About MeI've been interested in animals as long as I can remember. When I was a boy I had a menagerie of fish, hamsters, gerbils, rabbits and guinea-pigs. Handling them and getting them to do what I wanted seemed the most natural thing in the world. My very first pet, aged 5, was a goldfish called Ferdie that I won at the funfair. It might sound far fetched, but I got Ferdie incredibly tame. When I put my fingers into the surface of the water he would swim up to be stroked. He just loved being caressed gently. When I got my first rabbit I taught it to jump on top of its hutch on command, and to jump back into its hutch on command. When I was about ten I got a kitten. And naturally for me, I taught it to do stuff. I taught him how to play hide and seek and in the evenings we'd have hilarious games, taking it in turns to be the one who was hiding. When I went outside he'd follow me round like a dog, and if I lay down on the sofa to read or watch TV, he'd curl up asleep on my chest. One day I tripped over him badly as I was feeding him. If you've got a cat you'll know how they weave in and out of your legs as you get their food ready. So I decided to do something about it. I taught him to go and sit on a chair in the corner of the kitchen on command, and to wait there while I got his food ready. Once ready I could put it down on the floor and he wouldn't move from his chair until I gave him the word, at which point he'd race over and begin eating. It never crossed my mind that most people don't train their fish, rabbits or cats to do things. It just came naturally to me and I never gave it a second thought. In my teens I used to work on a sheep farm in my school holidays. Getting sheep to go where you want them to must seem like black magic to some people - they can be ever so jittery. But I never found it a problem. A pace taken this way or that can make all the difference in steering them in the right direction, but for me it was all obvious from the word go. And the same with cattle - when I left school my first job was as stockman to 350 of them on another local farm. Among my duties there was halter training the young bulls. A frisky yearling bull bearing down on you at speed can be a bit of a daunting prospect. Although I was never reckless and always treated them with the utmost respect, I absolutely *loved* that job and was completely in my element. |
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And when I got my first dog, training him all seemed so logical and obvious. I never took him to a training class in his life, but I trained him to an exceedingly high standard. I'm not telling you any of this stuff in an attempt to blow my own horn, simply to try and make the point that for me at least, handling and training animals, whether rabbits, bulls or dogs, came so naturally as to be almost instinctive. I've owned and trained dogs since 1984. Over that time through a combination of trial and error together with countless hours just spent quietly observing them, I've come to understand dogs to the point where I can now train any of my own to do pretty much whatever I want of them. At the start of 2005 I had 2 dogs - Bracken, a 10 year old deerhound, and Tufter, an 18 month old standard poodle x greyhound. Here I am with them -  Unfortunately 2005 turned out to be a disastrous year and double tragedy struck; Tufter was killed at the end of February and Bracken had to be put down just 3 months later. For the first time in 21 years I found myself without a dog. It was as if someone had pulled the rug from under my feet. All my reference points had gone, replaced only by what seemed like a black, bottomless abyss. After much deliberation with my wife we decided to do something completely new for me - rehome an adult dog. So on 22 August '05 a 2 year old greyhound bitch called Molly came into our lives. She settled in very quickly and immediately we all fell in love with her! And here she is -  Isn't she beautiful? (Well I suppose I would say that - I'm biased!)  I live with my wife and 2 daughters in our 400 year old house in the Cotswold village of Leonard Stanley. |
