Adina the Trainer – The Superman Stop – The Sound of a Pheasant – Training as Mind Control – Two Adoring Dogs – The Real Stanley

The dog trainer’s coming tomorrow and I have to say, she can’t come soon enough. She looks great. A specialist in rehomed dogs. There are clips on her website of her swimming in the sea with a dog, walking smartly along suburban roads with a dog looking up at her adoringly, turning about, walking smartly the other way. The only thing that worries me is the physical gesture she demonstrates for the Emergency Stop. Bending her left leg, stretching her right leg back, flashing out her right arm with the palm of the hand flat. She looks like Superman leaning in to catch a train. The dog stops dead, of course, but I don’t know. I might feel self-conscious using a pose like that. We’ll see.

Stanley definitely needs some super-advice, though. A bag of treats or a bag of kryptonite – we’re open to suggestions. It’s strange, how well-behaved he is around the house (for the most part), and how oblivious he is when we let him off the lead. Not a hint of a check to see where we are, not a sign he’s even dimly aware of us shouting, blowing on the whistle, or jumping up and down, brandishing the treat bag. He’s just gone, utterly in thrall to his nature, chasing the spirit of the great wild space running out endlessly in front of him.

To be fair, even to a non-dog, it’s a pretty enchanting world. Out on the walk this morning there’s a low mist drifting in over the fields, everything ghosted, chill, strange, like it’s all hanging back, waiting for something. Monstrous tree shapes looming overhead. Somewhere close by, the sudden cry of a pheasant, deep in the bramble breaks – a sharp, unearthly, ratcheting sound, like a tin can violin played with a hacksaw.

I have to catch Stan a couple of times, so for most of the walk he’s back on the lead. I feel bad. It’s like slinging a line on a spirit, tricking Ariel into a tree.

I hope the trainer’s as good as she looks. I promise I’ll even do the Superman Stop if it means Stanley can have his freedom.

The way Stan and Lola trot up to Adina as she comes through the front door, you’d think they’d known the dog trainer all their lives. She greets them in such an easy and familiar way you can tell she’s lived with dogs and knows their ways. Everyone’s immediately relaxed. This is going to work.
‘Would you like some tea?’ I say.
‘Do you have any herbal?’
‘Peppermint, I think.’
‘That would be wonderful! Thank you!’
She smiles, and it’s only when I’m halfway through preparing the drinks I realise I’ve made myself a cup of peppermint tea, too, instead of coffee.
Damn – she’s good.

It’s a cold day and Adina’s wearing lots of layers – a bright, chunky knit hat, a flower-patterned scarf, a battered waterproof jacket over a charcoal-grey roll-neck. She shucks off a pair of ancient leather pixie boots in the hallway – made easier by the fact their fluorescent green laces are already untied – and pads through to the living room in her socks, where she pulls off her hat and roughly spikes-up her straight black hair, her angular earrings jangling. She’s like a crow after bathing in a puddle, acutely bright and alert. The dogs are the most enthralled of us all. They pay her such close attention as she takes the jacket and scarf off, I wouldn’t be surprised if they bowed and offered to carry them through for her.

We sit at the kitchen table, Adina at one end, me and Kath either side. Even the dogs sit. And we haven’t even trained them to sit.

‘Good!’ she says, smiling indulgently, passing them both a tiny treat from the pouch she carries on her belt.
‘Now, then. Tell me a little bit about yourselves.’
And I realise she means us.

‘Of course we cannot know what has happened to Stanley before he was rescued,’ says Adina, sipping her tea with one hand, idly scratching Stanley’s head with the other. He’s planted his head in her lap, so devotedly the rest of his body is pretty much suspended, like those magicians who hypnotise their assistants lying on a table supported by two chairs – and then take the chairs away. ‘I mean – we know he wasn’t fed or exercised enough, you can see that. Poor Stanley! His legs are not strong at the moment, and he still needs to put on weight. This situation, dogs like Stanley – it’s almost like an abused child, in many ways. You have to take it slow. Give them the love and encouragement to see that things are different now. That he can trust you. And this will emerge over time. But you must be prepared. It is quite usual for issues to come up.’
‘Issues?’
‘Setbacks, you know? Strange things. Like layers. The real dog is in there – isn’t it, Stanley? Hey? I mean, you can see this already. He is good boy. Our job only is to give Stanley the love he needs to relax, feel at home, and be free to be the dog he truly is.’
Adina smiles at me and Kath.
And it really feels as if she thinks we can do that.
‘So now – we begin,’ she says, putting her cup down.
Lola trots over, on cue, and the two dogs sit side-by-side to attention.
‘Good!’ she says, and hands them both a treat.