. Let’s not forget, after all, that these are dogs I’m writing about. They poop, they pee on stuff, they might hump things, they might kill your chickens, they might chase your cat and they may well eat your very favourite thing in all the world.

Sometimes, there are serious and sad reasons. Sometimes there are reasons that make shelter staff boil on the inside, reasons that make us want to go on a biting rampage. For those of you who think that refuges are full of crazy dogs who’ve never been trained, or they’re filled with abused dogs who’ve been beaten or mistreated, read on.

#1 Because of a death. Whatever you feel about animals, it’s a sad fact that about 15% of our dogs at any one time come to the refuge as a result of a death. No matter what your family tell you about how they’ll look after your dog when you’ve gone, sometimes it’s just a bit too much. Sometimes it’s just not possible, with the best will in the world. Many animals are privately rehomed following a death, but for some families, there are no solutions. It’s not all old ladies of eighty buying puppy poodles and baby yorkies. Sadly, we often don’t think. Death will happen to all of us. If you’re single and you have animals, your family just may not be able to cope with them after you’ve gone. If you’re married, your spouse just may not be able to cope in the aftermath of your illness. That said, I do wish people would stop selling puppies to old people. There’s the inevitability of death and then there’s the very likely and imminent inevitability of death. There’s nothing like seeing a six-year-old mourning bichon frise brought to the refuge to make you want to write laws and make statutes.

#2 Because of a family break-up. Some couples fight for custody of the dog. Some couples don’t. Where you may have had a great life with a dog as a couple, splitting walks between you and taking it in turns to come home at lunch to let them out and play with them, being single means that if you take on a dog, all that responsibility falls on your shoulders. Sometimes, it’s just not feasible for a single mum with a family of three, newly on her own, to cope with a dog as well. And don’t forget, change stresses dogs too. Sometimes, you are left without the means to pay for vet treatment, and if you think of all the acrimonious divorces, imagine how low a priority an animal may be. But, a bit like having a baby, some couples should realise before they adopt a dog that their relationship won’t be saved by an animal: there are far too many dogs brought back within a month or two because a relationship has broken up.

#3 Because of a change in your circumstances. You lose your job. You have to downsize to a smaller house. Your previous landlord allowed you to have a dog and your new one won’t. Many landlords won’t allow pets, and if it’s a choice between sleeping on the streets or rehoming your dog, it’s a tough call. I know many of us say we would rather sleep rough than rehome – and many people do! – but can we really offer our dogs a stable environment or pay for their care if we’re out on the streets? Being unable to cope with animals is often a factor in giving them up.

In these situations, the dog is never to blame. Many dogs find themselves at the refuge having never put a foot wrong. They are perfect family pets who have been treasured and whose owners may have been heartbroken to admit defeat, or to pass on the beloved pet of an elderly relative who bequeathed them a dog without realising that a full-time job may make it impossible to care for the animal adequately.

Then there’s reason #4…

#4 Because people are idiots. Idiots who blame the dog for their own inadequacy or failure. Idiots who can’t put their hand on their heart and say, “I don’t have the time to walk him as he needs” or “I can’t afford to treat his skin condition and he’ll need a home that can.” There are idiots who buy dogs and discard them like a pair of shoes, who fail to train them and can’t cope with the consequences. If you’re ready for the blood-boilingly infuriating reasons… continue. I must warn you: you may end up with a very dim view of some members of the human race. Sadly, these are all real reasons that dogs have arrived at Mornac.

• The dog digs. Holy Baloney. Dogs dig???! STOP THE PRESS!
• The dog chased a deer. Beagles on flipping bicycles!!! Dogs chase stuff? HOLD THE PHONES!!!
• The dog chewed a pair of slippers. Great SCOTT! Dogs chew things??! Don’t tell Kong, whatever you do!!!!
• The dog humped you. Sam Hill in a telephone box!!!!!!! Disinfect your leg quick and send the dog to the shelter.
• The dog ran off with your scarf. Holy Horse Feathers!! Who’d have believed a dog might do that.
• The puppy grew. Shut the front door. You bought a Great Dane pup and it GREW??? Send it back!!!!!!!!
• The dog destroys things. The son of a biscuit. How dare he make his own fun?!
• The dog runs off when he’s left alone in the garden. Good grief! Those invisible fences not working again?
• The dog barks. Hell in a handbasket! Dogs bark? Who’d have guessed it?
• The dog poops. Whoever could have predicted that? Good lord. I hope the papers have been informed.

