Stanley makes his bed and lies in it – The Lurcher that Never Looks Back – Not Really Disney Material – The Farm Dog Theory – Stanley McQueen – Spock as Dog Whisperer

Stanley’s been home a few days now and he’s absolutely perfect. Almost.

He’s affectionate, gentle, inquisitive. He has a funny way of pulling out the throw we use to cover the sofa at night, dragging it into the middle of the room, twirling it round into a weird kind of nest, then plomping himself down in the middle of it (sighing heavily, like a forbearing but disappointed teacher who has shown his pupils time and time again exactly what is required but STILL has to go through the motions). He sits when you ask him to sit. He stands when you ask him to stand (admittedly a bit confused when we say Stan, sit!) He takes a treat from your fingers so slowly and carefully it’s like you never had it in the first place. He doesn’t whine at night. He’s housetrained. In fact, Stanley’s so nearly perfect, it’s unnerving. But two things stop him from being a one hundred percent, gold-starred, fully certificated wonder hound. One is his barking at other dogs when he’s on the lead. The other is his recall – or, more specifically, his lack of it.

We’ve tried training him in the garden. We even bought a whistle. We blow the whistle and give him a treat when he comes back (which he does, mostly). It’s all fine. By the book. But when we take him for a walk over the fields and let him off, he becomes a different dog altogether. He ignores the whistle. He ignores the shouting, the frenetic rattling of treat bags, the slapping of thighs and general carrying-on. He heads off, onward, outward, away. Head up, tail out. He does NOT look back. The only reason he MIGHT stop is to write a quick letter and post it. The letter will arrive in a day or so. It will read: Dear People. I am GONE. Yours &c, S.

It’s like we’re mad inventors who built a clockwork hound only capable of running in one direction, and when it’s disappeared over the horizon we’re left looking at each other, suddenly realising the basic design flaw.

Nothing works. It’s a simple fact. Stanley will NOT come back. All we can do is head him off in a Billy Smart’s Circus version of the pincer movement, tramping through the grass as quickly as our enormous boots, flashing bow ties and buckets of confetti will allow.

If we get the angle right it’s effective, though, because the ONE good thing about Stan on the Run is that he will keep coming on, straight, in a relentless trot, so much so that when he makes contact and you grab his harness, his feet keep on wheeling round and round (or at least it feels like they do), and he looks astonished, because he can’t understand what the problem is.

Yesterday was different, though. Yesterday was dangerous.

We set off as usual, Lola on one side, Stanley on the other. Filled with sunshine and optimism and bonhomie. I feel good. Man and dogs in perfect harmony.

I see a woman on the other side of the road with an immaculate GSP. They totally look like each other, in that Disney way – heads up, noses high, marching along the pavement in perfect step with each other.

‘Good morning!’ I say. If I’d been wearing a hat, I’d certainly have lifted it.

‘Good morning!’ she says.

Then Stanley barks. That great, open-throated, wilderness-worrying, howling harroo. The sound that would make a wolf turn vegetarian.

The woman and her dog hover a few inches above the pavement for a second, and hurry on.

Over the fields Lola is running on ahead in her perfectly easy and reliable way. I’ve still got Stanley on the lead, though. I want to let him off, too, but every time we’ve done it so far he’s ended up running away, or got stuck head-first in some brambles.

Whilst I’m thinking about this, a friend of ours – Jackie, the woman who helps run the choir Kath sings in, calls to me from the gate. Her little dog Max must be somewhere around, too. He’s a cute thing, a cross between a border terrier and a lamb, as far as I can tell. I’m a little worried how Stan’s going to react meeting him whilst he’s still on the lead, but when I say this to Jackie she’s pretty forthright.

‘Oh – let him off!’ she says. ‘I was brought up on a farm and we never had any of this nonsense! No! You just let them get on with it. I know they all go on about training, but really – they’re just dogs! But that’s me. I can’t see the point of having a dog and worrying too much. They sort themselves out!’

So I let Stanley off.

And actually – it seems to work. He has a good sniff around the bramble thicket nearest to us, but doesn’t do a swan dive into them. And when Max finally appears they greet each other calmly and courteously, and nothing much happens, and after Jackie and I chat for a bit about the choir and the upcoming tour and stuff, she carries on walking, and I head in to the next field.

Which is where it all goes wrong. Stanley suddenly speeds up, double-time. He’s caught wind of some rabbits over the far side. He’s at the fence in no time at all, despite his back legs still being weak from those years of neglect. He tries to jump the fence – which has barbed wire along the top. I can hardly watch.

But of course, I do.

It reminds me of that scene in The Great Escape, when Steve McQueen tries to clear the barbed wire fences on a motorbike. Except at least Steve McQueen manages a couple. Stan falls at the first attempt, not jumping it so much as speculatively launching himself into the air with his four legs spread in an X. It’s a miracle he doesn’t end up crucified on the wire; as it is, he falls back in a heap. He’s just getting back on the bike when I catch up with him and clip the lead back on.

Needless to say, we start looking round for a dog trainer.

Kath gets a recommendation for a militaristic woman who lives locally and specialises in gun dogs, but I’m not sure whether she’ll be a good fit. All that saluting and duck work. I’m holding out for more of a dog-whisperer type, someone who can do the canine equivalent of the Vulcan mind meld. I imagine them watching Stanley performing his bed trick, when they’ll smile mysteriously, write three little words on a scrap of paper, the key to the mystery of this particular dog, and then hand the paper over:

Twirling, Feeding and Rabbits