Essays
Longer pieces on living with dogs in a dense city: the working day, the industrialisation of pet care, the lead as a social contract, and what a dog does to your map of a place.
33 articles. Search the full index.
33 articles
The words we use about dogs
You cannot be angry at a sentence about distances.
The walk you do not feel like taking
The dog does not distinguish between the walks you enjoyed and the ones you endured.
Children, dogs and the supervision nobody does
The growl is not the beginning of the problem. It is the last polite stage of it.
What a walk actually costs
A price is meaningless without the group size and the travel time attached to it.
Small dogs, and the training they never get
Picking up a frightened dog removes the only strategy it had.
The dog in the photograph
Would you set this up if nobody could see the result?
On saying no
Ask under what circumstances they would say no to your dog. The answer tells you what the yes is worth.
The dog you did not choose
Less attention produces a less responsive dog, which then justifies less attention.
The animal we made
A nose with nothing to find and a brain with nothing to solve is not resting. It is idling.
August
Holiday cover is the one thing money cannot solve at short notice. In August there is nothing to buy.
What we mean by a good dog
A dog that has stopped objecting is not the same as a dog that is comfortable.
The best forty seconds of somebody else's afternoon
You are comparing somebody's best moment with your whole week.
The park at six
You learn the dogs' names months before the people's, and sometimes never learn those at all.
The year that asks the most
Slowing down is not a diagnosis. It is usually arthritis, and it is usually treatable.
Two minutes on the pavement
Change one thing: twenty unhurried minutes before you leave.
Letting a dog say no
A dog that cannot say no in small ways will eventually say it in a way that is harder to ignore.
Who is the walk for?
The question is not how far you went. It is how much the dog was allowed to find out.
The myth of the tired dog
You cannot exercise a dog into calmness. Only into fitness, and fitness asks for more.
What your dog reads in you
The lead is a one-metre channel for information about your internal state.
The expatriate dog
The dog that anchors you in a new country is the household member least able to be moved.
The stranger with your keys
Trust here is not a feeling. It is a set of small checkable arrangements made before anything goes wrong.
What we owe an animal that cannot leave
An animal that cannot leave is owed reliability more than it is owed enthusiasm.
Write down the boring days
You compare your dog against yesterday. A record gives you a fixed point instead.
The trouble with breeds
Breed is a weather forecast, not a timetable.
Time, not love
Dogs do not experience affection as a credit that can be paid later.
Winter through a dog's nose
The walk you find least enjoyable is frequently the one the dog finds most interesting.
Silence in a building of neighbours
The dog is not the problem in the way a leaking pipe is. It is the part that makes a noise.
Rescue or breeder: the argument that never ends
The dividing line is not rescue against breeder. It is careful against careless.
The lead as a social contract
Your dog's temperament is not the variable the rule manages. The stranger's uncertainty is.
A city measured in walks
A dog does not improve your city. It obliges you to use it on foot, slowly, in all weather.
The kindest mistake
Attribute states, not motives. That it is frightened, yes. That it is trying to punish you, no.
Against convenience: the industrialisation of pet care
The convenience model serves best the animals that need it least.
The eleven-hour dog
Boredom is a weak word for it. The accurate description is a working brain with no material.
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Between the articles
Dogs being dogs, in every season.
The practical reading is above. This part is just for the pleasure of it.
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Reading about it is not the same as covering the day
A free meet & greet takes thirty minutes at your home and commits you to nothing.