It’s quite simple. If you aren’t prepared for the smells, the hair, the exercise, the expectant little face that wants to be taken out for a walk in the pouring rain, the whining at first light, the days when you come home and realise you left the food cupboard open and you’ve got four dogs in food comas, you’d be better to find yourself nother kind of pet. A gerbil maybe.

Because, sadly, the majority of dogs arrive for reason #4. Human idiocy is the main reason dogs end up in shelters. Not puppy farms, who take advantage of idiots who think dogs should be cheap. Not breeders, who will most likely rehome the animal themselves. Not governments, whose laws are too flimsy and not enforced. Not those hunters who realise their prize pack are worth picking up and have them chipped AND tattooed AND with phone numbers on their collars. Idiots who don’t chip their dogs, who don’t have secure areas for their dogs where they can be outside, unsupervised, and who don’t realise that dogs may come with a few doggie behaviours.

So do we get bad dogs? We get dogs who have been failed by humans. We get some dogs who haven’t been socialised properly with other dogs or with people. We get occasional dogs who have never been taught to inhibit their bite. But we don’t get bad dogs. I wish I’d stop having to hear owners surrendering their dogs, listing a catalogue of things the dog does wrong. I wish I’d stop seeing dogs who can sit, who are well socialised, who have the exuberance of a two-year-old dog, whose owners surrendered them with statements like “runs away, digs, doesn’t know any commands.”

A girl can dream.

I was in a meeting today when the phone rang; I could see it was the refuge and they only ring in an emergency. It was our secretary who wanted to know if I could arrange to pick a dog up. No problem. I took the number and called the woman. She’d adopted a puppy three months ago and now she wants to return it. I don’t have words. Still, I ring her and ask her when she wants the dog picked up.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“I’m really sorry. I’m working tomorrow and it’s just not possible. I’m free next Thursday.”

The tough part of the decision is wondering what might happen if I don’t do exactly as she says, dropping everything to meet her request. Where you’re holding a vulnerable hostage, you’ve got a pretty big bargaining chip. One that makes you a nasty piece of work if you use it, but who’s to say who’s bluffing and who’s not?

I went back into the meeting. “This is why I wanted to work with dogs.” I said. Dogs aren’t arseholes, by and large. You seriously wouldn’t believe the stuff that people say to us on a daily basis. I thought I’d take a minute to debunk the myths and give you a bit of an insight into the daily world of a shelter worker or volunteer.

Here’s ten of my favourite things people seem to believe about us.

#1 We’re stupid. We had a phone call last week from a “concerned” member of the public who didn’t think we should let our elderly dogs go to a particular home that often takes on dogs for palliative care. “Dogs die there!” they said. Bloody hell! Thanks for telling us! We had no idea that old dogs might die, even though the vet gave them a month tops at the last check-up. Ten minutes of badgering later and the person is now angry at just how stupid we are. When you’re a shelter worker, people think nothing of telling you that you’re doing the wrong thing. We’re so lucky to have an army of armchair experts to suck the time right out of us. I guess most people in the caring professions feel like this though. There’s a type of person who loves to tell the experts how they should do stuff. We’re lucky we’re not premiership footballers, I guess. Some days it does feel like there are 80000 people surrounding you who know better than you how to do your job, though.

