Every one I’ve ever met was sweet as honey except for the poor thing some stupid cow was taking to “training classes” to socialize it at PetCo.
[she waited until it was _a year old_ to -start- ‘socializing’ it?!?]
First, she had it tightly -muzzled- and it was so terrified at being rendered helpless by having its mouth tied shut, it growled at everyone, just out of pure fear.
[and she just could *not* comprehend the connection, no matter how plainly I made it]
I sat down beside the dog on the floor, averted my gaze and within seconds, it started to sniff me and tentatively accept my hands touching him.
It even wagged its tail.
[he tried to lick my hand but couldn’t get his tongue out of his mouth because of that infernal face bondage device]
Then, some other people came up to him and she grabbed him and -shoved- him into them, insisting he “socialize” with them.
More growls.
Stupid cow.
She’s dooming that poor, beautiful dog to death by needle, some day.
Odin, at the tender age of 6 weeks, accompanied me into every store I frequented, happily observing the world from the shopping cart in which he was riding.
He willingly accepted all the “ooohs” and “aaahs” offered by passersby and the infinite pets and cuddles from kids and adults.
Soon, he got too big to ride in the cart any more and we did it all over again, with him walking alongside.
He loves everyone, especially little kids.
I look at him now and I think of that handsome little red nose pit and wonder if he’s even still alive.
It breaks my heart.
I saw a similar thing happening at PetSmart’s “training” class.
The girl in charge sold a GSD pup’s owner a “Halti” and “no pull” harness that works by inflicting pain on the dog’s armpits to “control” his pulling.
Even though I showed her the -better- way, she went off, jerking the poor pup’s head with the “Halti” [damn the cervical damage, full speed ahead!] and was still being dragged, regardless of the “no pull” harness.
Life is simple:
“Tension in the leash = tension in the dog.”
How hard is *that* to understand?
If Odin pulls the leash tight, we just STOP.
When he backs up and the leash is lax again, we continue.
It’s amazing how fast the average dog “gets” the connection.
Pull = shut down.
No pull = happy exploring.
Yesterday we were on our way to Bike Night in WV and got behind a guy hauling a kayak and an unleashed Boxer in the back of his pickup.
He was swerving and making quick turns and stops, tossing the dog around.
I took a different out-of-the-way route because I did *not* want to be anywhere near him when his dog hit the interstate like a sack of guts.
Some people shouldn’t even own a photo of a dog.
/rant
Sometimes the trainers are the stupidest of all. We owned a Shar Pei (Chow cousin) that was a big old baby but you had to treat him with respect because he was shy and a little fearful of other people. Everywhere we boarded him we had problems. They didn’t understand the breed.
One guy cornered him (is a no no) trying to get him back in his run. The guy told me he was vicious. A snack of any kind and he would’ve come running.
Another place they wound up putting him on murderer’s row as soon as we left because he ran to the window watching us leave while she was trying to put him up. If she had just waited til we were out of sight he would have been fine.
We finally had to stop boarding the big old baby cause everyone was afraid of him.
You have to understand the breed of any dog before you can deal with them responsibly.
Very well put. I know someone like that....