By Jo Wood, taken from her book ‘Doggy Dilemmas’.
My Introduction to the Wonderful World of Staffies
Some years ago, before I had even the slightest inkling that I may end up becoming a qualified and experienced canine psychologist, I took ownership of my first ever Staffordshire Bull Terrier – Barney, (or ‘Barney Button’, ‘Barnaby Rudge’ and latterly ‘Uncle Barney’). He was a gorgeous Kennel Club registered dog, and my introduction into the ‘bully’ world. In his younger days, my husband had been a breeder of Staffies and, although some time earlier he had given up this practice, he had in fact owned a young puppy when we met.
However, being totally ignorant to the joys of bull breed dogs at that point, and having been ‘educated’ by an unbelievably biased media, I had thought that all bull-breed dogs were the spawn of the devil. They were regularly demonised in the press for reportedly carrying out savage attacks on all that they encountered and, sadly, I had taken all this as read, without question.
When my hubby then announced that he intended getting another Staffie, I refused to accept it and said that there was ‘no way I would be willing to have a dog like that in my house’ and putting my little old mongrel, Scrapper, at risk. I complained that Staffies weren’t pretty dogs (what???) and that they couldn’t possibly be nice if the things the papers said were true – and of course, they MUST be true because they were in the paper!! (Blimey, the naivety of it all.)
Whether he knew exactly what he was doing, or whether it was down to pure chance, my husband then announced that if I wouldn’t have a Staffie, he would get an English Bull Terrier. Now, I don’t want to offend anyone, and least of all the adoring fans of ‘bullies’, but to the naive mongrel dog owner, this was like a red rag to a bull(dog). He couldn’t have picked a more unconventional looking animal and to even contemplate owning something that looked like a sheep with no fur, was inconceivable to little old me. As I say, whether he had anticipated the reaction, I’ll never truly know, despite what he may tell me, but it certainly had the desired effect as I immediately relented and agreed that we would choose a Staffie puppy from the next appropriate litter we saw!
Over the next few weeks we scanned the local paper for advertisements for Staffies. Eventually a litter was spotted that my hubby liked the sound of, so off we went to view our potential new puppy pal. I can’t quite recall the number in the litter but there was a cute black and white male that we both took a fancy to. Even better, when checking out the pedigree, we spotted that some of the dogs in the pup’s heritage were actually those who had been previously owned or bred by my husband in his Staffie breeding days. It seemed that the hand of fate was involved and we agreed to return the next day to collect our ‘baby’.
Upon returning to collect the pup, for some reason my husband had a change of heart and instead chose a brindle male with a white chest and white paws. I wasn’t concerned either way as I knew that this was one choice I shouldn’t have a hand in as this was going to be HIS dog and he was the expert on the breed.
We took home this little bundle of lumbering love and began to ponder upon a name. Prior to collecting him we had each compiled huge lists of suggested names that we thought would be suitable, but however many times we studied the lists, none of them seemed to fit the bill. Suddenly, without any prompting, we looked at the pup, then looked at one another and declared, “Barney!” I don’t know why, as that particular name didn’t appear on either of our lists, but he just looked like a Barney and that’s what he became.
Due to work commitments on my part we hadn’t been able to collect Barney from the breeder until early in the evening so it wasn’t too long before it was time to retire for the night. We gave him some food, a toy and a snuggly blanket. We spread ample layers of newspaper around the small kitchen floor before kissing him goodnight and toddling off to bed.
We hadn’t dared leave him with the other two dogs for fear that there could be an accidental injury in the night. Scrapper had seemed fairly indifferent to the whole ‘new buddy’ affair, but our female dog Jessie had been beside herself with joy. Like some ageing spinster, it was almost as though she was listening to her ever hastening body clock and craving a child of her own. Barney was to become that child, and the welcome he had received from her was incredible.
She had put on a tremendous display of affection with continual ‘play bows’ and snuffling of the puppy to show her affection. However, there was always the possibility that a little overly zealous play could result in one tiny puppy with a broken leg, or even worse, so he was left alone in the kitchen – his first time away from his mother and siblings – and boy did he protest!
Within, perhaps, ten minutes of getting into bed there came a noise like nothing I had ever encountered before in my life. Seeming to come from the very soul of this tiny little bundle of loveliness was a sound so disturbing that I half expected a whole force of policemen to come crashing through the front door, in order to save some poor victim from a horrendous torture, involving red hot pokers, the pulling of teeth and lemon juice on numerous paper cuts. The noise was like a combination of a growl, a scream, a bark and a cough, all entwined to form one tremendous cacophony of distress.
My husband told me at the time that it’s a sound like no other and one which he suggested could be quite unique to Staffies. He and his friend had previously named the noise ‘ockerling’ but I doubt that this appears in the dictionary and if it does I don’t know how it could truly be put into words! Barney seemed to be crying “Nhoooo, nhoooo” as though refusing to believe that he had been left so alone in this dark and strange environment and feeling certain that, if he protested loud and hard enough, he would be saved. And do you know what – he was damned well RIGHT!
No sooner had we got into bed than we were up again, debating what to do about the newly acquired monster in the kitchen. We didn’t want to set a precedent by bringing him upstairs, but we both silently knew that neither of us would be willing to shift ourselves to the kitchen, with the prospect of a night on the floor, potentially surrounded by puppy poo. In the end we decided to place him in a large box, with a soft, warm pillow at the bottom. We then brought him upstairs, beside our own bed and thankfully – mainly due to the fact that my hubby slept with his hand inside the box throughout – the little fella slept soundly for the rest of the night….
From then on, he would never sleep downstairs again and, in time, would progress from the floor to the bed and eventually even to underneath the covers. (I know, my mother would be horrified!) For many wonderful years to come, even in the midst of sleep, we would feel him move and simultaneously lift the duvet to allow him to climb in between us for his nightly snuggle.
As Barney matured, despite the odd run in with other dogs, on the whole he was pretty tolerant of other canines and in his later years he became known as ‘Uncle Barney’ as we would regular entrust him with the care of any young puppies we had. He would sit in the kitchen on his favourite old armchair, pup sitting upright by his side, looking for all the world as though he was telling tales of the ‘good old days’ and passing on his wisdom to the youngster for the future.
Barney taught me that bull breeds and, in particular, Staffies are wonderful dogs that are, sadly, much misunderstood. I miss the little guy – and I’m sure many of you will know EXACTLY how that feels ☺ xx
The above is an extract from ‘Doggy Dilemmas – the Animal Antics of Canine Psychologist Jo Wood’ which is available on from just £1.53 on Amazon via this link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=doggy+dilemmas
The book tells how Jo learnt to appreciate bull-breed dogs and entered the crazy world of dog behaviour. There are stories of some of her most interesting and entertaining cases, as well as a whole host of helpful tips on dealing with any ‘Doggy Dilemmas’ of your own.
North West Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club 