Chapter 100: Spotting the Problem

The next day, at the dog training base, Zhang Congwen quickly slipped into work mode.

The moment the couple arrived with their three dogs, he began observing them.

All three dogs had smooth, glossy coats that shone with health, a clear sign that their owners took excellent care of them. The only exception was the Miniature Pinscher, which had a bald patch on the front of its left foreleg and walked with a slight limp.

As soon as they entered the training base, each of the three dogs displayed varying degrees of nervousness, all of them wandering around in search of a safe spot.

The Miniature Italian Greyhound, in particular, circled the wife almost without pause, and before anyone could pay attention, it had already wrapped its leash around her legs.

This same greyhound also had a habit of leaping up at its owner, constantly demanding to be held.

Once the three of them were seated, Zhang Congwen began asking about the Miniature Pinscher. Since that was the dog with the problem, the couple had naturally placed it between them. But the Italian Greyhound suddenly jumped onto the wife's lap, then deliberately shoved its way alongside the Miniature Pinscher.

For reasons unclear, the two dogs soon started squabbling for no apparent reason.

Perhaps feeling that the barking was getting in the way of his conversation with Zhang Congwen, the husband shooed both dogs off the seats.

According to the couple, the Italian Greyhound had first started biting itself when it was about a year old.

At first, they assumed it was allergies that made it gnaw at its paws. But they went to every vet they could find—allergen tests, Demodex mite screenings, every related examination you could think of.

They spent plenty of money but never found a thing wrong.

Every doctor reached virtually the same conclusion: this dog was healthy. From a medical standpoint, there was nothing wrong with it.

The couple then did extensive research and began to suspect that the behavior was an obsessive-compulsive issue brought on by stress.

Following online tutorials, they learned that the most common source of stress was insufficient exercise, so both owners began taking the dogs for walks of at least thirty minutes, morning, noon, and evening. Sometimes they even let work slide to make time for the walks.

The results, however, were mixed.

The good news was that the Miniature Pinscher had previously bitten its front paws even when outdoors, but since increasing the walk time, that outdoor behavior had disappeared.

The bad news was that it would still bite its paws once back inside the house.

They had tried every method they could think of, and still, the Miniature Pinscher would not stop biting itself.

Eventually, they heard by chance that Zhang Congwen had once successfully treated a dog with a similar self-biting issue. That was what brought them here—they wanted him to determine why this Miniature Pinscher was so fixated on its own forelegs.

From a dog-training perspective, choosing the right setting is a crucial part of the process. Because some problems only surface in unfamiliar environments. Selecting different training venues based on each dog's specific situation can make an enormous difference in the final outcome.

In fact, from the moment the owners walked into the training base with their dogs and sat down to talk, Zhang Congwen had already spotted quite a few issues.

He smiled at the husband and said, "Compared with you, do the Miniature Pinscher and the Italian Greyhound prefer spending time with your wife?"

The husband was taken aback, never expecting Zhang Congwen to have noticed something like that. He nodded. "That's right. Normally, when my wife's around, they don't listen to me as well. How could you tell?"

"Earlier, when the greyhound jumped onto your wife's lap and then started a fight with the Pinscher, that was actually a display of competing for your wife's attention," Zhang Congwen explained.

Then he asked the wife to stand up, just stand there and do nothing.

Yet even that single gesture revealed clear differences among the three dogs.

The German Shepherd paid little attention to the wife's movement. The Miniature Pinscher sat obediently on the floor, looking up at its owner. Only the Italian Greyhound grew extremely excited, hopping up and down in front of its owner to attract her notice.

At the same time, it kept trying to leap into her arms.

"Looks like one of these three is a bit of a troublemaker," Zhang Congwen remarked as he stepped deliberately between the Miniature Pinscher and the Italian Greyhound. Then he said to the greyhound, "Yes, I'm talking about you."

It had been less than fifteen minutes since the couple arrived, and Zhang Congwen could already see that this Italian Greyhound was perpetually in a state of overexcitement, utterly unable to regulate its own arousal level.

But even with Zhang Congwen blocking its way, the greyhound refused to settle down. Instead, it slipped around him, planted itself in front of the Miniature Pinscher, and rested its head on the other dog's back.

Zhang Congwen asked, "Have you ever seen them do this before?"

The wife chuckled. "All the time. Bicycle Seat probably gets tired because its face is too long, so it's always resting its head on Little Suit."

The husband chimed in with a laugh, "Bicycle Seat is what we call the Italian Greyhound, and Little Suit is the Miniature Pinscher. My wife has always thought it's adorable when Bicycle Seat does that. Is there something wrong with it?"

Zhang Congwen couldn't help but laugh out loud.

He had to admit—this family had a talent for naming their pets.

Italian Greyhounds are sighthounds with characteristically long faces, and giving one a name like "Bicycle Seat" was the kind of quirky choice not everyone would come up with.

He quickly turned serious. "Of course there's a problem. I'd even go so far as to say this is very likely the root cause of the Miniature Pinscher biting its front paws."

"Impossible, right?" The couple's eyes went wide, completely at a loss as to how Zhang Congwen had arrived at that conclusion.

To them, this was nothing more than a perfectly ordinary behavior, even a charming one. How could this possibly be the source of the problem?

The greyhound was just resting its head on the other dog. It seemed utterly unrelated to the Pinscher biting its forelegs.

Zhang Congwen didn't rush to explain. Instead, he asked the couple to put the Italian Greyhound and the Miniature Pinscher into the room with the one-way glass wall, and the three of them observed from the other side.

At first, the two dogs behaved perfectly normally in the room. They seemed both nervous and curious, wandering around to explore the space.

But once they became familiar with the surroundings, the dynamic between the two dogs changed.

The Miniature Pinscher had been wandering around the room, curious about something placed at a height, when the Italian Greyhound suddenly sidled up next to it. No matter where the Miniature Pinscher went, the greyhound followed.

Every time the Miniature Pinscher stepped forward, the greyhound stepped forward too. When the Pinscher tried to back away, the greyhound backed up as well.

Even when the Miniature Pinscher attempted to dash off, the greyhound would quickly give chase.

Zhang Congwen asked, "What do you think the greyhound is doing?"

The wife answered without a second thought: "It's trying to get Little Suit to play."

But the husband shook his head. "Doesn't look like playing to me."

The wife shot back, "How doesn't it? Didn't you see how happily Bicycle Seat was wagging its tail?"

The husband chose not to argue with his wife and turned to Zhang Congwen instead, hoping for an explanation of the dog's behavior.

Zhang Congwen said, "That's not how a dog invites another dog to play."