Hendrix is completely not a nasty canine. A sweet-faced black cockapoo, he’s a beloved household pet and dedicated to his homeowners. But in a way, that’s the issue. He will get so anxious if left alone that he as soon as chewed a door body proper via to the plaster, and has gouged floorboards. Left within the automobile as soon as for a couple of minutes whereas his proprietor nipped to the store, he shredded a seatbelt.
His proprietor, Naz Karim, a 45-year-old software program developer from Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, now works from home full-time, which has helped. But the minute he or his spouse and two teenage kids choose up their keys to go away the home, Hendrix begins getting nervous.
“He panics at the first sign that someone’s going to go out. He’ll start to follow us round,” Karim sighs. “If we lock him in a room, he will try to get through the door. If there’s anything to hand like a towel or a bed, he will tear that up. He even broke a window in the front door one time.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, lockdown suited Hendrix. “He was getting more walks than before and he loves us all being home. He seems to like being in the middle of a pack,” Karim says. Though the household lately acquired a second canine, hoping that having canine firm would soothe nine-year-old Hendrix, it doesn’t seem to have labored. Recently when one thing spooked him on a walk, Hendrix ran off; he was discovered hours later in a stranger’s backyard with an injured leg. Three months’ enforced relaxation and a £5,000 vet’s invoice later, his torn ligament has healed however not his nerves.
Cockapoos, a cross between a poodle and a cocker spaniel, at the moment are Britain’s second hottest canine, eclipsed solely by the Instagram-friendly French bulldog. Fluffy and affectionate, they attraction to households wanting playmates for youngsters. But the combination of poodle intelligence and bouncy spaniel power makes for energetic dogs needing a number of train and psychological stimulation. Karim and his spouse have argued about whether or not Hendrix may fare higher dwelling with a retired couple, at home with him on a regular basis. But the household don’t wish to give him up; they only need him to be blissful.
For too many British dogs, happiness recently appears elusive. Six in 10 vets surveyed by the welfare charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) for its annual Paw report on pet wellbeing reported an increase in canine behavioural issues – mostly leaping up, barking and whining, or displaying misery when left – within the final two years, together with a extra worrying rise in dogs growling, snapping, biting or displaying different indicators of worry. Even President Joe Biden’s two-year-old German shepherd, Commander, lately left the White House underneath a cloud after allegedly biting his grasp’s bodyguards, with aides blaming a “stressful” surroundings within the corridors of energy; Boris Johnson’s rescue terrier Dilyn, infamous for humping officers’ legs, may sympathise. Nine out of 10 pet groomers, kennel homeowners and doggy daycare workers surveyed by the Pet Industry Federation say they’re seeing extra unruly behaviour from their furry shoppers, whereas the National Farmers’ Union warns of an increase in out-of-control pets chasing sheep. Dr Samantha Gaines, from the RSPCA, warned MPs in September that we in all probability haven’t seen the worst of it, with some dangerous habits solely more likely to emerge over the age of two and a half.
Dogs behaving badly are, in fact, not new. A brief YouTube clip of a black labrador chasing deer throughout Richmond Park in London – hotly pursued by his helpless proprietor, shouting “Jesus Christ, Fenton!” – went wildly viral in 2011 exactly as a result of so many house owners recognized together with his mortification. At the extra harmful finish of the spectrum, recent alarm over various vicious assaults by American XL bully dogs mirrors the Nineties scare over pitbulls, which initially prompted the Dangerous Dogs Act. But recently, one thing new appears to be upsetting the fragile canine equilibrium.
The rush to get a lockdown puppy – for firm, or simply as a result of somebody was home all day to coach it – noticed Britain’s canine inhabitants surge from round 9 million to greater than 12 million between 2019 and 2021, with unusually excessive numbers of inexperienced first-time homeowners taking the plunge.
With demand vastly outstripping provide, some ended up shopping for dogs sight unseen from breeders working in doubtful situations, or adopting stray avenue dogs from overseas. Almost one in 5 pandemic puppy consumers, in response to a 2020 survey by the Kennel Club, confessed to not having thought the entire thing via, and 18% weren’t positive what they might do after they returned to work. Others realised too late that boisterous puppies shortly tire of watching home-working homeowners sit at a pc for eight hours.
