Next weekend will be Choco’s first birthday, for those of you that are not regular readers, Choco is my new Border Terrier puppy - although of course now he is neither new nor a puppy. For twenty years I was that rare thing – a vet without a dog, I have always had cats, the occasional fish and once a Chinchilla but never a dog. So by the time I got Choco I had lots of ideas about how terribly well behaved he would be – the model of obedience, trained to perfection.

Of course these ambitions have been somewhat thwarted by the fact that I have a terrier not a Labrador. Choco is delightful, there is not a mean bone in his body – he loves all people and all dogs and has been extremely well socialised. In addition, when there are no distractions, Choco will sit beautifully and come to the whistle when called. The trouble is, like all terriers, he is prone to utter deafness when something more interesting is afoot.

In his case his Achilles heel is the prospect of saying hello to another dog. If we are on a walk and he catches the sniff of another dog (particularly one we know) then all my training on recall goes out of the window – I might as well not be there. At least I know that he will only ever be friendly to anyone he meets – but his is little consolation when I am desperately trying to get him to listen to me. It is never a bad thing for us vets to be reminded how hard dog training can be!