Opinions biased
I find it extremely annoying and rather disconcerting that people putting forward Parliamentary bills have such a biased and uneducated opinion of dogs.
Nobody condones the attack on the little 10-year-old girl in Dundee by two dogs as by any understanding acceptable, and we all agree dogs should be adequately controlled by their owners. However I do think the statement made by the MSP Christine Grahame, the person behind the Scottish Dangerous Dogs Act, rather naive and mis- informed. For a lady who is a trained solicitor to make such a presumptive statement I find rather strange and misleading.
Being interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland about the case, she is quoted as saying: ‘If they've been running loose they're big dogs...I don’t want to demonise the breed, it’s not the breed, but big dogs should be kept under control.....as well as some little dogs have to be because Jack Russells can be quite aggressive.'’
I presume therefore that she wishes to demonise all BIG dogs and only demonise certain SMALL dogs, and this from a person who felt sorry for the Lockerbie bomber!
What chance have we as dog lovers got when people of this ilk are sat in our legislative assemblies making such idiotic assumptions: watch out cat owners you are next as one might scratch you when it is out unattended!
Yours etc
K F Dewane
Not got all the answers
Once again Dave Cavill has raised the topic of the ‘split’ in dog training and behaviour between the practising trainers (like myself) and academics.
I am not going to try and make a case for or against DEFRA expenditure on research, but at least it means there is some attempt to make informed decisions, rather than relying solely on (usually biased!) opinions about what makes for effective or ineffective training.
But, for good or bad, science doesn’t have all the answers, any more than we trainers do. While the academics and trainers battle it out, and form their own organisations to defend their particular interests, each apparently keen to exclude and either scorn or dismiss the other, dogs still need training and their behaviour still needs improving, or they will continue to be put to sleep and rehomed or incarcerated in rescue shelters. Often on limited budgets, ordinary dog owners struggle to get control over dogs they maybe shouldn’t have had in the first place, but that they have them and want to do well by them is often inescapable.
There are clubs near me still pulling dogs about on choke chains, squirting water at them, or throwing things at them for barking and showing aggression when they are frightened or stressed. They are causing mental and physical harm. They have no place in dog training in my opinion, but often the perception amongst the behaviourists who deal with the resultant behaviour problems, is that that is what most dog trainers ‘do’ and that treating dogs humanely is not part of their ethos.
On the other hand, the dog trainers assume ‘academics’ have no understanding of how to train dogs or how dogs behave in the ‘real world’. Neither is true of course, but I wonder how often either side really takes the trouble to find out what the other actually does think, or know?
I accept Dave Cavill claims not to be a dog trainer, but he is offering an opinion on a topic which is of huge significance to those of us who are keen to see dogs trained and handled more positively and who have spent most of our lives learning how to do that more effectively. Yet he is suggesting (and has suggested in the past) that there’s nothing wrong with the odd aversive and the use of check chains. That ‘positive’ training is ineffective, the domain of soft academics, and by implication, ‘bunny huggers’ who have no understanding of genuinely difficult dogs. I disagree with him in most respects not least because I have personally trained and worked with a variety of dogs for a variety of functions, with a variety of significant problems, so I know positive training can work, and having come from a very traditional training background I have seen the harm aversives and ‘negative’ training can, and do, do. Unfortunately there is no objective measure of success so the effectiveness, or not, of kind and fair training cannot be easily judged. It is unfortunate that all too often if a dog that is behaving well, and not (apparently) needing dominating and assertive control by an impressive and forceful leader, it is somehow seen as being down to ‘good luck’, not kind and positive training and upbringing.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of it though, as Dave Cavill suggests, money is an important issue. It is hard for many ordinary dog folk to afford the kinds of prices charged to see imported American academics at work however good they are, and it’s hard for Joe Public to afford the kinds of prices that inevitably arise from the money some behaviourists need to charge to maintain that level of investment in education and training. I don’t see an easy answer to that issue at all but I know that when Steven Lindsay, the noted US behaviourist and author of one of the standard texts on behaviour and training, visits later this year my leaking roof will once again fall down my list of priorities!
