I spent Saturday with Jill at an obedience trial. There were two trials in one day – I had one class early and then one late in the day. So in the meantime I made myself comfortable with Jill and Amber (who went along for the ride) in their crates and relaxed with my nook reader. This nice lady approached me with a cute little golden and asked if I mind helping her. “Sure!” I said, looking for something to do. I quickly came to regret my answer. She proceeded to explain to me that her dog is bad about going to people. I assume that she was referring to the judge and people in the ring. An overly friendly golden, who woulda thought?? She then handed me a soda bottle full of rocks and instructed me to smash it on the ground if he tried to approach me. I was still standing there in stunned silence, clutching the soda bottle in disbelief, while she attempted to convince him to go to me, encouraging him and telling him “okay”. Basically setting him up to fail and teaching him that she can’t be trusted. He of course does not make any attempt to get to me. This was clearly not his first rodeo and I am sure he knows better than to approach anyone holding at soda bottle.
This dog, being an obviously resilient golden, went on to compete in the utility ring and did relatively well. I can’t remember if he qualified or not but overall he performed okay; if not a bit robotically. All I could think about though was if this woman was willing to treat him in such a manner at a trial what is his training life like at home? It is a shame that there is not a direct correlation between such training techniques and poor performance – while dogs have certainly been treated more cruelly and unfairly, it certainly says volumes about the type of relationship she has with her dog.
In my career as a police dog and SAR dog handler, my dogs have done some amazing things. Things that required them to think and problem solve. They had to perform completely independently of me. If they had not been successful I would never have known. Dugan alerted on a drowned person who was under 134’ feet of water. He found a person who had been missing for over 24 hours. Calix tracked two boys who had run away from home. He located a murder weapon that had been tossed from a moving vehicle into weeds on the side of a highway. Nothing drives me as nuts as seeing people, like this woman, treat dogs like mindless dumb animals. I find in the competition obedience environment that I have to turn a blind eye to a lot of that. People seem to have tunnel vision when it comes to the exercises and fail to see the big picture. Like the person I watched at a run through who had to block the gate to keep his dog from running out of the ring. I wonder if he ever considered the reason why his dog was wanting to bolt from the ring?
While Jill is not yet exactly perfect in her performances we were approached by several different people at the trial who commented on how much they loved her attitude. Many of the “pros” argue that enthusiasm and attitude will lose points. I can name several people (i.e. Denise Fenzi among others) who are obviously able to get attitude AND high scores. However even if it they were not – does that justify using other training methods for a sport? Isn’t that pretty much admitting that it is more about the ego than the relationship with the dog? I did not mean to turn my blog into a rant against competitive obedience, it is proving a good outlet for Jill’s energy now that she is no longer doing SAR training. However I think next time I go to a trial I will take my headphones along with my e reader!
Jilly Bean btw managed to achieve a second and a third place in her respective obedience classes. And I didn’t even need a soda bottle full of rocks to train her!!
This dog, being an obviously resilient golden, went on to compete in the utility ring and did relatively well. I can’t remember if he qualified or not but overall he performed okay; if not a bit robotically. All I could think about though was if this woman was willing to treat him in such a manner at a trial what is his training life like at home? It is a shame that there is not a direct correlation between such training techniques and poor performance – while dogs have certainly been treated more cruelly and unfairly, it certainly says volumes about the type of relationship she has with her dog.
In my career as a police dog and SAR dog handler, my dogs have done some amazing things. Things that required them to think and problem solve. They had to perform completely independently of me. If they had not been successful I would never have known. Dugan alerted on a drowned person who was under 134’ feet of water. He found a person who had been missing for over 24 hours. Calix tracked two boys who had run away from home. He located a murder weapon that had been tossed from a moving vehicle into weeds on the side of a highway. Nothing drives me as nuts as seeing people, like this woman, treat dogs like mindless dumb animals. I find in the competition obedience environment that I have to turn a blind eye to a lot of that. People seem to have tunnel vision when it comes to the exercises and fail to see the big picture. Like the person I watched at a run through who had to block the gate to keep his dog from running out of the ring. I wonder if he ever considered the reason why his dog was wanting to bolt from the ring?
While Jill is not yet exactly perfect in her performances we were approached by several different people at the trial who commented on how much they loved her attitude. Many of the “pros” argue that enthusiasm and attitude will lose points. I can name several people (i.e. Denise Fenzi among others) who are obviously able to get attitude AND high scores. However even if it they were not – does that justify using other training methods for a sport? Isn’t that pretty much admitting that it is more about the ego than the relationship with the dog? I did not mean to turn my blog into a rant against competitive obedience, it is proving a good outlet for Jill’s energy now that she is no longer doing SAR training. However I think next time I go to a trial I will take my headphones along with my e reader!
Jilly Bean btw managed to achieve a second and a third place in her respective obedience classes. And I didn’t even need a soda bottle full of rocks to train her!!
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| Here is a ribbon that I won for you..... |
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