He is now embracing reward-based methods. 'He is a smart guy and sees which way the wind is blowing. Bradshaw says: 'I am reluctant to demonise Millan, he has come under a lot of pressure.' On a recent tour of the UK, Millan was told his methods were close to breaching Defra guidelines (which forbid harsh training). Millan, America's internationally influential 'dog whisperer' has made a television career explaining dog psychology in terms of wolf lore. But I wonder how Cesar Millan and his followers will respond to these findings. It is a fundamental biological urge.'Д«ut Bradshaw is far from suggesting we slacken in our efforts to train our dogs (it is the more brutal training methods he would like to banish). It is what we are all aiming for вЂ“ to keep control of our own lives. He says: 'They don't want to control people, they want to control their own lives. He writes: 'The most pervasive and pernicious idea informing modern dog training techniques is that the dog is driven to set up a dominance hierarchy wherever it finds itself.' He explains that apparently dominant dogs are usually 'anxious' rather than 'ambitious'. Bradshaw believes our relationship with dogs has been sadly distorted. Dogs are not striving, in other words, for household domination.

They don't organise themselves in the way wolves do'.

And here is the rub: new research вЂ“ including work with Indian village dogs вЂ“ shows that dogs 'do not set up wolf-type packs. The wolves alive now are unreliable specimens, necessarily rough diamonds, who have been able to 'survive the onslaught we have given them'. And the American timber wolf is not related at all closely to the ancestry of the domestic dog.'Д«radshaw's hypothesis is that domestic dogs were descended from more sociable wolves but that 'whatever the ancestor of the dog was like, we don't have it today'. He says: 'People have been studying American timber wolves because the European wolf is virtually extinct. His argument is that scientists have been studying the wrong wolves and jumping to the wrong conclusions. I was told she was demonstrating 'dominant' behaviour.) Bradshaw has no quarrel about DNA. (I remember sitting in the back of a puppy-training class with Lily who was crying while the teacher was talking. The received thinking has been that dogs seek to 'dominate' and that our task is to assert ourselves as pack leaders вЂ“ alpha males and females вЂ“ and not allow dogs to get the upper paw. We have had it drummed into us by trainers such as Cesar Millan that because dogs are descended from wolves (their DNA is almost identical), they behave like wolves and can be understood as 'pack' animals.

The first idea to bite the dust is so huge and entrenched that some owners will struggle to adjust. His book is a revelation вЂ“ a major rethink about the way we understand our dogs, an overturning of what one might call traditional dogma. His style is tolerant, clear and benign and he is interested only in what science can support. Bradshaw is not interested in canine hearsay. He is a scientist вЂ“ founder and director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol вЂ“ who has devoted the last 25 years to studying the domestic dog and has just written the most fantastic book, In Defence of the Dog, which is already on US bestseller lists and is about to become required reading for dog lovers everywhere. He has not come to my house to turn Lily into a reformed character. Before we go any further, it needs spelling out that Bradshaw is not a dog trainer. He is giving her a chance to have a good sniff at him. P rofessor John Bradshaw is holding out a clenched fist вЂ“ you might see this as a novel way of greeting a stranger were it not that it is my dog, Lily, he is approaching.

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