Autumn rituals

One autumn ritual for me is showing at the Des Moines cluster. I'll get to that in a minute.

Another autumn ritual is the Iowa State Cyclones vs Iowa Hawkeyes intrastate college football rivalry. I would be acting in a manner very unbecoming an Iowa State graduate if I didn't take this moment to let you know that the CYCLONES KICKED MAJOR HAWKEYE ASS ON SATURDAY AND WON AFTER THREE OVERTIMES! 

This from a team who is the perennial underdog in the rivalry and usually slinks home with their tail tucked between their legs. Fans sigh and mutter "There's always next year," although we know next year will probably bring more of the same. Hell, we're just happy if we get on the scoreboard and it's not a total shut-out. Cyclone football is not exactly the powerhouse of the Big 12.

Okay, back to the Des Moines shows. The Belgians and I set off on Friday morning with R2 loaded to the ceiling. I think he looked like one of those clown cars where you open the doors and everything comes flying out. I just hoped we made it to Des Moines before anything started popping out of windows or the sunroof. You laugh but I had show gear and camping gear for 2 big dogs and 1 person for 3 days. Just getting packed and loaded up was a major undertaking.

The camping was great. Perfect weather - dry, sunny days and cool nights. Since my Mountain Hardware tent is still on the DL after breaking a pole last fall (um . . . I had a whole year to fix it . . . guess THAT didn't get done) I ended up using the very first tent I ever bought, a cheap little Coleman. It's a great little tent but obviously for use only during fair weather only. If it had rained, things wouldn't have been pretty. The rain fly is a silly little affair that barely covers the screen mesh on two sides.

It was wonderfully cool at night and Phoenix decided he liked sleeping UNDER my unzipped sleeping bag with me. Too funny. I've never had an "under" dog. Jamie thinks it's still too hot when it's 35 degrees and no way does he want to be covered up. 

Saturday, Phoenix and I entered Versatility and Wild Card Utility. Before going into Versatility, I let Renee take Phoenix to warm him up. It was another experiment. It was NOT the type of warm up that seems to be fashionable in some parts of the Midwest - handing your dog off to someone who basically abuses it for 10 minutes then hands it back just as you go into the ring. Renee had him do some heeling and finishes and play a little, then delivered him to me as the judge called our number. The goal was to have him happy to be in the ring with me. Even though he likes Renee and she wasn't being horrible to him, he's very much MY dog and was happy to get back to me.

It worked! He WAS happier in the ring and gave me some good attitude and some definitely improved work. We even had a trot-in after the drop on recall (yay!) and a passable Glove #3 turn (double yay!). We ended up placing 3rd out of 10, which was just icing on the cake as he already has his VER title and I'd entered just to work on ring attitude.

We did Wild Card Utility later and used the same approach. It didn't work quite as well the second time. I think Phoenix may have just been pushed to his limit by then, as the show site is very, very demanding and overwhelming in terms of noise and congestion. Ironically, we ended up winning the class with a score of something like 135 points, which was pretty hysterical. His go-outs remained good but the directed jumping part was broken. I'm not sure if it was sensory overload or if he had trouble seeing my signal against a very busy background. He also got stuck on the first article. It was in the center and he was standing with his front paws in the center, working the outside of the pile. On the second article, the judge asked if I would like it back in the middle again and I said absolutely! Phoenix did a better job of checking the WHOLE pile, not just the outside and found it right away. It's great when judges really try to help and aren't just going through the motions.

After much shopping at the vendors (seriously, I need an intervention), eating cookies (the food concession bakes chocolate chip cookies fresh all day long), looking at what everyone else bought at the vendors (okay, maybe I don't need an intervention after all, I'm still an amateur compared to Michele and Beth!) and watching team, everyone headed home and the dogs and I headed to the huge Bass Pro Shop store nearby. It was late enough in the day I found a totally shaded parking spot and the dogs napped while I shopped. Again. 

Grabbed supper on the way back to the campgrounds, ate, walked dogs, crawled into the tent and fell asleep by 9 p.m. Phoenix cuddled up under the sleeping bag at some point in the night and we all slept snugly.

