. . . And Barking Up Another Tree

By Gerald Clarke

In the Woodhouse way, TV really is going to the dogs

Dogs may be man's best friend, but they worship and adore Barbara Woodhouse. Given half a chance, the entire canine species doubtless would slobber and slurp all over her, tails wagging fast enough to cause gale warnings throughout the British Isles. Woodhouse, however, is not a slobbery, slurpy sort of lady, as anyone who has watched her TV show can testify: her highest form of praise is a little tickle on the chest. Not a big tickle, mind you, and rarely a rub or a pat. Just a very little tickle, administered by the middle finger of the right hand. "We're never boisterous about praising," she says, "or the dogs get silly."

Silliness is not something Woodhouse approves of, in dogs or people. But many people in Britain are as silly about her as about their animals. Her ten-part series, Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way, was the BBC's surprise hit of 1980, so popular that it has been repeated twice since for 4 million nearly rabid viewers. Now being syndicated on 78 stations throughout the U.S., it should prove equally irresistible to millions of Americans, who will discover in Woodhouse, 71, the most original--and unintentionally funny--female TV personality since Julia Child.

The entire series was shot at Campions, her 30-acre home in Hertfordshire, 20 miles from London. The budget was so low that the BBC seems too embarrassed to give a figure; the star herself was paid precisely $3,750 for the entire series, with half that much still to come from the American broadcasts. There are no sets unless you count some sheds, a car and a carport. There are no costumes; obviously Woodhouse was born in a blue sweater, plaid skirt and sensible English shoes. The filming is on the level of the average home movie, and the action consists solely of Woodhouse putting mutts and masters through their paces. The dogs appear to be enjoying themselves; the owners, a dozen or so terror-stricken men and women, do not.

That, of course, is where all the fun lies for the viewer, in the comic reversal of the customary roles of man and beast. Woodhouse is convinced that almost any dog can be trained in anywhere from 2 1/2 to six minutes, and she proves it so often that it must be true--at least when she does it. Most owners, on the other hand, are hopeless. Take poor Mr. Chambers, the tall fellow with the mustache and the unruly Doberman. He--Mr. Chambers, that is--looks smart enough, but is absolutely impossible on a leash. "That's not a very creditable performance," Woodhouse impatiently tells him on one episode. "You're rather fidgety," she observes on another. "Can you calm yourself?"

Woodhouse has always found animals easier to get along with than people, and the animals have always responded in kind. When she was growing up as the daughter of a clergyman and educator, her mother boarded dogs; when one of them was barking, young Barbara was instructed to go "talk to it in your 'little' voice." Her "little" voice usually had the necessary tranquilizing effect; when it did not, she would bring the unhappy creature into her bedroom. At one time she had eleven four-legged roommates.

As a young woman she lived for a time in Argentina, where a Guarani Indian taught her that even the wildest horse can be broken if the trainer snorts at it through the nose. To a horse, that is merely common courtesy, the equivalent of "How do you do?" Cows appreciate a pleasant snort as well, but dogs, which are more intelligent, are highly insulted by such antics. They prefer baby talk and are almost mesmerized by words with sharp d's and t's. They particularly like the word what, Woodhouse has discovered, as in "What a good girl!"

"Touch, tone and telepathy," she says, are her greatest gifts. One of her favorite stories is about an ancient English actor who had a vicious Kerry blue. The beast would sleep with his master, and every time the old gent turned over, the blue would bite him. Black and somewhat blue himself, the man finally called in Woodhouse. When she arrived, bounding up the walk, he yelled, "Don't come near! The bastard will bite you!" "Nonsense," she replied, slapping the dog smartly on the head and speaking to it severely, emphasizing her t's and d's. Within seconds the animal was licking her face, hopelessly in love.

"It's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't got the gift," says Woodhouse, "but I am on the same wave length as the animals. Every animal is sending out wave lengths, vibes, if you prefer that word. I feel a rapport with them, a complete lack of fear."

There are a few dogs that even Woodhouse cannot train, the canine schizophrenics and psychopaths, but she does not believe, as some people do, that modern dogs are inbred and naturally neurotic. "No, that is not it," she says. "The trouble is caused by the huge amount of protein they are fed. It's making them mad. Those one-in-all foods are advertising 20% to 27% protein, and that's like overfeeding a horse on oats. Fourteen percent protein is enough for an ordinary house dog; if it is fed too much, it will have too much energy and become hyperactive and schizophrenic."

A dog's intelligence, Woodhouse believes, is equal to that of a child of five, so naturally she used pupils some of her techniques on her own children. All three, for instance, were housebroken, which is to say toilet-trained, before the third month. "It's like house-training a puppy," she says, and she has gone on to use the same methods on at least one of her eight grandchildren.

Such an individual approach to life has made this astonishing woman a celebrity in Britain and several other countries. "Life for me began at 70," she says. She is the "most successful trainer in the world," according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Four new TV specials are planned, a new TV series on horses already has 10 million British viewers, and her four dog-training books are bestsellers. Everywhere she goes, she finds people trilling out "Walkies," her command to a dog to get up and get moving. For Woodhouse, so much attention is as much fun as a tickle on the chest. As herself might put it: What a clever girl."

--By Gerald Clarke

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