Hello and welcome to this my special Christmas edition of Talking Dogs. I'm Graham Hall,

but you can call me the Dogfather if you like. Over the last 10 years, I've helped train loads of dogs and people alike,

and you might as

can't be doing just that on television's dogs behaving very badly.

Well, now I'm here too, sharing my advice and experience with you directly on this podcast.

Today's a little different.

We start to get into the Christmas spirit, and I wanted to share a few things I thought

it's important for you to think about around this time of year,

from festive foods and health hazards to dog friendly presents and new visitors to your house.

Well, it wouldn't be the Christmas edition of a dog podcast without saying,

a dog's for life, not just for Christmas Christmas and that's a phrase that's been

around for for donkeys years in fact I can tell you exactly where it comes from

1978 a lady called Clarissa Baldwin who was the head of the National Canine

Defence League which then became the dogs trust as we know it now she coined the

phrase because back then there was a real pattern of people taking

dogs from rehome shelters in December and then they would all come back between January and

March which was about the time it took for people to get fed up of this new puppy that they'd

got and not thought through and so up came the phrase. Things have changed a lot since 1978

and things are on the right way but I think

it's very important still to think in terms of a dog isn't an appropriate gift to

just give somebody for Christmas you'd like to think that it went without

saying these days but I don't think it does because it does still happen what

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