Fortunately, a lady sees what's happened and phones Tharinee "Carrie" Wipuchanin of Pic-A-Pet4Home, who immediately rushes over and takes the dog to her house.

At her home, which shelters around 100 rescued animals, Carrie names the dog "Julie" and takes a closer look at her. The pup, nearly eight months old, is malnourished but otherwise apparently healthy, except for one troubling detail.

Pieces of the tip of her tongue are missing.

The wound is already healed, but nevertheless a mystery. Has Julie been bitten by another dog - or have her owners done it themselves, believing in the superstition that a dog stops howling when you trim its tongue?

If the mutilation is the result of superstition, the operation is not a success.

Carrie soon discovers that Julie indeed howls. She doesn't like being left alone.

Besides, within a few moments, she's "adopted" Carrie. As long as she can see Carrie, she's content and silent.

Here is a loving, gentle dog. "How could her owners throw her away like that?" Carrie wonders. "Did they really cut her tongue just because she just wanted to be with them?"

We'll never know. Cynical readers would say immediately, "Of course those stupid people did it. They were too lazy or ignorant to train her not to howl".

How old does a pup have to be for its training to begin? When I was living in a village years ago, I trained my dog's five puppies. They were only one month old when they took over my house with all its open doors, but they soon learned to equate "Get out of here!" with "Potty time outside".

I just had to time my command to coincide with a pup getting ready to squat.

Since then, I've learned more about dogs. I know now that there are gentler training methods even for very young pups. Despite their short attention span, they can still be trained.

Broadly, there are two kinds of dog-training: behaviour training, and activity training. Activity training covers all those wonderful actions that you see dogs do on TV, running through tubes and around obstacles, herding sheep and finding lost children. This training can begin when the dog is around a year old.

Behaviour training ensures that the pup in your life does not disrupt your life. A young pup can learn to respond to its name. It can learn "sit", "stay", "come" and "no".

It can also start learning not to nip people or destroy its owner's personal possessions.

I don't mean that a young pup can learn all these commands in a day. You start slowly, probably first with housebreaking, adding easy commands as the occasions arise.

Training is easy, and it's not. It depends on how you want your pup to behave.

Julie's new owners are charmed by her love and friendliness. With them, she has no need to howl.

By Laurie Rosenthal