I am not involved in the politics of the different organisations and have little interest in the turf wars they seem to be about, but it seems to me shutting our ears to different ideas and views can only do all of us, and our dogs, a lot of harm in the long term. Academic research should be supporting trainers; academics and vets should be learning from good trainers’ many years of practical experience, but we trainers also should also be learning from the science to help us be better at our jobs. Neither group knows it all. But at the moment there seems to be a huge gulf which is serving no one very well, least of all the dogs we all purport to want to understand better.
Yours etc
Paddy Driscoll
Hidden rules
Our Tibetan Terrier is a wonderful dog, he is toilet trained, clean, quiet and always brings a smile to people when we travel on the train with him. He generally sleeps throughout most of the train journeys we take him on.
With this in mind we thought that travelling on a bargain berth cabin on the Caledonian Sleeper from £19 each was an attractive prospect, as we would no longer have to be jealous of our dog and could join him for some shut eye, £350 later with one cancelled journey, I write this letter to appease my frustration and to inform fellow dog owners of the hidden rules and charges of the sleeper service.
Booking the bargain berth online (you can only book online) we found dates that suited us so I went ahead with the bookings for myself and my wife. I made sure to look through the terms and conditions of the booking and I was happy to see there were no rules stated for travelling with pets. The booking unfortunately was for the highest price in the bargain berth bracket of £49 each per journey so our total for the entire trip came to £200. At this price we were still happy because this is what we would normally pay for a standard day fare for the same trip. So that was that, train booked well in advance and we were looking forward to travelling on the sleeper.
Roll forward to the day of travel and I decided to go on to the Scotrail website to have a look at the cabin we would be staying in just to get an idea of the space we would have. It was at that point I see a section about travelling with a pet on the 'about the sleeper' page saying that a pet would only be permitted when the owner has exclusive use of the berth and pays a cleaning charge for each single journey. It also states that if I wish to take my pet, I must book this through Scotrail telesales. So, let me get this right, bargain berths are only available to book online but if I want to take my pet I should call telesales and be prepared to pay a hidden cleaning charge.
So now I am worried, because none of this information has been stated during the booking process. I call Scotrail to see what they can do. I am told by a telesales assistant that we should have given notice of travelling with a pet 48 hours in advance so a third party cleaning company can be booked to do a 'deep clean '(no explanation as to what this is) of the cabin after we have used it. He said we can still travel but not with our dog. When I speak to the manager I tell her that the specific rules for travelling with a pet are not stated in the terms and conditions when booking but I am told that's my opinion and that the rules for travelling with a pet are clearly stated on the website. She also tells me the charge for deep cleaning is £50 per journey, a charge which is not listed anywhere on the Scotrail website. The bargain berth being non-refundable/transferable means we have lost that trip so we go ahead and book another train for the next day in standard accommodation day travel for £111.
I now call to arrange payment for the cleaning of our cabin for the return journey. This takes a good twenty minutes as they are required to change our cabin booking as only certain cabins are allocated to people travelling with pets. We pay our £50 cleaning charge and the booking is reconfirmed. So all told we are now having to pay an extra £150 for our journey which is made to seem our fault for not reading the information regarding travelling with pets.
I can't help but feel that our pets are being treated as an afterthought by the rail company. Not stating the cleaning charge when it is such a large fee and is not stated on the terms and conditions during booking is unfair and unreasonable. I have lodged a complaint with Scotrail who say they will pass on my comments to the marketing team. As a personal view I feel a deep clean is unnecessary for most pets who travel, unless the animal was to soil the area and the set £50 is just bloated and unfair.
I hope my letter might help better inform some people of the hidden rules and charges of travelling with a pet on the sleeper service.
Yours etc
Kevin Adams
OUR DOGS contacted Scotrail but at the time of going to press they had made no comment. |
