Читать книгу Clever Dog: Understand What Your Dog is Telling You - Sarah Whitehead - Страница 19

Case history: Sam, the besotted Springer Spaniel

Going out to work if you keep dogs has always been controversial. Clearly, it’s not feasible to keep a dog if you are out for eight or ten hours a day. Dogs are social animals, and even if they are given food, water and shelter, their emotional welfare demands that they have exercise, company and stimulation during the day. However, it’s an ironic fact that in order to keep pets, most of us have to go out to work to be able to buy their food, pay their vet bills and buy them all the many beds, treats and little extras that make them (and us) happy.

Like most things in life, achieving harmony is all about balance. It should be perfectly reasonable to leave your dog at home for a realistic period of time. Of course, what is a realistic period of time will depend on both dog and owner. For example, a puppy of only twelve weeks cannot be expected to go more than two hours without needing to go out to the toilet and have some meaningful interaction. Dogs over the age of a year who know the routine and have had exercise and stimulation may be OK left for four or even five hours, especially if their owner is savvy and leaves them with plenty of things to do in their absence. In fact, I have treated some dogs for behavioural problems that have been caused by owner over-obsession. Some of them would probably have paid me themselves if I could have persuaded their owners to go out and leave them in peace for a couple of hours! It’s when the balance goes wrong that I sometimes find my phone ringing, as I did with Sam.