I was reminded of a wonderful example of the 'Angel Dog/Devil Dog' scenario, which has become one of the many guaranteed situations that a great number of dog owners find themselves in but without any idea that it is actually happening.

When I was invited to work, with Mark Leishman and the team in New Zealand, on the 'Wonder Dog' series (which is currently being aired on the Sky Horse & Country channel 280), I had to smile as I recalled the conversation we had, whilst we travelled to see the 'problem' dog.

Her name was Molly, described as a terror of a terrier who lived with her family; made up of two people and three other dogs and as Mark told me of the astonishing list of her misdemeanours, he asked why I was smiling, so I explained that I was interested to see who was actually causing the problems.  'Molly' he replied but I told him that in all the years that I have been working with 'Amichien� Bonding', I have never come across a multi dog household where the dog labelled the 'problem' actually was, only the innocent victim of another dog in the family and that dog was traditionally considered, by the loving owners, to be their perfect angel.

Mark found this fact hard to believe and understandably said that he would wait and see if my prediction was proven correct. As for my part, I had no doubt.

As we entered the bungalow in the Bombay district on the north island, we were greeted by a very excited terrier (the devil), a three legged geriatric German Shepherd and a medium sized walking rug, along with the lady of the house, who warmly greeted our team.

Once inside, we were directed into the sitting room and  I spotted the cause of all the disruption, a 7lb 4 oz  cream coloured Chihuahua, who strutted her stuff and patrolled along the back of the sofa and at that moment Mark's eyes caught mine as the lady introduced her 'little angel!!!!'. I smiled.

How did I know that this would be the reality? Simply because it always is.  In exactly the same way that one child can cause another to act in a very undesirable way, so always check that your little angel's halo really is over their head and not around their ankles.

Jan Fennell
9th May 2012