Meanwhile, Covid restrictions meant many dogs missed out on crucial alternatives for socialisation, or being launched to potential stressors – starting from toddlers to different canines – whereas nonetheless young sufficient to adapt. Three years on, what have been as soon as naughty however lovable pups at the moment are totally grown dogs in whom leaping up, barking and nipping are now not remotely cute.
But older dogs, too, confronted unsettling modifications to their routines, with households that had as soon as been out all day now home across the clock, plus rising tensions within the park because of all the brand new pups on the block. Given how finely attuned they’re to human feelings, maybe we shouldn’t be stunned our dogs are as careworn as we’re.
All this has led to a booming market in taming troubled mutts, from trainers providing courses that educate the basic instructions to celeb canine behaviourists, with worth tags to match. (One-to-one teaching from Graeme Hall, star presenter of Channel 5’s hit sequence Dogs Behaving Badly, begins from £875, according to his website – or would, if he wasn’t at present too busy filming to just accept shoppers.) Those cash-rich however time-poor homeowners with greater than £2,000 to spare may even pack their pets off for a few months’ coaching to “dog boarding schools”. For these on tighter budgets, self-styled canine whisperers promising to work miracles in a single day when you simply purchase their e book, video or subscribe to their channel are throughout YouTube and Instagram; there are even canine reiki practitioners, promising to appease your hound’s interior turmoil with therapeutic fingers.
It’s all a far cry from Barbara Woodhouse, the previous horse coach who was 70 when her 1980 TV present Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way taught a nation to take no nonsense from its pets. Just as parenting practices have advanced because the 80s, the domineering Woodhouse manner has been discredited by a brand new era of behaviour consultants and emotionally literate homeowners – or as some name themselves, dad and mom – eager to know how their dogs assume and really feel. But might we people unwittingly be a part of the issue?
Last 12 months, the rescue charity Dogs Trust turned so nervous concerning the variety of dogs being given up for rehoming due to behaviour issues that it based an recommendation line for homeowners geared toward nipping bother within the bud. The most typical calls, says behaviour help supervisor Katy Errock, contain reactivity – barking, growling and lunging at different dogs or individuals – however separation anxiousness, useful resource guarding (growling or snapping if requested to drop a toy or meals) and attention-seeking behaviour resembling barking every time an proprietor goes on Zoom additionally function. Callers are sometimes “very distressed”, she says, and keen to attempt something: some have rearranged their complete lives round their dogs. But in lots of working houses, that isn’t all the time potential.
“What dogs now have to adapt to in our lives has changed. There’s a lot of people working, having busy lifestyles, maybe feeling a bit guilty about leaving the dog at home all day,” Errock says. So we compensate by taking pets with us wherever potential – to the workplace, to cafes and resorts, or much more unique novelties like canine-friendly cinema screenings – with out realising that our thought of high quality time isn’t essentially theirs. “A dog might well be bored sat in a cafe. Traditionally, you would have people go on a two-hour walk then go to a quiet pub and the dog falls asleep under the table – that’s very different from going out for brunch.” For a playful pooch, sitting quietly in a restaurant filled with different dogs is perhaps irritating; a nervous one may discover it hectic.
Unrealistic expectations fuelled by Instagram or TikTok #doggos don’t essentially assist both, she says, whereas Googling for recommendation is usually a minefield. Anyone in Britain can name themselves a canine behaviourist – there’s no single official qualification or register, although the Animal Behaviour and Training Council (ABTC) listing of accepted practitioners is seen because the gold normal – and dangerous ones could make an already fearful canine extra aggressive. Apart from checking its accredited listing, to discover a respected behaviourist the ABTC’s Jane Williams recommends avoiding anybody who talks in Woodhousean phrases about establishing your dominance as chief of the pack, who advocates “aversive” strategies to punish the canine into compliance, like yanking on its lead, shouting or scary it, or who doesn’t insist on a vet checkup first to remove any underlying medical points.