#2 Loosely connected to #1 is the myth that we know nothing about dogs or cats. According to some people, working at a shelter means you have prioritised caring over canines. We’re all so blinkered by our big old hearts and our blinded by naive stupidity that we can’t tell our Basset Fauve de Bretagne from a Great Dane. Not only that, since we work in rescue, we must all therefore be totally against breeding, totally against breeders, totally against pedigrees and totally against doggie stuff like rules or training. Never mind the fact that without breeding, there would be no dogs, so if we were against breeders, we’d be against dogs. A guy last week lost his rag with me because I personally wouldn’t re-categorise an American Staffordshire Terrier. Not that I can. Never mind the dog has been classified by a vet who is one of five vets in the region whose job it is to do just that. We’re all idiots who have no idea what we’re doing. And never mind that just because we might love the muttleys doesn’t mean that we don’t rescue pedigrees or have special places in our hearts for the bulldogs, the huskies, the Anglos or the cockers. Another guy was happily telling me how we knew nothing about gundogs and showed me proudly his photos of his “English Pointer” who looked very much like a mutt to me. Our English pointers just aren’t English pointers, according to him. Another time suck. And never mind what breed it is: how would anyone who works in a shelter, with our big bleeding hearts, know anything about canine behaviour? Never mind that both our president and the refuge director are both canine behaviourists and most of us bone up very quickly on animal body language. Ahhhh.

#3 Not only are we stupid, we’re also all bleeding hearts. We’re just too kind. Nobody can understand how we can do what we do without torturing any number of individuals who’ve brought us dogs or been the subject of a legal seizure. It’s probably because we’re all a little bit touched. Fact: we have the biggest bullshit detectors, and, like the dogs, we can smell it on you. We’re not just a bunch of gullible hippies who believe every story about dog bites, who doesn’t get on with whom, what little Rover did to little Rex. Last week, a woman dropped her dog off telling me quite categorically that the dog was bad with “big dogs.” We were at that moment standing next to Belle, the refuge guard dog. She’s a statuesque shepherd cross. Then Dino walked by. He’s a big bruiser of a filo de San Miguel. “Not good with big dogs, you say?” I just raised an eyebrow and walked off. Just because we clean up other people’s shit doesn’t mean we were born yesterday or that we’re all soft. And just because we refrain from chaining people up like dogs as a punishment for what they have done themselves doesn’t make us a pushover either.

#4 We don’t know the law. I can’t count the number of times I’ve explained procedures to people only for them to say, “well, I’m going to do this instead.” Good for you. I’ll wait for your call when you’ve tried that then. People get really mad at us because, believe it or not, there are systems in place for dealing with animal neglect or cruelty. Without those, we’d be an unregulated army of stupid bleeding hearts, so it’s a good job we do. I can’t tell you how many people suck the living time out of my soul with forty-minute phone calls about how some dog spends a lot of time outside and how that’s tantamount to cruelty. I re-read the guidance about animal welfare the other day and thought “I sound really hard.” But I wrote that to stop the endless phone calls about various acts of animal “cruelty” that are in fact very legal situations. So often, the real cases of animal abuse get lost in between lengthy arguments over what is or what is not animal abuse. Our time and energy is absorbed in fruitless conversations with people about why exactly you have to get the authorities involved or whether or not some animal is being abused. Not only that, but people get really angry at us because the law, in their opinion, doesn’t do enough. We know it doesn’t. This is what we live with. Still, spending an hour on the phone to you whilst you moan about it isn’t changing anything. Glad you feel better to have offloaded about how incompetent and inadequate everything is, though.

#5 Not only are we all naive, trusting souls who don’t know about animals or the law, we’ve also got bags of free time. Personally, I don’t mind phone calls at 10pm, but I’m damned if I’m going to call the boss and ask her to reserve a dog for you. We do try to have lives. For me, I have a full-time job, four dogs of my own, a full-time garden, a semi-derelict house that I’m trying to do up in full frugal style and I’m on two other committees besides the shelter’s. I know there are people who think I don’t work, that I don’t have other stuff to do or that I have times when I am not available. I know there are people who get cross because I’ve decided something is not as urgent as they think it is and I’m not bothering the staff with it tonight. No, I won’t give you their numbers or email addresses. They’re at home with their families. Our vet nurse actually volunteers in the afternoons at the refuge, since her salary doesn’t cover her for anything but mornings, but she’s still there of her own volition, and people are mad when she’s not on 24 hour call. And no, I’m not calling her when she’s on holiday. Take your animal to the vet and pay the vet for an emergency consultation. No, I won’t reserve a dog for you at midnight. No, I won’t give you my mobile number. You’re horrified that the refuge phone lines are busy or engaged? Why don’t we answer before lunch? I just don’t know. Feel free to come in at 9am, man the phones and sift through our daily bullshit though, if you want to help.

