Tim Dowling: my dog has post-traumatic sheep disorder

There is nothing woolly about the sheep awareness training a Kent farmer subjects our dog to It’s another scorching day, maybe the ninth or tenth in a row. Work is impossible – I spend the afternoon wandering the house in search of the coolest place to stand. I’m busy interrupting a faint breeze at the foot of the stairs when my wife rings. “This is ridiculous,” she says. “I’m standing still.” “Brilliant,” she says. “She’s absolutely traumatised. I’ll tell you about it, if we ever get home.” Our old dog, unfailingly obedient and chicken-hearted, never troubled sheep. At two years old, the new dog has had almost no direct experience of livestock but has never met an animal it did not want to chase: foxes, squirrels, Canada geese. It was hard to imagine a first encounter going well. When my wife heard about a farmer in Kent who would cure your dog of any interest in sheep in an afternoon, she made an appointment. “Is this because of the thing that happened in the Archers?” I’d said. “No,” she’d said. “I signed up before all that.” My wife arrives home 90 minutes later, trailing a hint of car air conditioning. The dog comes into the kitchen behind her and immediately flattens itself a