Dr Sarah Heath is a specialist in veterinary behaviour medication and fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons who has spent 31 years treating troubled pets referred by different vets. Unlike the YouTube gurus peddling fast fixes, Heath operates extra like a therapist, exploring the emotional, psychological and bodily well being elements underpinning a canine’s behaviour. “The most important message is understanding the underlying reasons for the behaviour they’re showing,” she explains between sufferers at her Cheshire clinic. Behaviour is usually a signal of sickness – undiagnosed ache could make the sweetest canine snappy, therefore the necessity for a veterinary checkup – however can be a discovered response, or response to the canine’s surroundings. And simply as stress can exacerbate human sicknesses, she argues that dogs’ psychological and bodily well being are intently entwined. “Reactivity, barking, chewing, behaving in a certain way when you’re separated – there’s no one cause for any of these things. If you just approach it from the sign and you want to get rid of the sign but you haven’t understood why it’s there, you might be using a totally inappropriate response.”
Over the years, Heath has seen the connection between dogs and what she calls their “caregivers” change. (“Owner” is the proper authorized time period, she says, however implies dogs are instruments for our use; she doesn’t use “parent” as a result of dogs are dogs, not infants.) “Things have moved on. We talk a great deal more about emotional health in human animals and we recognise that things that were acceptable once aren’t now.” Though she does see overstressed cats and the occasional rabbit or parrot, her caseload is generally canine and the commonest grievance is what she calls “confrontational” behaviour, on the grounds that snarling and barking can point out worry or frustration, not simply aggression. “There are more dogs in the population now, and just as with humans, we have a potentially emotionally compromised generation – there’s an impact of the pandemic for dogs, too,” Heath says firmly. Instead of asking why so many dogs are behaving badly, she suggests, “maybe what we should be asking is: what’s the emotional state of this generation of puppies? And their emotional resilience is not as good.”
The first canine casualty of lockdown, Heath thinks, was sleep. “Dogs need 14 to 18 hours of sleep, and puppies need up to 20 hours. The problem with the pandemic generation is they didn’t get anything like enough sleep, because humans were with them all the time.” That could have been very true in households with bored kids caught at home all day, and analysis by Dr Rowena Packer for the Royal Veterinary College suggests pandemic puppy consumers have been extra doubtless than their 2019 counterparts to share their houses with kids underneath 10. They have been additionally extra more likely to have been purchased to maintain kids firm, whereas almost half of householders admitted getting a canine to enhance their very own psychological well being, in contrast with 38% pre-Covid. As comforting as cuddling a canine undoubtedly is, being performed with to the purpose of sleep deprivation can threat puppies rising up overstimulated and hyper.
And whereas in style posts on Instagram and TikTok painting dogs leaning into their homeowners and licking them as indicators that your canine actually loves you, in canine language these can typically be indicators of fear or concern, says Heath. If homeowners reply by hugging and kissing them again, an already anxious canine could interpret that as that means their human is nervous, too, reinforcing the anxiousness. “Seeking close proximity to another dog is a sign of concern and lack of security and feeling anxious in dog language, whereas cuddling up on the sofa in human language means you feel very comfortable with them.” So how do you present love in a dog-appropriate manner? “Be socially available. If two dogs were in a very happy relationship they’d sit on separate sofas watching the same TV programme. They like to be around one another but not necessarily physically touching.” My four-year-old labrador Rudy is loud night breathing obliviously 6ft away as I take notes on this telephone dialog, which makes me really feel barely higher about his psychological well being. But nonetheless, Heath makes me take into consideration the impression of the previous few years on his canine psyche.
Rudy was just a few months old when lockdown began, and after months of leaping off slim paths into hedges every time we noticed anybody approaching, not unreasonably concluded that strangers have been scary. For months after the 2-metre social distancing rule was relaxed, he would bark at different walkers; when associates began coming to the home once more he would growl and again away, grumbling suspiciously underneath his breath for hours. Hefty bribery with low cost cocktail sausages finally persuaded him that proximity is an efficient factor and he’s now a sweet-natured canine who loves individuals, however he’s nonetheless often fearful of larger male dogs – sadly typically with good motive – which is why I’m struck by one thing else Heath says. Just as people are stated to develop up with both an optimistic or pessimistic bias relying on whether or not early experiences educate them to see the world as a benign or scary place, Heath argues dogs are biased in direction of being both engaged, trusting and pleasant – or protecting, consistently vigilant towards perceived threats. When pandemic homeowners did the accountable factor, retreating from human contact, have been we unwittingly conditioning our dogs to see the world as a daunting place, to be greeted with hackles up? And in that case, can the lesson be unlearned?
