Dr Harry 's latest house call.

We adore Zeus, he is an integral part of our family, he is our 3rd child. We have spent many precious moments with him since he joined our family 2 years ago.

When he was about 3-4 months old, he started to chase his tail. Compulsively, obsessively. We thought it was silly puppy behaviour and that he would just grow out of it. He didn't. He has ruined our backyard, the grass is all churned up. It is like he goes into a trance and we can't break it. He only does it in our backyard and a friends backyard. He does not do it when is on a lead, walking, at the dog park, with other dogs.

He gets plenty of exercise and we have a very bushy backyard, he has a huge amount of interaction with the family, and he spends a great deal of time inside. He is a German Shepherd and with all those listed things, he should not get bored.
His tail chasing is not about boredom, it is something in his brain that is now hard wired.

We have tried many things to help Zeus stop. Citrus sprays, more exercise, treasure hunts, professional training, it all got very hard, time consuming and frustrating. In the end we thought it was just something he was always going to do. We are about to do a home renovation and I complained that we would never have a decent backyard whilst we had Zeus. I had a real love/hate relationship with him for weeks. I knew we had to do something.

In the end, I emailed Dr Harry of Better Homes and Gardens.

Yesterday Dr Harry paid us a house call. I was a nervous wreck. The man himself and the whole crew were just a delight. They made it very easy to enjoy the whole process. Zeus didn't get stage fright (or star struck) and went round and round and they were able to get the fottage they needed. I was so relieved to see that Dr Harry was more concerned about Zeus and his behaviour than just making good TV. He gave us much of time off camera, he answered our many questions. He was fabulous with the kids. We all went to the park across the road so they could see and film Zeus' normal behaviour as opposed to his abnormal behaviour.

Sadly Zeus needs to go on drugs for about 6 months to rewire his brain. We were already doing all the right things for him but now we just need to ramp up the intensity. Our boy should be "fixed" in the not too distant future. We look forward to the day that we can utilise our back yard for all of us. We look forward to our beautiful boy having normal behaviour at all times.

Now...the embarassing opart is that we will be on TV in the next 6-8 weeks....