Golden Cocker, Golden Retriever or
Gold Fish?
By Ross McCarthy MCFBA
Monday morning at nine am, I received
a frantic phone call from a lady with a ten week old Cocker Spaniel
Puppy who was biting her, pulling her trousers and attacking
her whilst out on walks in the park, the dog was terrorising
the family and we need to see you today demanded the woman. There
was nothing unusual about the problem, or her frantic manner
on the telephone, but unbeknown to be at the time, this would
evolve in to a most bizarre and unusual case.
Janet arrived at the centre for her consultation with her little
Cocker Spaniel, Mango jumping about in the car. Janet lives in
Oxfordshire and so travelled for in excess of one hour to see
me. Mango led the way into the consulting room and as one would
expect from a puppy, he loved the experience: meeting the people
and the dogs, jumping around excitedly and grabbing toys to play
with. Janet was not quite so excited at the prospect I felt.
We sat down and over a coffee I began to question Janet about
the problems that she was encountering with Mango. Of course,
prior to her arrival I had a list of possible causes and problems
in my mind and asked her specific questions to enable me to assess
the problem.
She began on her tale and informed me of little Mango’s
rain of terror from the age of seven weeks. Once she began on
her story of the last three weeks with this puppy, there was
no stopping her – an experienced dog owner, by her description;
she had never encountered such a calculating, manipulative, difficult
and downright aggressive dog. In short, she was quite exhausted
with her daily interactions and confrontations with Mango – all
6lb of him!
This problem was most difficult to diagnose due to the inconsistency
of Janet’s description. She had firmly made up her mind
that this was ‘Cocker Rage’ and that Mango was a
time bomb waiting to explode. After spending two hours in consultation
with her, I did not believe that this aggression was idiopathic
or ‘rage syndrome’ and felt that although the dog
was confident and perhaps could be described as ‘dominant’ this
problem was little more than rough Playbiting.
I gave her my advice and off she went with little Mango still
excited about life, Janet was a little more positive too and
almost managed a smile as she left. I telephoned Janet three
days later and she proclaimed life was fantastic; there had been
no further aggression towards her or her husband.
After two weeks, as I had requested, Janet telephoned me to
advise me of her progress. Life was somewhat less fantastic now
and Mango had begun to become aggressive and unmanageable again.
The following day Janet arrived at the centre for a second assessment
in company with Mango and her husband Derek. I quizzed them both
on their consistency in implementing my advice and there were
numerous inconsistencies and neither Derek nor Janet could agree
on, well, anything.
Although the problem had improved and there had been no aggression
or the like for almost two weeks, the dog had become even more
calculating and began jumping on the sofa to terrorise them – by
now all 9lb of him.
Of course, if they had been following my advice properly the
dog would not be jumping on the sofa in the first place. Mango
had also started attacking Derek and Janet when out on walks.
So off we went for a walk. No attack took place and Derek and
Janet were amazed at my skill in preventing such a traumatic
attack – I was more amazed at the owner’s behaviour
than that of the dog – both owners displayed fear of Mango
by jumping in the air or huddling together when approached by
him – one of those occasions when a smile unwittingly creeps
over your face.
I again, reiterated my initial advice proffered some further
techniques and demonstrated those and arranged for them to come
to a training course with the dog the following day for a little
consistency and for me to observe the owners in greater depth – this
whole problem just did not fit. They had to drive for over an
hour again to attend the class, but they were willing to do this.
I began the lesson at 10am, but Janet had not arrived so I began
without her assuming that the distance may have deterred them.
At 10.20 in walked Janet, Derek and Mango. Janet did look rather
stressed, Mango looked as excited as ever and Derek just did
as he was told by Janet. The explanation for lateness was that
it had taken fifteen minutes to wrestle with the dog to attach
the lead. Derek had been summoned for back-up and to aid with
the 9lb monster. The other dog owners, with their Rottweiler’s,
German Shepherd’s and Akita’s watched in amazement
as Janet and Derek conveyed Mango across the room together, taking
care not to put themselves in a position of risk – one
of those occasions again when the smiles creep in – this
time by the other nine people on the course.
The morning passed with no attacks and the obedience was excellent – particularly
that of Derek who did a sit stay on Janet’s command of
over an hour.
The following week, Janet arrived on her own with Mango, how
brave I thought – things must be improving. Again the day
passed without incident although Mango had been on an apparent
hate campaign all week. At the end of the training session, Janet
asked for some advice on how to handle Mango around the house.
She was unable to get into the kitchen or certainly unable to
get out of the kitchen unscathed. Mango would grab her and ruin
her tights. I began to offer her information and advice on managing
this problem – until I heard what I was saying. I had been
lead in to a discussion about walking through a kitchen using
a lead for restraint on a tiny puppy. I stopped myself and discussed
that this dog was possibly not compatible to her experience or
lifestyle. She agreed and went of with her expensive puppy to
try a little harder.
I felt quite disheartened. On my numerous encounters and tests
with this cute puppy, I had never seen any aggressive attacks
or any sign of one. I began to think that the longer Mango was
in the care of Janet, the less chance we had of creating a normal
tempered adult dog.
Two days later, I arrived at the office and my associate had
just taken a call from Janet. The dog had savagely attacked her
in the park on the previous day. She was so traumatised and the
attack was so aggressive that she tried to call the police to
assist until Mango knocked the mobile telephone out of her hand.
She had spoken to the vet and he had informed her without seeing
the dog that it was idiopathic aggression and an appointment
had been booked to euthanase the dog that morning.
Thankfully my Colleague stepped in and spoke to the vet, and
arranged for Janet to drop Mango off at the centre for further
testing and assessment.
Janet brought Mango in with a couple of old blankets and his
food bowls. I asked to see the bites. I expected Janet to start
rolling up her trouser leg to reveal the damage, but instead
she began to unbutton her cardigan. The dog had bitten her arm
right from the top down to her wrist – how bizarre – one
would assume that a dog standing no higher than ten inches from
the ground would be unable to grab her arm. Janet’s forearm
was covered in scratches – much the same as one would have
after pruning a Rose bush. How this had occurred, to me is a
mystery. The dog clearly had not made these marks in one lunge
and so Janet must have kept her arm in the same place whilst
being bitten. I had now given up hope of finding the ‘missing
link’ in this puzzling relationship and now focussed on
little Mango.
I took the dog home for seven days to asses and record the behaviour
displayed to prepare the relevant reports before suggesting an
outcome of returning the dog to Janet, re-homing the dog or euthanasing
the dog.
The observations went well. There was a very mild display of
aggression in conjunction with much mouthing and Playbiting over
the first day. This was dealt with promptly and little Mango
became a loving addition to the household and after seven days,
little Mango was taken to his new home. He has settled in well
and his obedience training is coming along nicely with his new
owners. He loves his interaction with their two children and
the other dog in their home. The new owners were clients of mine
previously with their other dog who they have worked considerably
hard in reforming his behaviour. Mango will be trained for working
trials in the future by his new owners and he now has a fabulous
lifestyle.
Janet is currently looking to obtain a Golden Retriever and
try her luck with that – I did suggest that a Gold Fish
maybe more suitable, but my advice (again) was not followed.
I spotted Janet out walking three weeks ago with not one, but
two Golden Retriever puppies – frying Pan and fire spring
to mind, I’ll await her call.