Rory Cellan-Jones has been chatting away to me in his kitchen for 10 minutes when a well-known face lastly slinks behind his chair. It’s #SophiefromRomania, the canine he and his economist spouse Diane Coyle adopted by way of an abroad charity after their beloved collie cross died. Sophie turned an in a single day social media star when the couple started chronicling her gradual however heartwarming progress on X (formerly Twitter). Initially so petrified that she hid behind the couch and refused to return out, it was a month earlier than she would even enterprise into the backyard, not to mention consent to be stroked. But step by step she has discovered to play together with her homeowners and allow them to scratch her ears. Hers is a redemption story, an irresistible story of a canine getting back from the brink, but Sophie stays a piece in progress. I find yourself assembly Cellan-Jones, a former BBC correspondent, and Sophie’s behaviourist, Si Wooler, over Zoom, as a result of she nonetheless barks furiously at strangers in the home. Her proprietor has but to have the ability to take her for a walk since she arrived in December 2022.
“I am impatient, partly because a walk with the dog was my morning routine. I’ve got Parkinson’s, and exercise is really important,” says Cellan-Jones, who admits Wooler has been as a lot his therapist as Sophie’s, educating him to just accept setbacks and belief within the course of. After weeks of slowly getting used to a harness, Sophie is almost prepared for the skin world, Wooler says. But for now she’s observing it via a stairgate put in on the entrance door, which lets her expertise the unfamiliar sights, smells and sounds of a quiet London avenue from a cushty distance.
Born after lockdown lifted, Sophie is nonetheless an excessive instance of an unsocialised canine, which makes her an intriguing litmus take a look at for pandemic puppy homeowners. Raised in a barn in Romania by the daddy of the vet who discovered her deserted by the roadside as a tiny puppy, she had by no means lived in a home or been launched to different people. Having seen her solely on video enjoying together with her trusted proprietor, Cellan-Jones admits ruefully that he and Coyle have been “completely unprepared” for a canine too nervous to enterprise past two rooms of the home for the primary six months. Having since progressed to the corridor, she nonetheless received’t deal with the steps.
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“She had very little experience of anything outside a very small circle of people, and that means she was effectively what we call neophobic – frightened of anything new,” says Wooler, who provided to assist after his companion noticed Cellan-Jones’s tweets. After initially tempting her out from behind the couch with cubes of cheese and meat, the breakthrough got here when Cellan-Jones and Coyle went on vacation and Wooler moved in to take care of Sophie. “We had two weeks of nonstop attention, which brought out the play in her,” Wooler recollects. “It then became obvious that play was the route into her, building her confidence and her trust in me.” Once belief was established, he might begin gently introducing her to new experiences, attempting concurrently to create constructive associations with issues she likes – together with video games and stomach rubs. Everything occurs in child steps, and if she isn’t comfy, they again off.
Though Sophie is now used to her homeowners, she barks in alarm at their visiting grandchildren, which will be scary. But Wooler insists it’s not a nasty factor; a fearful canine that isn’t allowed to warn individuals off on this manner has few choices however to snap. “One of my mantras is: growling is good. Growling says, ‘I’m not comfortable with this situation.’ So the really important thing is not to punish the behaviour because it’s not voluntary. They don’t choose to be afraid of something – they just are.”
Similarly, Wooler isn’t attempting to cease Sophie leaping up at her homeowners but as a result of “that’s her expression of joy”; it may be mounted later, as her confidence grows. “My message is to fix the problem, not the symptom. The crucial thing is to understand whether they’re upset or not,” he says. With an anxious canine like Sophie, he’ll search to vary their emotional response to triggers by pairing the fear-inducing expertise with one thing fascinating, to create happier associations. For a assured canine attempting to get what it needs – by barking for consideration, say – rewarding obedience is perhaps extra applicable. Either manner, Wooler is firmly towards punishing dogs; he advocates constructive rewards for behaviour you need and withholding rewards for behaviour you don’t, and his chief recommendation with nervous dogs is to take your time. “Go at their pace. Don’t try to push anything. If you play your cards right and you just accept what their limitations are, that will get better over time. And you can encourage it with chicken and cheese.” In Sophie’s case, he’s optimistic about her prospects: “Fear isn’t a linear thing – you don’t know how long it’s going to take and how far you’re going to get. But Sophie’s looking really bright in terms of her progress. I think it’s really, really positive.”
