[ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: WORST DOG EXPERIENCES
- From: WLFHRTGSD@xxxxxxx
- To: showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 15:23:31 EST
In a message dated 1/19/06 1:22:10 PM, Bokenkampgsd1@xxxxxxx writes:
<< Someone told me many years ago that the hardest worst dogs to live with
make
great show dogs, I figure I have several GV's in the yard.
Molly
>>
I definitely agree with that one! My first show dog thought very highly of
himself, he had plenty of attitude. I didn't pick him, I was having him and a
littermate overnight for a bit of socialization. I've done this often, and
always fall in love but never had much difficulty returning the puppies. Not
this time. This little male got under my skin and I cried taking him home. I
had him back the following weekend, and decided I had to have him.
At his very first puppy match, he heard us clapping and I swear he puffed his
itty bitty chest out and strutted his stuff. He challenged every handler who
ever worked with him, and by the time he was in Open and had most of his
minors, the handler who showed him the most often was getting married and
taking
time off from shows. When I hired another handler, I entered a show under a
judge we'd never done anything under, I explained to the new handler that it'd
be great if we did something but I didn't expect it, I simply wanted the two of
them to be in the ring together so that my dog could get his tricks out his
system before entering something where I felt we had a decent chance.
I also had an escape artist of my own - Worth - the first time he got out of
the crate, I just thought I didn't close it properly. The next day, I made
sure I closed it properly, only to have him greet me at the front door. Then I
put a padlock on the corner of the crate door. Again, he met at the door when
I got home from work -- carrying a steak knife he'd taken from a set that was
sitting at the back of the kitchen counter. We had to go to three padlocks,
he could squeeze through two.
Worth once let himself out of the car through the window (I have NO idea how)
while I was out tracking with his breeder, who had kept his littermate. He
was content to be in the car with his sister while we were laying the tracks,
but we took his sister first. (At the time, I wasn't driving a big enough
vehicle to hold one, much less two, crates.) She did her track, and we were
walking back to get my dog, I saw a shepherd running around by the car. I said
"Oh
that's a handsome dog -- wonder who else is out here with a shepherd?" and my
breeder friend said "That's YOUR dog!" Both of us had a hard time believing
he got out of the car, but he did.
My first GSD, Misty, was so well behaved we never thought she'd ever get
herself in trouble, and definitely not after earning a few performance titles.
But one day we were having new carpeting installed, and though we made sure the
puppy (the aforementioned escape artist) was securely crated, gated, and tied,
we never even gave a second thought to Misty's whereabouts. The front door
had been propped open, and at one point my husband and I both realized neither
of us had seen her, the last time we could account for her was frighteningly
long. I was terrified, and I ran outside. I was very grateful that she had
decided to just sit at the corner and watch the world go by.
The smartest thing I've ever had a dog do was so intelligent it bordered on
scary, it was truly deductive reasoning. It was summer, and Jovan, who was
just about 6 months old, knew that cold air came out of the vent on the floor
in
the bedroom. One night I heard metal clanking, and turned on the light -- and
Jovan sat there staring at me, having removed the entire vent (we'd long ago
lost the screws, and never bothered to replace them, until after that night)
and looking at me like "Well, it works better this way."
They are actually pretty patient with me when I yell at them for drinking out
of the toilet -- they just roll their eyes. Clearly, I do not understand WHY
they should have to go all the way downstairs to the kitchen to get a drink
of water from their waterbucket when they have a perfectly nice drinking bowl
right there in the bathroom -- a bowl that is much bigger, and the water is
usually colder.
And then there's Cheyenne - who does what she wants, when she wants, if she
feels like it and if she's told to do otherwise, she rolls over and thumps her
tail on the ground. And she's had plenty of obedience work. When push comes
to shove she knows she has to listen, but that rarely happens and when it does
its nearly always because she and Jovan are squabbling and I don't like the
tone. They work most things out on their own, but every once in a while I hear
a snarl or snap that's going too far, and I end it.
Gotta love them!
Kelly Busse
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