In South Africa a young girl in a mall was grabbed around the waist by a dog supposedly rehabilitated by a man claiming to give a 100% success rate in dog rehabilitation. James Lech describes himself as a ‘shaman in the world of dogs’ on his website, and is supposedly known as ‘Africa’s Dog Whisperer’.

All the Whisperer business aside (you can read my opinion on this here and I fully support the dog welfare campaign here) this report leaves me with very important messages going forward.

1) A dog with an aggression history is never 100% cured and no owner should be given that expectation.

2) A mall is a public place and no dog should be left unmonitored, no matter what their history. I and my colleagues will tell you that ‘He’s never done that before’ is a frequent thing we hear. In the video, the dog clearly was eyeing the child for quite some time. We cannot hear the sound but perhaps the child was noisy or simply moving about quickly. If the dog’s body signals are clear enough for us to spot on CCTV then the owner has no defence in missing them.

3) Children do not get bitten just because they tease dogs. In this case, the child passes the dog NORMALLY. Yes, she is skipping about, she may have been being noisy, but she is a child! Children do struggle to read danger signs in dogs but nevertheless, she was in a public place and simply moving through a gap between tables.

Lech himself stated that the dog bit because the child trod on the dog – not so, and this is clearly supported from the footage on the video.

Let us learn from this person’s fundamental mistakes. Lech says he has never learned formally about dogs, which leads me to think that he doesn’t know half the story, and this video provides damning evidence of that. Good at self-marketing he may be, but as we can see, the business of dogs is far more serious than a bombastic faith healer can survive.

A fantastic doggy chat with a very sensible dog owner, experienced with pugs, who also happens to be a novelist, actress, presenter, journalist and model… we were thrilled to have Annabel as part of this special guest WildPaw podcast – take a look at some of the pics below whilst you listen!

Listen to the podcast HERE

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You can also download the show here.

Godfrey - Pug extraordinaire

Annabel, Godfrey, and Ted

Godfrey after his eye accident

All dressed up for a wedding - Annabel doesn't normally dress Godfrey, but this was a one-off special!

Well, the answer is yes and no.

How long do I train my dog for?

I do, often, get my dogs to do something new and useful. Sometimes we revise old, useful things. Sometimes we learn old or new things that have no real practical use at all. It’s fun, good ways of communicating together, and is teaching the dog that I am predictably rewarding!

Usually, I spend as long as it takes to get the very first bit of the behaviour that I had in mind. Then, I leave it. I guess if you timed me, it would be around 2-5 minutes maximum. If you counted repetitions, that might give you a clearer answer, but then it wouldn’t necessarily be a guide for what you would need to do with your own dog. Then after a short break, I come back to it and we do a little more. Usually I finish after a few brief sessions and breaks and go off and do something else. I might spend up to an hour or so doing this throughout the day, as I have more than one dog and sometimes have up to 5 dogs to work with.

Now, most people will look askance at me if they have a very busy family life. They usually ask, ‘How do you fit it all in?’. I can see them self-defeating their purpose of having a lovely obedient pet, just by thinking they will not have the extra time to do this training, even if it’s 5 minutes at a time. After all, I am a professional dog trainer, right, so I have this kind of time that other folks do not have. Right?

Again – the answer is, yes and no.

How do I find this time to train my dog?

This is not a time for me to tell you about my personal day and how I constantly juggle to fit my professional, social and family arrangements into a coherent mass. In fact, we live in what feels like chaos a lot of the time. I don’t need to describe to you the busy world of a working adult, Mum or Dad, Grandparent etc – I am sure you know that already. Follow me on Twitter if you would like to see the kind of mayhem my day consists of!

The times that I do the above dog training, are fitted in and around my day. I don’t go into ‘dog school’ mode. I am usually waiting for the kettle to boil, or the oven timer to beep, or the TV adverts to finish… or when outdoors, for the traffic to pass so we can cross the road, or whilst I am reading a noticeboard in my village, or whilst I am waiting for my coffee in a cafe. I could be waiting for my children outside their school, or sitting working (for working, read ‘chatting to my nice doggy friends on Twitter’) at my desk. I might even be having a drink at the pub with my friends!

My point is this. Your dog may even go to dog training class, but the training in class – sometimes only once a week – is only a tiny part of what you both do for the rest of the time. You want a calm, happy dog that doesn’t race out of your front door. You want a calm, happy dog that doesn’t jump and mouth at visitors to your house. You want a calm, happy dog that ______________ (you can insert any behaviour of your choice here).

So, where and when better to learn such things than at these places? Where and when better to teach, than every part of every day where and when you actually want your dog to learn?

Your training class is your home, your work, your walks, your daily life. There are always periods in each day where you interact with the dog. Make them useful. Everyday training is simple, repetitive, and does not have to take extra time from your day.

So next time you are thinking ‘How long should I train my dog for?’ instead think ‘I am already training my dog, every second of every day’. Turn those precious seconds to your advantage!

How about during training when you might be making it wait for its toy when it is desperate to play?

Ever ask yourself how you know the dog is ok with you doing this? How can you tell? More importantly, is your child able to judge the same things as you are?

A BBC report has today highlighted the continuing dangers involved when kids mix with pet dogs.

Often, news reports on dog attacks give impressions of a slavering mange-ridden hound that has somehow mauled an unsuspecting child. We look over at our snoozing pet dog and we somehow ‘know’ they would never be like that.

Nevertheless bite statistics indicate that children are bitten most often by their own family dogs compared to an unknown stray.

The BBC report states that research which examines how children “scan” a dog’s face shows that younger children focus on the mouth and teeth, and that under-fives are far more likely to “lean in” to have a closer look. A single bite, intended to make a child ‘go away’, can easily cause permanent scarring and does not necessarily mean that the dog has turned into a vicious animal! Nevertheless the child probably failed to read the signs.

So, what can we do right now to reduce the risks?

Dr Kerstin Meints, from Lincoln University, is helping to assess the bite prevention interactive DVD called “Blue Dog” which aims to teach children about how to play safely with dogs and when to leave it alone. The DVD gives the child a chance to decide whether or not to approach the dog or play with it in different scenarios. It is aimed at children even as young as 3 years old, to give them an insight into reading dog cues. The research, to be presented at the World Safety Conference in London, indicates that even two weeks later children still show that they have learned the rules presented on the DVD.

The Kennel Club have a free interactive site for their Safe and Sound scheme, which again aims to show children how they might learn to read the signs. My advice to you is to take that test and see how well you fare as an adult!

Dogs are, by and large, hugely tolerant creatures. Nevertheless if they are continuously under stress, it is not surprising that one day they will be pushed too far.

If you would like to take steps to really work on this with your own dog, don’t forget you can read more in one of our Intellidogs dog manual chapters ‘Kids and Dogs Safety and Sense’ available for download for just £2.99. You can just download that chapter, no need to buy a whole book!

As a dog-owning community, it is within our power to spread the word and to smash the myth that ‘only bad dogs bite’.

I’d love to read your comments and discussion points, so please feel free to air your thoughts below

Karen