I fucking loved dogs immediately. I emerged from the womb and took up my place crawling around with my grandmother's dog, Muffin, an alleged Rottweiler/Shepherd but I'm almost 100% that sweet Muffy was mostly Rhodesian Ridgeback. Let's just delve right into my dog snobbery then, I guess.
My family got our first rescue black lab, Tabby, when I was four. She took me for walks when I was really young, maybe six? The neighbours thought it was questionable that I was out walking this chubby babe by myself, and it probably was, but I loved it so much. At home, I would get her to stay.. go hide.. and tell her to come and find me. She would get lots of treats when she did and I would make the hiding places harder and harder. I didn't realize at the time, obviously, that this is a legitimately helpful training technique. She was amazing. A true gem, she had a lot of beautiful retriever traits, quirks, and trained behaviours from her genes and her past life. She had likely been some kind of hunting dog before she was picked up as a stray.
We adopted another dog, Eddie, an eleven year old medium-sized terrier mix. He was a grumpy old man but we spent 2 or so solid years together, with Tabby, before he got too sick. My family then decided to foster a dog for a Guide Dogs society. We were expecting a cute lab puppy and were disappointed to find that we had been matched up with a hyperactive, slightly older Parsons Russell puppy. He was to be trained to be a hearing ear dog. His name was already picked out, "Fuzzy". The worst name of all time.
Fuzzy, my dad, and I went to all the Guide Dog meetings together. The organization had general training rules for dogs. The way they taught dogs to walk nicely on a leash was to sharply jerk the dog back by the neck every time they were pulling. They didn't adjust this technique to account for the fact that Fuzzy was tiny. They used pretty well the same amount of force and he would come flying back. I remember asking if that was okay and they assured me that it was necessary.
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| Fuzzy & Tabby. What kind of dog names are these. |
I worked really hard teaching him, "sit", "stay" and "beg" and other basic things. He only knew how to do them with treats because nobody ever told me that you had to ween them off of treats. I corrected him harshly every time he was aggressive, which was with all strangers. We ended up reinforcing his aggression and neuroticism because none of us knew anything.. and I was an actual child. He failed the dog guide test. He was too obsessed with me by that point, which I LOVED and rewarded but it made his aggression worse.
My sweet parents ended up adopting him. We tried our best, but we needed more support, and didn't realize we needed support. I learned the importance of guided socializing because of this little gremlin. He improved gradually but his start was full of poor training techniques and likely confusion for him... he was unfortunately a grump for life.
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| Oliver on the right, supervising my dog, Pierre. |
In high school, we got the light of my damn life, Oliver Cornelius. An 8 week old wheaten/labradoodle mix. A perfect angel. I could write a novel about the love we share and the mental health crises he pulled me through. He's a grounding force.
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Behaviour and care are the two things I'm most passionate about. As I grew up, I learned how to navigate impulse control, interpersonal strife, relationship dynamics, and eventually neuroscience. As I continue in the mental health field, dogs are a constant source of inspiration, support, and just the right amount of challenge.
Moving forward, what I'm hoping to do with this blog space is to record the things that I learn and that I'm working on with my own dog, Pierre.
Growing up, I didn't always make the appropriate decisions, nor could I have been expected to as a child, but as a family we made a lot of mistakes. I keep them in mind as I continue trying to learn more about dog behaviour and training. I do feel a lot of guilt about Fuzzy. The dog that we royally messed up. Learning from experience is a privilege that I don't take lightly - I am grateful for these dogs everyday. Going to put all the love I have for them into building this relationship and working together towards the goal of therapy dog certification.
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