Many people complain that their dog is so hyper-active that it seems to spend its time in the house bouncing off the walls and furniture, tearing up anything it can find, getting into everything, despite having had a free range, long walk in the walk in the mornings and a shorter sniff-around in the evenings? They feel at their wit's end not knowing how to control the situation.
Some dogs do suffer from attention deficit syndrome but this is largely due to teenage puppyhood. From six months to a year, most dogs need a lot.... and I mean .....a lot of mental stimulus. This means letting them sniff every lamp post, tree, railings, walls and anything else that comes within 1" of their noses. A walk doesn't mean dragging them behind you for a jog. It means letting them sniff the pee-mails left by other dogs. This is information gathering that they can take home and think about who left that scent marker. Sometimes their brains go into stimulus overload and they have twitchy, running along dreams.
The meanest thing that an owner can do is to refuse to let the dog sniff around on a walk. So often the dog gets pulled away from everything and in many cases, ill-informed owners think that by dragging a dog behind them tied to a bicycle or as they jog is exercise. Forcing a dog to run behind you is a sure recipe for a cruciate ligament injury at some stage in the dog's life. And as for being tied to a bike. Isn't that almost as bad as tying it to the back of your car and dragging it along? Both these activities can cause cruciate ligament injuries because of the strain put on the dog's legs. You think I am talking out of my hat and you don't believe me! I'll bet you know someone, who knows someone, whose dog had a leg injury through being made to run behind the owner.
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Did you know.......now that we are into Wimbledon, my predictive powers tell me that the newspapers will tell us that:
1. Andy Murray's tennis skills, body language and smiling capabilities will come under close scrutiny.
2. We will be told how many tennis courts could be filled by the amount of strawberries and champagne people have consumed/quaffed.
3. Pippa Middleton has been spotted in the crowd and her face will appear on screen as much as the tennis.
4. Sue Barker, John McEnroe and John Lloyd are still around and saying things.
5. A competition will be held to see who can make Ivan Lendl crack a smile?
