Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Dogs on the furniture

In my eyes, there is little more important than the very, very ultra-basic rule of training your dog not to jump on the furniture - or on anyone sat on the furniture for that matter.

I have a friend who I occasionally visit, who owns a bulldog.  One of the reasons I only visit her occasionally is that you cannot sit down, or try to have a drink, without the dog jumping on you, jumping on the furniture next to you and generally just being a nuisance.  She behaves constantly like a new parent, cooing over her and ‘asking’ her not to do that so you cannot even have a conversation either.

It is a real shame because it gives dogs a bad name and stops people from wanting dog owners to pop round or visit and bring their dogs with them.

For example, my own dog is very well behaved, and although I won’t take her to visit friends who don’t like dogs at all, she is still allowed to visit most people and even one of my friends who doesn’t like dogs, actually doesn’t mind my dog.  In her words, my dog is ‘more like a cat’, which I think means well-behaved.  Good job too, because my friend has a lot of very fancy, antique furniture and oriental furniture, so if my dog were to do any damage, then it would either cost me a lot of money or cost me a valued friendship.