Sherman

Details have been changed to protect anonymity.

Over the years I have been asked if I can train a number of dogs to perform a specific task and sometimes it was an unusual request. For instance, the lady who asked if I could train her husband’s dog to retrieve his slippers when he came in from work? That one I did and I’ll tell you about it in a future blog.

There was the man who owned a very large estate who requested that his dog to be trained to recognise that it was time to return home when he ran a flag up the flagpole This one I declined after a meeting with the gentleman in question and discovered the request was;

• (a) impractical; the estate contained large numbers of trees.
• (b) the estate was not secure.
• (c) the gentleman was desperately overweight with a florid face which gave the impression that he imbibed large quantities of alcohol. A heart attack beckoned. My suggestion that a regular walk in the fresh air in such beautiful surroundings was beneficial for all concerned was met with a steely glare. I departed!!

There were others but for me one of the most memorable was Sherman.

The client was Doctor Thompson a retired surgeon who having dedicated herself to saving lives and having had her own life disrupted at all hours of the day and night for years she was looking forward to the one thing that she had always dreamed about. She had promised herself that in retirement she would luxuriate in bed in the morning, turn on the teasmaid, read the morning post and open the mail. There was only one problem. To do this required the Doc to go downstairs to collect the post and the morning newspaper that was delivered at roughly the same time. In order to prevent having to go downstairs and collect the items herself what could be better than sending her dog to retrieve them!! There was, however, one small difficulty. Our medics canine was decidedly unsuitable for the task.

I received the request to train the docs dog and I approached my first visit with some trepidation, the job was not the run of the mill task. I was going to meet Sherman.

Now those of you who have no military knowledge I can inform you that Sherman is the name of a tank. A tank is a very large, cumbersome, unwieldy piece of kit. Quite simply there is nothing subtle or sophisticated about it. I am sure that the personnel who serve in the army tank regiments will wax lyrical about their tanks and probably give them names but at the end of the day, a tank is still tank!

My first meeting didn’t bode well, Sherman was a very excitable two-year-old male Great Dane who greeted me by placing his paws on my shoulders giving me a very wet slurp with his very wet tongue on my face Now before I totally offend the owners and breeders of these magnificent dogs, this is a delightful breed but they are not known for their retrieving skill, the odd one maybe, but they not natural retrievers.

Teaching Sherman to collect the post was obviously going to be an uphill task. For starters, I tried the well-tested item, a well-stuffed sock. There I was doing a pretty good impression of a whirling dervish getting very excited and throwing the sock in the vain hope of getting some response and Sherman looking at me in totally disdain as much as to say “you threw it, you go and fetch it!”

Despite Sherman’s lack of enthusiasm, I was well aware that Danes were perfectly capable of performing this task, in fact, in my competition days I had seen it happen.

So we resorted to going back to basics, getting Sherman to hold the sock in his mouth and giving him a reward when I took it back.

This was going to be like training a dog for a tv or movie role, each part of the role has to taught individually then the pieces are all out together to produce the final drama that you see on the screen.

My daily visits finally produced a positive reaction and we eventually moved on to retrieving the sock, unfortunately, Sherman took this to mean that he should grab hold and shake it like he was killing it and then spitting it out and rolling on it. Although my visits each day could only last a short time to ensure that Sherman didn’t become bored, but the hours were mounting up.

Progress was painfully slow and I was duty-bound to inform the Doc that at this rate her bill was going to be enormous.

She smiled sweetly and informed me that she had every faith.

Working with veterinary surgeons had taught me that when operating the surgeon was likely at any time to find something unexpected and the problem had to be faced and dealt with, walking away when the going got tough wasn’t an option. After all, the surgeon couldn’t just quit, sew up the animal and walk away.

With this attitude in mind we battled on and as the weeks passed progress was made. Sherman FINALLY grasped the concept of retrieving, however, little did I know that my troubles were only just starting.

Transferring his new skill into retrieving newspapers and post presented a new challenge.

Being a very large slobbery dog meant the paper items were swiftly turned into extremely soggy lumps of tissue paper that when dried the took on the shape of the sort of unidentifiable paper mache animals that we all learned to do at school in the art class. I wonder how many bemused parents can remember when their offspring proudly presented them with this misshapen, unidentifiable object and were informed that this was a cat!!!

Sorry, I digress, back to business.

It was impossible to get cross with Sherman as the exercise was supposed to be fun and as I was the professional this had to be approached just like any other job.

At last, Sherman was able to retrieve both newspapers and mail without difficulty, but unfortunately, there was another problem to overcome. Due to the design of the house going downstairs necessitated performing a sharp left turn at the bottom of the stairs, a task that Sherman performed daily, however, now that the rattle of the letterbox signified post and in turn a tasty reward this encouraged Sherman to hurtle down the stairs only to crash headfirst into the front door. Having established that there was no damage to Sherman or the door we continued.

Well, to cut a long story short we eventually got a result. Sherman became the delivery canine extraordinaire, the Doc was delighted and I was exhausted!!!

I collected my fee and departed but of course, being Sherman there had to be a postscript.

Several weeks later I received a phone call from a very giggly Doctor Thompson asking if it was possible for a dog to be an entrepreneur. That morning there were four letters, a circular and a copy of the Times newspaper. It transpired that Sherman was only bringing them one at a time thus receiving six biscuits instead of one!!