Lily Allen could have avoided the dog house if she’d tried Prozac

I wonder, did Lily Allen consider Prozac? She should have. It could have meant the recent days of absolute opprobrium, not least the death threats, might never have happened.
The drug has been a success in our house. I wager we could be one member less in the family if it weren’t for the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, or SSRIs as they’re more commonly known. Given that the daily dose is always administered with a treat, our dog Badger jumps up the minute he hears the shake of the bottle, eager to take his Prozac tablet wrapped in chicken or ham.
Despite being a dog owner all my life, nothing could have prepared me for the whirlwind that was about to enter our lives when we adopted Badger. Now two years old, we got him at 12 weeks from the Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Every dog has their own personality but I had always sort of assumed that if you got a puppy, rather than an older dog who might have been subjected to trauma or cruelty, especially a non-pedigree mutt, you were safe enough. Maybe this is what Allen thought when she got her puppy Mary. However, Mary was another tricky puppy. Among other things she ate the passports of the singer and her two children.
Listening to Allen tell the story on her BBC podcast Miss Me? she could have been a bit less careless in the retelling. She said she tried very hard but Mary “was a very badly behaved dog” and in the end she “just couldn’t look at her” and took her back to the dog rescue centre in New York.
There was a huge furore. She said subsequently people had been furiously reacting to a “deliberately distorted cobbling together of quotes designed to make people angry” and in light of those she had received some “abhorrent messages, including death threats”.
While I may judge the manner of Allen’s delivery of the news, I don’t judge her actions. Prior to bringing Badger home, though, I would have sniffed with disapproval.
Two things became clear quickly: our new pet was very clever and very high maintenance. He was also prone to snapping. He used that cleverness to find ways to try to best you, mostly when it came to robbing food. He’s a Patterdale terrier combined with what looks to be about 5 per cent labrador.
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A rough estimate would be that, when he’s awake, at least 95 per cent of his time is spent working out how to get more food. This includes cruising the kitchen table, having learnt early on how to pull out the chairs. Or he’ll jump at the kitchen counter, something he could literally do up to 80 times in a day — I know this because I once counted. He can open the zip on a school bag, which he does regularly because he knows they are a source of rich pickings. Meal times are spent trying to gently elbow him down, whereupon he will whine with an urgency that makes it sound like he’ll expire immediately if not given food. Put him outside and he reacts as if he’s been shot.
If I live to be 100 I will never forget the week we got him neutered. He was like a dog possessed with that plastic cone around his neck. The other memory that sticks out also relates to his nether regions. Playing lustfully with a teddy bear one day — as puppies do — he suddenly began rolling around the floor and howling in pain.
It quickly became evident he had an erection that simply wouldn’t quit. The poor divil was in agony. There was nothing for it only to make a vet’s appointment. But half an hour later I did ring them back to utter the sentence: “Our puppy’s erection has subsided so we no longer need the appointment, thank you.”
I won’t lie, there were days when he was so poorly behaved that I gave serious consideration to rehoming him — something I could never, ever have imagined prior to that. Ultimately I could never take the step, but I also know the rest of the family would have fought tooth and nail against it. It is worth mentioning here that I work from home and they are out at work and school.
As a puppy he never really liked the affection bit. Even now he is quite specific in that it’s his tummy and chest, not his head, that are his preferred “hands-on” areas. He doesn’t like to sit on your lap. He prefers to stand and always, always, turns his rear end towards you. This makes for seriously uncomfortable car journeys. Not to mention his atrocious farting.
One evening I was playing with him on the bed. We were having a blast because when’s he’s good he’s brilliant. My husband, who gives Badger so much love and leeway, was heading downstairs so picked Badger up and took him away.
What occurred afterwards will rest long in the memory. Clearly Badger had returned immediately. I could hear him barking loudly. We walked back in to a pungent smell in the bedroom. Surveying the bed my husband’s pillow had been dragged over to my side where the centre of the pillowcase was torn, clearly after being frantically scratched by paws. Back over on his side, on the quilt, was a widening, fresh yellow stain. Shocked at the scene, my first remark was: “That dog is mafia.”
Bear in mind that this was months after Badger had first been prescribed Prozac. That happened last summer: on holidays, in a small holiday house, his anxiety levels skyrocketed. He stopped eating, began weeing everywhere and was constantly eating his tail. My essential message over the phone to the vet was: either pop something in the post for him, or for me.
In the past 12 months or so it has helped — a lot. For all that I give out, I do absolutely adore him. As I write he is sitting on my office window sill destroying a charity shop-bought cuddly penguin toy with gusto. When he’s bored he stands on my keyboard or drinks out of my mug of tea. In the winter he will come upstairs with a block of wood from the stove pile that he likes to chew.
The children love him unreservedly. He waits excitedly at the door each day as they come home from school. He is great fun to play with and given his food obsession is highly trainable for tricks, when he keeps coming back for more.
Funny, when we’re out and about he’s really well behaved. He loves to play with other dogs and is not aggressive.
Bearing in mind that he is also a year older now, we decided only last week to wean him off the Prozac.
We will give it time. But if the increasing separation anxiety, as well as the middle of the night howling — which sound like he is being attacked by ten alsatians armed with guns and knives — is anything to go by, I see another prescription in his near future. It certainly makes life easier for him and for us. But Allen does have a point. Not every dog suits every family.