#6 We’re powerless. So we can’t march in to a property, break open the doors and check whether Flopsy-Woo is sleeping on the sofa or not, but we can and do investigate. We prosecute too. I’m sick to the back teeth of asking “Have you been to the mairie?” and being told “No, they won’t help.” Here’s some news for you buddy. Yes, there are maires who stink. We know exactly who’ll do something and who won’t. But most are helpful human beings who have a modicum of education. Not only that, they can order the police about. And us. They can order us too. But we’re good at doing things in other ways and believe it or not, it’s not always just about removal of abused or neglected animals. We’re good at putting dossiers together. We’re good at talking to neighbours, negotiating with mairies and negotiating with people who’ve neglected their animals. Just because we can’t hand out 30-year sentences or issue the death penalty doesn’t mean that we’re without power. We’re neither Judge Dredd nor are we wandering around doing nothing at all.

#7 We’ve got the patience of saints. Right now, it’s 07.28 and I’m in a message exchange with a staff member who’s blowing a gasket about someone we’d banned from having a dog who came and picked one up when neither of us were there. She’s also got to go and pick up a dog. My fingers hurt a bit from all the anger. Staff turnover is high. People burn out. Keeping a lid on all the frustration and anger takes its toll. Caregiver burnout is a constant risk. Volunteers can luckily walk away and take a break before coming back at it. The staff can’t do this. In my view, this is why we need as many volunteers as possible, to help share the burden. Fatigue, stress, anxiety and depression are standard and it’s exhausting. Given #1 to #6, you can kind of understand why the patience we have wears thin from time to time.

#8 We prioritise animals over people. I’ve lost count of the times that people say that my priorities are out of whack, or that we must really hate people. Ironically, despite everything that humans do to animals, the people who adopt our dogs and cats largely restore our faith. What mostly restores my faith is working alongside so many great people who I can rely on totally. There are still plenty of good people to believe in. And, contrary to popular belief, just because I’m an animal lover doesn’t mean that I don’t give a stuff about human welfare issues. I’m quite tired of other ‘humanitarians’ treating me as if I’ve got my priorities out of order because I didn’t suddenly drop animal welfare issues and start expending all my energies on refugees. Just because I didn’t doesn’t mean I don’t help out with that too where I can. I’m very tired of the idea that any one cause is more noble than another or people feeling that they can take a pop at those who live and breathe animal welfare just because “they’re only animals.” We should care for all things on earth, full stop.

# That we’re somehow wonderful and noble, nay saintly, for everything we do. Because scooping up dog shit is noble. “I couldn’t do what you do,” people say. Yes you could. You just don’t want to. Just say “I don’t want to do what you do.” That’s fair enough. But we aren’t harder, tougher, more in control of our fists or more in control of our stomachs than the average person. We’re just people who think, “If I don’t do it, who will?” We just keep turning up. Day after day. Month after month. That’s all. I’m pretty sure everyone can turn up to stuff.

#10 We spend our days with the healthy sheen of our halos casting a benign light over our beatific zen-like faces as we romp with animals. Yes, we’re not just better than the average person who couldn’t do what we do, whatever they think that is, but people seem to think that we’re basking in the wonder of our happy do-gooding. Mostly, we don’t romp. We get dragged along by dogs who’ve been out once or twice in the week, because so many people “can’t do what we do” and we often look like shit. We laugh about this, because either it’s cold, and we’re wrapped up so thick that nobody even noticed I’d had my hair cut for six whole weeks, or it’s wet and we’re wearing mens’ waterproofs or bin bag accessories, or it’s too hot and we’re sweating beneath our long trousers in case some over-excited dog fancies saying hello to our calves with their teeth.

Whatever you believe about shelter workers and volunteers, we’re all just people. That’s all. We’re not stupid. We’re not gullible. We’re not swanning around like Lady Bountiful, sunning ourselves in our own virtues. I’d be glad for just one day when people didn’t make assumptions about us. It sure would make my day much nicer.

And if you think like we do, if you can turn up from time to time, if you want to make a difference and you love animals (and people!) why not come and join us? Find out how to volunteer here