Yet undoubtedly, the method requires saintly endurance. Entertaining associates at home is troublesome, Cellan-Jones admits, and whereas his social media posts are upbeat he needs would-be rescuers of strays to be reasonable about what’s concerned. “I’ve got very down about it at various stages, which I’ve tried not to let show,” he says. “I wouldn’t ever want to give her back, but there have been times when I’ve thought: ‘God this dog is having such a difficult effect on our lives that we’re not getting the reward.’ Luckily, thanks largely to Si, she’s incredibly lovable.” But not everybody has the time, endurance or expertise to do what he and Coyle have completed.
During lockdown, when demand for puppies far outstripped breeder provide, curiosity in rehoming rescue dogs soared: Battersea Dogs & Cats Home noticed a 53% rise in functions within the spring of 2020. But with British rescue centres changing into extra exacting about matching pets to new homeowners with the appropriate expertise to look after them, curiosity in adopting from abroad has soared. Eight per cent of British pet dogs now come from overseas, in contrast with 4% in 2020, in response to the PDSA’s Paw report, with Romania the main supply. While they will make very rewarding pets, Adam Levy, south-east head of operations for Dogs Trust, says they’re at present seeing rising numbers of abroad rescue dogs being handed in to shelters. He stresses he isn’t criticising charities who carry them into the nation, however homeowners shouldn’t underestimate what they’re moving into. “You are taking a dog from an environment where we often think, ‘It’s dreadful, a dog on the streets’, but if a dog is born to that and you pick them up and put them in a van and drive them thousands of miles to someone’s house, that’s very frightening for them. Absolutely people’s hearts are in the right place when they’re doing this, but they don’t always appreciate what they’re taking on.” These dogs are, nevertheless, simply the tip of the iceberg.
Before Covid, says Levy, the charity was getting about 2,500 calls a month from individuals contemplating giving up their dogs. By final 12 months, it was nearer to 4,500 a month, fuelled by a mixture of rising canine numbers, monetary stress on homeowners and behavioural issues.
“We’ve always seen dogs with behavioural issues, but we are categorically now seeing more than ever, and we’re also seeing more underlying health problems,” he says. “During the pandemic, we were flooded with illegally imported dogs bred by unscrupulous breeders in dreadful conditions to take advantage of high prices. People wanted a dog, they weren’t necessarily mindful of where the dog was coming from, and these dogs weren’t socialised or cared for – they were just churned out in large numbers to make money.” Nor did some impulsive new homeowners do their homework. “Too many people get dogs by going on appearance rather than considering what the dog was bred for; what will it need? People were suddenly getting huskies – they’re bred for doing 40 miles a day pulling a sledge over snow. It’s not a dog that wants to sit around doing nothing.”
All dogs with behavioural issues are put via retraining earlier than being rehomed by Dogs Trust, he says, however meaning longer stays in kennels and solely intensifies the strain on house. With round a 3rd of dogs coming into British shelters estimated to have been given up due to their behaviour, rescue charities are more and more specializing in prevention not remedy.
In a sunny church corridor in Leatherhead, deep within the Surrey commuter belt, canine trainers Angus Healy and Dan Boatright are unpacking the instruments of their commerce. There is a ground cleansing spray, as a result of accidents invariably occur; a tube of squeezy cheese unfold, for which the category apparently goes wild; and final however not least, Barry, a stuffed toy terrier. Barry serves as a fake canine for puppies to practise their social expertise on, and I’m simply scoffing at the concept that any self-respecting hound will fall for that when Boatright clips a lead on and tows him throughout the ground in direction of Jaeger, the supremely chilled three-month-old Italian cane corso who is that this morning’s star pupil. Jaeger instantly begins barking; a minute later, he’s lovingly licking Barry’s nylon nostril. Puppies, it seems, fall for an terrible lot.
