I've lost the battle but I am going to win the war! We have to join a puppy class to schedule regular training time with our new puppy -remember the 60lb one!
What's the big deal, you say? Pride- that is it. B.K. (before kids) my husband & I enjoyed dog training for a good solid 5 years. Almost 4 nights a week we were out with the dogs: obedience, agility, search & rescue and just plain fun swimming with them. They are a great way to plan for parenthood- really.
We loved the agility. We even had a synchronized team that was hysterical when the dogs decided to give attitude. My dog would just lay down and ignore me- others would start playing. Mot my gal she was always beyond the training. Once in an obedience ring, she yawned. Another time she gave the judge a nice sniff between his legs. We didn't do any breed shows, we never had that plan. Once I saw women curling the hair of a poodle & putting ribbons on the dog. I never spend even that much time on myself - let alone on a dog. I did threaten to do that to my gal if she gave me attitude again.
We weren't really competitive about the training. Never placed in anything with A*K_C* but would get our certificates. Our dogs were always spayed or neutered. So we weren't trying to get the best for breeding. We did have fun.
Some of the best shows were with A*M_B*E*R, American mixed Breeds, aka mutts. They were more our style. They seemed to love dogs for the individuals. Our "mutt" was a great working dog, she loved to please. My Husband & her were quite the pair. She was quick to learn. We trained more positive, used slip collars but nothing like pinch collars or hurting the dog. You could not food train her because she would lose her brain with food, touch & words of praise worked beautifully. She was a special gal too.
Our search & rescue was a disaster. We live a very flat area of our state. No one gets lost. We enjoyed learning how to search & track at first, then we lost faith in our trainer, who just needed to stop lecturing at us & admit she had not idea how to do this. Every week it was different, and any trainer would know that consistency is the most important part to learning. We left the group after a year of being deceived. We weren't as active but did try things on our own. After kid one & two, we had less sleep at nights, less energy and just enjoyed the dogs with the kids.
Each dog is a chapter of our lives. We have special memories for each. Below the white shepherd was my gal: Kimba, and the brown terrier- German shepherd was Tesla. This is their later years.
