As I have mentioned in another article, both my Springer Spaniels are accomplished froggers. Molly, my black and white springer, could 'frog' for England at the 'frogging olympics' if such an entity existed.
She is so accomplished, that she sometimes comes trotting into the house with up to 3 frogs, her mouth gently but firmly closed over fat bodies, leaving a tangle of long green legs hanging out of the sides. Usually though, it's only one unfortunate creature that has been caught unawares as it came out of hiding, thinking it's a safe time to go about catching dinner.
Maisie, my liver and white Springer, isn't quite as adept at catching them, though she could still be an international at the event. She likes to see them jump, so she'll give them a whack, with her paw, then she'll chase after them and repeat the exercise, until they are steered in the direction of the pond, a place she is convinced they should be contained in, She knows they live there, she saw them in the bottom when we dug it out a month or two back. Once the escapee is back in it's watery gaol, she'll go in search of another, looking under shrubs, stones and bits of old log we have scattered about the place.
Occasionally she'll pick one up and trot around the garden with it. If we spot her, a quick 'leave' command, will see her cough up the absconding prisoner, she will then guard it carefully until we, the warders, stroll up to return the inmate to it's watery cell.
Molly doesn't give up her prize as easily. She is a hoarder, a collector, an expert on the species. It really doesn't matter if she has a frog or a foul tasting toad. Once they are caught, they don't get released until they been carefully inspected, catalogued, sized and sexed. We always groan when we see her with one, as we know what a tough job we have ahead of us, trying to negotiate a ransom.
We have tried numerous techniques over the last 3 years. All have worked for a while, but only a while, once she got used to our release strategy, she steeled herself to resist, and we had to move on to plan D, E, etc, currently we are deploying plan I.
Initially, she would drop on command, albeit reluctantly. Then she decided to be stubborn, it was her frog, she went to the trouble of catching it, why should she give it up just because someone asked her to? It just wasn't fair, amid she wasn't going to do it. Surely there were rules about this sort of thing. The European Court had rights for humans, why not for frog catching dogs?
We moved on to plan B.
This strategy consisted of grabbing the loose skin at the back of her neck whilst saying 'NO' sternly. This worked about twice.
Plan C, D and E, were as ineffective as plan F, and were quickly discarded. besides, we didn't always have sausages in the fridge. For a while we stuck to plan G and just herded her into her cage, and waited until she dropped it. The prisoner would then play dead, and Molly would eventually lose interest, enabling us to retrieve it and return it to the pond.
Plan H was very successful and we really thought we had, at last, cracked it. This plan emerged out of a 'think in' with a dog trainer, an animal behaviourist, and a painter and decorator from just round the corner, the latter's idea of 'whacking her round the back of her head with a bag of soft putty' was at first laughed off, but then placed back on the agenda as a fall back item, to be discussed in case of emergency.
Eventually we discovered that the professional dog people knew best, and the tip of forcing fingers into both sides of her mouth did cause her to eject the creature, though we then had to be quick in picking the poor thing up before Molly realised it was still available for recapture. Unfortunately after a month or so, she discovered that by clamping her jaws tight shut, bracing herself, and giving us a look that unmistakeably said 'do your worst, I'll never spill the beans, or the frog' we would eventually give up, and not wanting to risk hurting it , revert back to plan G and herd her towards the cage.
As I said we are currently successfully employing plan I.
This plan was formulated one night, when my wife, suffering from a severe and very heavy cold, stated that she was having difficulty breathing when walking the dogs on the country park. Her nose was completely blocked, I was about to sympathetically tell her to stop whinging, when I suddenly had that EUREKA moment.
The next time Molly got a frog, i was there in an instant. Grabbing her firmly by the collar i placed two fingers of my free hand over her nostrils and waited. Within 30 seconds she had released the frog. I had done it!! Plan I was the big one, the master plan, the winner of the best plan of the decade award, I felt like telling the world, maybe i could sell the secret and become rich?
It still works, months later. She does try to beat it, she'll now take up to 90 seconds to release, her breath sounds like gravel rattling round in the bottom of an old bucket, her eyes roll and she paws the ground, but she does give it up. I think even Molly knows there will be no need for a plan J.
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