This is Dog School, a nationwide community of courses geared toward educating homeowners to get it proper from the beginning. “We felt by running the classes we’d be able to get in there early,” says Gemma Cullen, crew chief for west London and Surrey. Set up by Dogs Trust in 2015, Dog School provides normal new puppy coaching but additionally extra specialist periods for older dogs who missed out on the fundamentals, reactive dogs, and rescues needing ongoing assist to settle in new houses. Costs will be subsidised for homeowners on low incomes, and no canine is deemed too old to study. “We use positive reward-based training to motivate the dogs and teach them that when they’re doing something right they get rewarded. It doesn’t matter how old they are,” Cullen says. Older dogs could take a bit of longer to get the cling of it, however the ideas stay common. (Healy’s favorite tip for getting them to walk obediently at heel is smearing cheese unfold on a picket spoon, letting the canine lick it, after which holding the spoon the place you need them to walk).
Jaeger’s proprietor, 52-year-old Daz Salmon, is an skilled bulldog proprietor however has introduced his new puppy to class as a result of he’s eager to get it proper with a strong canine that would weigh 100kg when totally grown. Conscious of the controversy across the American XL bully, for which mastiff breeds like his could possibly be mistaken by passersby, he’s eager to level out that Jaeger got here from a accountable breeder who vets consumers to make sure they need these dogs for the appropriate causes. (In Salmon’s case, he says it’s as a result of he has three sons with particular wants, and needed a breed that may be protecting of them however calm). The power within the room actually rises after the laid-back Jaeger pads out on his big paws to make manner for an adolescent class that includes Tiggy, a one-year-old flying ball of cockapoo enthusiasm, and Sadie, a five-month-old black labrador-collie cross. Amid the yapping and leaping, Tiggy seems to be a star at coming again when known as and Sadie – initially nonplussed on the very thought of mendacity down – is quickly walking superbly beside her proprietor. Both trot out of sophistication heaped with reward.
For struggling homeowners who can’t attain a category, the charity lately added a helpline run by Katy Errock. For nervous or reactive dogs, her recommendation is to keep away from busy instances within the park and distract them when different dogs are round. “Get them nose to the ground, get them sniffing, take them to places where there’s lots of smells, so maybe grassy areas. Give them interaction and things to do.” Keep sufficient distance between your canine and others for it to be comfy, she says, after which reward lavishly with treats or video games – no matter your canine prefers – for staying calm. “If you see a dog and they don’t bark, reward that behaviour while they’re quiet, because that’s what you want to see.”
Multitasking by answering emails on a canine walk will not be a good suggestion both, she factors out: “When you go on a walk, think of it as going on an adventure with your dog. The number of people I see walking the dog and they’re texting, not interacting. When all of a sudden you do want your dog’s attention they’re thinking: ‘Well, you’ve ignored me …’” Owners of attention-seeking dogs, in the meantime, should be cautious they’re not inadvertently rewarding demanding behaviour. “It can be as simple as every time you answer the phone or go on a Teams call they start barking, so you give them a treat to keep them quiet,” she says. “And then the dog thinks, ‘Right, I want a treat’, so they’ll make a fuss whenever you are on the phone. You’re actually training a dog all the time, because they spend all day watching us.” For working breeds, whose dangerous habits could also be linked to boredom or restlessness, she suggests carrying them out with psychological video games resembling sniffing for treats, utilizing a puzzle feeder – the place the canine has to determine methods to extract the meals – or studying expertise like canine agility. With separation anxiousness, the objective is to step by step get the canine used to being alone, beginning with being out of sight for very brief intervals.
But finally, says Errock, there aren’t any magical brief cuts: “It’s about time and patience and repeating things and building good foundations. That’s not so popular on social media because it takes time, but it’s really important if you’re trying to change behaviour.”
As many a despairing canine proprietor will know, “trying” often is the operative phrase. Not each canine will be magically mounted, veterinary behaviour specialist Sarah Heath admits: vets could typically face troublesome choices in instances the place behaviour is severely damaging the canine’s personal high quality of life. And even the eternally constructive Si Wooler, Sophie’s behaviour advisor, says it stays unclear precisely how a lot of the harm completed by the canine’s early experiences is reversible.
But if Sophie can study to belief one new human, he causes, she will study to belief others, and hopefully could begin extrapolating from that to belief individuals extra usually. “There’s a big unknown question around dogs who are hugely undersocialised and have missed that developmental period: is that fixable? But Sophie’s at least a sample of one that suggests progress can be made.”
A couple of days after this dialog, Cellan-Jones posts a video on X of the latest breakthrough: lured by treats, Sophie will now put each paws tentatively on the underside of the steps. One step, apparently, at a time.
