Dog Blog - Bumps In The Road

Last Saturday I took Brandy to a rabies vaccination clinic at the Civic Center. I knew this would test her obedience, but I didn't realize just how much!

Brandy had a bit of a rough start from what I understand. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I do know she was a kennel dog for the first 2 years of her life. Having little socialization and being confined to a kennel, she became aggressive toward other dogs. In fact, when we bought her, she came to us in TX from NC with her nose mostly torn off from fighting with another dog through a chain-link fence.

We worked with her and broke her of her dog aggression for the most part. The only time we have an issue is if another dog looks like it wants to attack her (running up barking aggressively). It's hard to blame her for wanting to defend herself! If dogs are friendly, she doesn't have a problem with them. We also have a Chihuahua named Devon who is now her best friend.

So, I simply couldn't pass up $5 rabies shots and decided to take my chances. I am NOT kidding when I say there were more than a thousand dogs there! But the bigger problem was their owners! I'm sorry, but it is rude to let your aggressive dog (even if it is a 3lb Yorkie) bark right in the face of a strange dog.

I couldn't get over the apparent ignorance of some of the people there! I had Brandy standing calmly, minding her own business, and people would come right up within 6 inches of her nose and stand there, letting their dogs scramble at the end of their leash, trying to bite my dog! There was only so much poor Brandy could take. After asking a father and his daughter to PLEASE NOT let their puppy get so close to my dog when it was trying to attack her, Brandy finally took a nip at the annoying pup. The look I got from those people! Sheesh! I thought they were going to faint! Brandy never made contact with the puppy, but she did snap at it.

After trying to keep her under control for hours, my determination to turn her into a service dog began to waver. She was panting, stressed and clearly unhappy.

When I got home, I felt pretty blue. I felt like I had been a real dummy to think I could transform my bulldog into a service dog.

On Monday I received my book Teamwork II from Amazon. It was rejuvenating for me. When I got to thinking about it, I came to realize that the 1,000+ dogs all crowded together last Saturday would be an unnerving experience for most dogs. If I'm out in public with a service dog, the chance of running into 1,000 dogs all at once is actually pretty slim... especially at WalMart. In fact, I can't remember the last time I ran into ANY dogs at WalMart.

So today we were back to work. Not only did Brandy remember everything we worked on last week, but her "wait" was awesome! I started working her on down, and when I told her "wait," she figured it out and stayed down! I put her to the test when I put her in a "down" and told her to "wait." I then dropped the leash and ran around my car. Then... I opened one of the car doors.

I could see her overwhelming desire to go jump in the car... but she stayed!

I'm going to have an awesome service dog yet! I'm so proud of Brandy today. So far she has mastered "one step" where she takes one stair at a time. This will allow The Skink to hold on to her so she can slowly navigate stairs without falling.

Brandy heels perfectly, stopping on a dime the moment I stop. She will respond to "sit" about 95 percent of the time now. She will match my pace, fast or slow with NO pulling whatever. She will also "wait" or stay 95 percent of the time. She will do both "sit" and "wait" with a hand signal. Now we are working on "down" though she has the "down + wait" mastered.

And I was thinking about giving up?? ROFLOL!! I think NOT! Especially after my back and left hip went completely out at Iraq's ballet rehearsal tonight.

Yes - Iraq has a real ballet performance this Saturday! It is looking very good so far. Although she is in a group of 9 bluebirds, she is the one who will be the single bird while all the others are paired. Her social detachment seems to be preventing her from getting stage fright - this is a good thing!

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