Do You Remember

Do You Remember?

We all have memories from our childhood, even if its just one and is in our subconscious mind. I’m lucky as I have a lot of really happy memories and a few not so good ones that I, or my mind, choose to dismiss. But I have two memories that were not worthy of great emotion but have stuck in my mind, probably because they have helped me to understand so many dogs with problems.

My first one was when I was very young, young enough to go to bed on my own but not old enough feel confident in the dark. I don’t think I can hold television responsible for this memory but for those who remember listening to the radio on an evening there could be some pretty scary stuff. Our farm house was big and cold with a steep staircase and poor lighting, the scene is set with just that bit of information. I would start upstairs at a slow controlled walk, get to step number three and start speeding up, by the time I reached the top step somewhere in my darkest thoughts my brain was telling me that someone was behind me! Did I calm down at the top? No, I darted into my room and took a flying leap from the doorway straight on the bed – that way the baddie hiding under it couldn’t get me. My Mum would ask me if I was scared and of course my reply was always, ‘No, what is there it be scared of?’ I think I was hoping for confirmation that all was fine but I must have been so convincing that she didn’t feel the need to take it any further.

How does this relate to a dog? We know from my memory that our imagination can escalate until we begin to believe it. A dog, barking at nothing in particular, can soon build itself into an uncontrollable barking frenzy. A dog that panics at something, it could be another dog, a passing car or even just a noise it hears, can start to jump up at its owner and before long it is in a blind panic, nipping and air snapping. When this has happened a couple of times it becomes a stronger memory but, if each time there is an incident that causes this panic the dog is calmed before it gets into hysteria mode, it can start to learn how to keep calm. Let’s face it I don’t still race upstairs like a scared child!

My second memory is about a film I watched on television, or rather I dragged out getting undressed and having my supper as long as possible as was intrigued and wanted to know what happened. I don’t know how old I was but would be under ten and the film was called ‘Remember Helen’. Helen and her husband were happily married, or so he thought, and she was on a flight home. He had a really disturbing dream that if he couldn’t remember her she would lose her life in a plane crash. You know the type of thing, colour of eyes, favourite food and film, first pet, etc. But this guy was struggling to remember and he was running out of time. Then I heard the magic words that could not be ignored, BED NOW!

Next morning I asked my parents what happened to Helen? They switched it off as it was boring! To this day I have no idea what happened to her and I can’t track the film (yes that sad) so it must have been made for television. Again, where do dogs come into this? Like us dogs have memories and there is always one that stays with them unless we can help them to solve it. A small pup can have a memory of a car back firing, motor bike revving up, a loud bang that scared them and if at the time we are not present, or we don’t notice it, then it escalates. While it’s a puzzle to the owner it’s a very strong memory for the dog that can stay with it throughout its life, unless it can be tracked and cleared from the memory.

Sometimes it’s good to take a trip down memory lane and remember how we felt at the time, there may be a smell or word that triggers a memory for us and dogs are no different. The smell of Jays Fluid used to make rescue dog Laddie aggressive and a large white van made rescue Jess scared. I took the offending memories out of the equation for a long time then slowly and at a distance re-introduced the white van building up Jess’s confidence and trust. The Jays Fluid wasn’t something Laddie was likely to smell very often but I did make sure that although he hated he could ignore it, one never knows who you might meet smelling of what!