LITMIR.BIZ

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this is what you do every morning?’ I said to her.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Now show me how you come home.’

      ‘Okay.’ Lily unlocked the front door, and rushed in, her arms wide open.

      ‘Darling, here I amagain—Mummy’s ba-ck!’ Jennifer, though by now clearly confused, responded with an ecstatic grunt. ‘Did you miss me, darling?’ Lily crooned as she picked her up and cuddled her. ‘Did you? Well I really missed you too. I love my lickle baby Jennifer, and I don’t like leaving her, do I, my darling? No, no, no—I don’t!’

      She put the dog down.

      ‘That’s how I do it.’

      ‘Hmm.’

      We went back into the sitting room and I explained what she was doing wrong—that she was making such a huge thing of leaving and returning that she was working Jennifer up into a frenzy. ‘You’ve got to be cooler about it all,’ I advised her. ‘Be quite off-hand. In the mornings, don’t go in for these long, drawn-out departures—you make it all so much more traumatic than it has to be, and that gets her in a terrible state.’ I advised her to vary her leaving routine, and to leave her on her own at other times, unexpectedly. ‘Just pop out without telling her,’ I said.

      ‘Without telling her?’ repeated Lily incredulously.

      ‘Yes. Then come back, as casual as you like. That way she’ll get used to you coming and going and she won’t panic, which means she won’t be destructive. And when you come home in the evenings, be warm to her, of course, but not too delirious—after all, you’ve only been to work, not round the world. You’re making far too much of it all, so you’re giving her massive psychological stress.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Lily slowly. ‘Right.’ I glanced at the mantelpiece, which was white with invitations.

      ‘Do you leave her on her own in the evenings—when you go to parties, for example?’

      ‘No, she always comes along.’

      ‘I see.’ She got down an invitation and handed it to me. It was for a reception at the French Embassy. In the top left-hand corner, it read, ‘Miss Lily Jago and Miss Jennifer Aniston.’

      ‘Jennifer’s extremely popular,’ said Lily proudly. ‘We go everywhere together. They even let her in at The Ivy, which is more than can be said for Geri Halliwell’s shih-tzu.’

      ‘So she’s never really been left alone at all before now, day or night?’

      ‘No. Never,’ Lily replied.

      ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I have another suggestion. You could, if you were to follow my advice, gradually get Jennifer more used to being on her own, but given the over-attachment problem that she has—that you both have actually—I think it would take a long time. So a better solution, in my view, would be to get a puppy, to keep her company.’

      Lily stared at me as though I were mad. ‘A puppy?’ she echoed. ‘You mean, another dog?’ I nodded. ‘Another Jennifer?’ I nodded again. She suddenly beamed. ‘What a brilliant idea! Would you like that, darling?’ she said, lifting the dog onto her lap. She adjusted the diamanté barrette in Jennifer’s floor-length blonde hair. ‘Would you like a sweet little puppy to play with?’ Jennifer grunted. ‘A little fwendy-wendy? You would? She says yes!’ she informed me happily. ‘Well, Mummy’s going to find you one. That’s a superb idea,’ she said. ‘Quite brilliant. I’d never have thought of that. You’re a genius, Miranda. In fact, you’re such a genius I’m going to do a feature on you in Moi!’

      ‘Oh!’

      ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’m going to send my best feature writer, India Carr, to interview you—have I got your card?—yes, here it is—and I’ll hire a top photographer to take some really nice pics. What shall I call it? “Barking Mad”—no—“Miss Behaviour”! Yes!! “Miss Behaviour”! How about that?’

      I knew that Lily wouldn’t really do an interview with me—she was just being effusive—but when I got back I found that the Camden New Journal had phoned to say that yes, they would like to run a piece. I was pleased—some local publicity would be good.

      ‘How long will the article be?’ I asked the reporter, Tim, the following morning, as he got his notebook out of his bag. He looked about eighteen but was probably twenty-five.

      ‘About a thousand words—that’s nearly a page—I write them up in quite a light-hearted way. The peg is the opening of your practice—“Pet Shrink Comes to Primrose Hill”—and I’ll plug Animal Crackers as well.’

      ‘Would you also mention my puppy parties?’

      He laughed. ‘Sure—but what are they? I don’t have a dog.’

      ‘They’re a kind of canine kindergarten,’ I explained. ‘They’re very important for socializing young dogs so that they don’t have behavioural problems in later life.’

      ‘Cool,’ he said, as he took the top off his pen. ‘Puppy…parties,’ he muttered as he scribbled in his pad. ‘Are they by invitation only?’ he asked with a straight face.

      ‘Sort of. I mean, their mums and dads have to book.’

      ‘So it’s RSVP then. And is it Bring a Bottle?’

      ‘No,’ I said with a smile.

      ‘Dress code?’

      ‘Casual. But collars will be worn.’

      ‘Time and venue?’

      ‘Seven p.m., every Wednesday, here. Fifteen pounds p.p.’

      ‘That’s per puppy?’

      ‘Correct. Carriages at nine. They start next week and I’ve still got a few empty spaces.’

      His pen flew across the page in a longhand/shorthand hybrid. ‘Few…empty…spaces. That’s great.’ Then he asked me for some personal background. So I told him, briefly, about growing up in Brighton, then mentioned my five years at Bristol and explained why I’d given up being a vet.

      ‘But it wasn’t simply the stress,’ I went on. ‘Being a vet means that you’re usually mending just one bit of the animal—you’re prescribing, or doing surgery, or setting bones. But as a behaviourist you’re working with the whole animal, which I find more interesting, because it means trying to fathom their minds.’

      ‘And are you Jungian or Freudian?’ he asked with a smirk.

      I laughed. ‘Neither.’

      ‘Seriously though,’ he said, ‘do animals really need psychiatrists? Isn’t it just a bit of a fad for indulgent pet-owners? Like having aromatherapy for your Persian cat, for example, or having your dog’s kennel feng-shuied?’

      ‘Animal behaviourism is a new area, that’s true,’ I replied. ‘But it isn’t a passing fashion—it’s here to stay; because we now know that developing greater insight into animal psychology means having well-balanced pets. They don’t “misbehave” or behave “inappropriately”, because they’re happy—and they’re happy because they’re understood.’ I then told him the story of how I’d got Herman. ‘Did you know that in the West the biggest cause of death in young dogs isn’t accidents or illness,’ I went on; ‘it’s euthanasia due to behavioural problems. I find that incredibly sad. Because the fact is that so many of these behavioural problems would be completely preventable if only people knew what made their pets tick.’

      ‘What are the most common problems you see?’

      ‘Aggression, separation distress, fears and phobias, obsessive behaviour, attention-seeking…’

      ‘And what about the

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