Light, kindly lead

Press, 4 September 1980, Page 15

Light, kindly lead

Review Felicity Price

1 Anyone who has ever suffered the embarrass* meat, let alone the discomfort, of being dragged unwillingly along the street at the end of a dog lead cannot help but be impressed with Mrs Woodhouse and her system of training dogs. That is, if they can get home, from work in time to see it. “Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way” on One at 6 p.m. on Tuesday is the sort of programme that will have tremendous appeal in New Zealand, as it did when first shown in England. But Television New Zealand seems to think this country’s dog owners are either at school or in the Public Service, because 6 p.m. is awfully early to be settling down in front of the telly to concentrate on learning a thing or two about how. to persuade your dog to behave itself. And any mums who are interested in training the family pooch wouldn’t have a show of taking time off from getting the dinner ready to watch it right .through. . ; J =. ■ Yet, 'if you . hope to gain anything from the. np-non-sence training techniques of Mrs Barbara Woodhouse, you should be doing just, thct —. watching from beginning to end. . Mrs Woodhouse has a curious way with dogs. Anyone who can train a

couple of mastiffs over the telephone, as we have been told she has done, is certainly worth listening .to. , “Oh, dear,” she says to one of her human, students who is persevering with a playful pooch that has got not the slightest intention of walking to heel. "Oh, dear. He’s biting his. lead, isn’t he? That’s terrible. Especially as leads are so expensive these days. I’ll show you how to stop it.” The next time the dog tries to bite his lead, she jerks it abruptly downwards in his mouth. A couple of. minutes later, there is absolutely no way that dog will bite the lead, even when she half thrusts it into his mouth. ' “Ben, :/ sittah,” she then says to the same, much dog, using as much spit as she can on the “sit.”. No sooner does some poor mutt in her class do something wrong than she takes over. Seconds later, the dog is obedience itself, trotting along neatly beside her and sitting down at the precise moment she

tells him to. She seems to psych them into submission - . -

In a very similar way, but in a very dissimilar fashion, Sybil seems to have much the same effect on Basil in the incredible "Fawlty Towers” (Two). This latest series has been the best and the funniest yet. Earlier ones left me cold. ,

Tuesday’s episode was, sadly, the final one, arid the frenzied Fawlty and his staff will be sadly missed, not simply for the many belly laughs they manage to produce but equally for the little game the title person has been playing at the beginning of each episode. It has become quite. a consuming interest every Tuesday night to see what new anagram of “Fawlty Towers” they will manage to corne up with. At the beginning of every episode, each title shot of the front of Fawlty’s hotel in Torquay and the sign pointing to it has been a startling anagram or word game.- . . The - final one was “Farty Towels,” and other have included “Fatty Owls” and 'Tatty Fowls.” Perhaps .it is just as Well this was the final episode. After last week’s “Flowery" anagram I was feeling some considerable apprehension this week as to what they would come up with next.