Radio 2 speaker Sara Cox on putting her naughty dog on probation, why she’s supporting the Dog’s Trust, and how you can too, by Adam Bloodworth
Her popular Radio 2 program is simply one aspect of Sara Cox: she’s likewise mad about animals and making life much better for them here in the UK. The previous Radio 1 Breakfast Show speaker and Big Breakfast host has 3 dogs, 2 cats and a horse, and just recently rode to Parliament on horseback to promote the Kept Animals Bill, which intends to provide imported and exported animals much better lives.
Through her deal with animal charities Cox has actually ended up being something of a specialist, and she begins every early morning by walking her trio of pooches as much as welcome her horse at the stables. “No more pets now for a while,” she says through laughter. “I even wrote that in my husband’s birthday card in April. ‘Happy birthday! No more pets, I promise. Sorry, have a lovely day!’”
Cox is talking to City A.M. to promote a brand-new effort by the charity Dogs Trust, which has actually simply introduced a brand-new study for Londoners to take part in about their dogs. The concept is for dog owners to let the organisation understand about their dogs’ behaviour so professionals can build understanding about problems individuals are presently dealing with. Then the charity will run behaviour workshops and provide recommendations based upon the need. The study was commissioned in action to a sharp increase in the quantity of young dogs that have actually been turned over to the Dogs Trust considering that the pandemic.
The organisation has actually had 18,000 handover demands this year, 30 percent of which are down to behaviour-related problems, consisting of aggressiveness, which might have been avoided with the right intervention and assistance. The problem is that a great deal of brand-new dog owners embraced puppies throughout the pandemic when they had lots of time at home, however stopped working to provide the right training.
“Any pups that were bought and rehomed during the pandemic may have spent twenty-four hours a day with their humans, they wouldn’t know that at some point their human would have to go back to the office and life would get busy again,” Cox says. “So I think it’s great that Dogs Trust are trying to help ease that.” One problem is that puppies are constantly in high need however need additional training and are a longer-term dedication than an older dog. “Pip, my new dog from Dogs Trust, is an absolute little cracker but it’s laborious and it’s repetitive and it takes time and it takes patience to house train a puppy so you don’t end up with a little nightmare on your hands. You’ve got to put the work in,” says Cox.
The 47-year-old, who has actually been working as a speaker considering that 1998 when she shot to popularity on The Big Breakfast, matured on a farm in Bolton surrounded by huge guard dogs in addition to little terriers – working dogs with “brilliant characters”. But one lesson she discovered was the worth of embracing older dogs since her mum constantly selected them over puppies. “My mum was ahead of her time really,” says Cox. “We never got a puppy, we’d always get a rescue dog. I always wanted a puppy but when our dog would pass away, we’d get them at an average age of seven or eight so we didn’t have that long with them and they’d die of old age or illness.”
Cox isn’t familiar with the push for animal bereavement services that some staff members and organisations are rallying for; rather she says she did “the opposite” of grieving when she lost her Maltese called Beano a couple of years earlier. “I kind of threw myself into work because I kind of have to, there were a lot of people relying on me,” says Cox. “I’m quite good at compartmentalising my brain but make no mistake I’m sure a lot of people aren’t able to do that and that must be really tough.” Cox’s other animals assisted too: “You can’t stay under your duvet all day if you’ve got dogs to walk, and a horse as well, so I’ve got to get up the yard.”
Kissing my dog? No! They can have my chin. I believe that’s rather sufficient. We all understand how animals clean themselves….
Sara Cox
At home in London, she presently has Pip, a 19-week-old poodle bichon frise cross, Dolly, a seven-year-old maltese, and Daisy, a two-year-old flat layered retriever, in addition to 2 cats and the horse.
Where does Cox base on the controversial problem of kissing your dog on the mouth, which some owners appear to believe is absolutely typical? “They can have my chin,” she says, chuckling. “I think that’s quite enough. “You just have to be quick. You offer them the chin because you’re trying to get your mouth away from them, they’re trying to give you little kisses which are obviously cute. But we all know how animals clean themselves…”
Cox definitely wasn’t fast enough previously this year when her terrier Dolly bit through a cable television in the BBC Radio 2 studio, triggering the BBC to prohibit all animals from can be found in with speakers. Cox chuckles once again at the reference of the occurrence. “She was very naughty,” she confesses, rejecting she’s been campaigning to get dogs back in the building once again as some papers have actually recommended. “The bloody dog chewed through something. Dolly had a minute of insanity, she’s such a moderate mannered fluffy little maltese, it was simply a defiant streak.
“She regrets it, she regrets her actions,” chuckles Cox. “I’ll put her on probation for a bit. Put her on community service…”
For more details and to do your bit, finish the National Dog Survey, informing the charity details about your dog, by clicking here.
View the work for the Dogs Trust online at nationaldogsurvey.co.uk. Survey closes 7 June.
