French Bulldog Twitty has a fixation.
Well, maybe two fixations. Okay, three.
Fixation #1 is the TV.
Twitty watches TV with the rapt devotion of a toddler parked in front of the 26th rerun of a Disney movie. His eyes, ears, and body turn to regard the screen with complete concentration. It doesn’t matter what show he is watching – any CSI or talk show will do.
If he had a beer can, the remote, and a potbelly, he would resemble a certain uncle of mine on football Sunday.
Fixation #2 is the birdfeeder.
When Twitty is let outdoors, he lumbers over to the optimum bird watching spot on the deck and settles in for a session of monitoring the feeder. If a hungry bird makes the fatal error of alighting for a meal, Atticus rears up on his hind legs and barks, yips and yowls until the bird flies away, or until Twitty’s owner hustles the dog back inside, scolding him all the while.
Fixation #3 is the baby.
In Twitty’s household of several adults, the appearance of a baby, with its unpredictable movements, high pitched cries, and overwhelming smell, drives the dog to the brink of madness.
Babies make Twitty nervous and tense. He loses all sense of himself and his surroundings. He is torn between wanting to run from the baby, hoping it will just go away, or taking matters into his own paws and making the noisy, irritating thing go away himself.
In a perfect world, Twitty would have been properly socialized. His owners would have exposed him to little kids when he was a puppy. Like many dogs, however, this didn’t happen, so now his owners are left wondering if they can ever have children into their home given Twitty’s fixation.
So we taught Twitty to stay on a designated “Spot” and diverted his focus from all things infant (we began with the baby’s carrier, then a baby blanket, then a baby doll) toward his owner, using body language and voice tone.
Eventually, Twitty could relax enough to have the TV on but not watch it, to leave the birdies alone, and to tolerate a visit from his owner’s young nephew now and then.
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