The only class we entered today was Versatility. We managed to have our absolutely worst ring entry in the history of obedience. He was bouncing and tugging a toy and we were all ready to go in. I turned to set the toy down and just as the judge called my number, Phoenix plopped down and went butt-scooting across the floor, hind legs sticking up in the air while two little boys ran straight at him, screeching "Can we pet your dog!!!" (Well, at least they asked.)

I got him off his butt and intercepted the two little boys (parents were somewhere in the general vicinity but basically ineffective) and stumbled into the ring. Then things got a lot better - all I wanted was "up" attitude and he delivered. He even did his signals in that zoo! Not every part of every exercise was brilliant but it was a marked improvement over recent performances. 

Several times he tried to leave the ring (odd) and he did the butt-scooting thing again between exercises. I know I'd expressed anal glands when he had a bath a couple of weeks ago but the poor guy was clearly having some discomfort. Soon as we got out of the ring I took him outside and he had a major dump. Figures. He'd already pooped once this morning and he'd been out a couple of other times and didn't have to go but guess obedience is just stressful that way.

It's good to be home.

Bye-bye, Front and Finish

As several of you have mentioned, yes, I've stopped writing for Front and Finish. I enjoyed it tremendously but after 15 years, well, it was a good run. I see on their Web site my final column did not get posted in its entirety, a bit is missing at the end, so here's the whole darn thing.

IF YOU LIE DOWN WITH DOGS . . .

People frequently ask me, “Do your dogs sleep in your bed with you?” The people asking this question are usually not dog people. Dog people would take one look at Jamie and Phoenix and know better.

Outdated dominance and leadership theories aside, my dogs don’t sleep on our bed because they don’t fit. There are nights when our bed, albeit queen sized, does not seem big enough for two humans, let alone adding more creatures whose combined weight tops out at 110 pounds.

That’s not to say they don’t try. Like most dog owning households, we have a set of rather complicated rules governing who is allowed on the bed and under what circumstances. These rules have a certain amount of flexibility built into them. Most of this flexibility comes from the dogs’ interpretation of the rules.

When Jeff and I got married, the initial rule was no dogs on the bed because back then, we had a waterbed. Not a problem, since neither of my shelties showed any indication of wanting to sleep there. In fact, Jess was scared to death of the thing because it moved. (Jess was scared of a lot of things.)

This lasted until our farm was hit by a straightline windstorm in 1998. The devastation was immense. Jess and Connor were alone in the house during the storm. That night when we went to bed (our house was one of the few structures on our farm that escaped being flattened, although it sustained some damage), Connor jumped up onto the bed — rules be damned — curled up and pretended he wasn’t there.

“Your dog is on the bed,” Jeff pointed out. I thought we had bigger things to worry about and told him so. He got up, picked Connor off the bed, put him on floor and by the time Jeff got back into bed, Connor was already back in it, too. Conn slept on the foot of our bed for years and years after that. He was just the right size to shove my cold feet under in the winter. If he objected to this, he never said anything. When we got rid of the waterbed and replaced it with a traditional mattress and frame, the fact that Connor nearly had to pole vault to get onto it didn’t stop him.

When Connor died in 2009, I no longer had a “bed dog.” Jamie thought humans were hot, lumpy and thrashed around too much. He wanted no part of sleeping on the bed and slept happily on the floor.

The only exception was during thunderstorms. Then he would vault onto the bed in a panic, not caring where he landed or if that spot might already be occupied by a tender part of human anatomy. Jamie has been storm phobic his entire life so after 12 years, Jeff and I have both become resigned to having a terrified, 60 pound furry missile launching onto the bed in the middle of the night. Depending on the severity of the storm, being on the bed with us provides some degree of comfort. During mild storms, Jamie will curl up close and go to sleep, relieved to be safe with his people. Apparently the safety factor is much higher if one is sleeping two feet above the floor.

Jamie could have had a career with the National Weather Service. Garden variety thunderstorms in the night are met with mild trembling that frequently resolves itself once he is ensconced on the bed with human hands to touch and provide reassurance. He’ll go to sleep, enduring the hot, lumpy people for the sake of security. Once the storm passes, he’ll jump off like he was doing us the biggest favor in the world by sleeping there.

But if he is really distraught there is a great deal of fussing, shifting, stomping around (again, paying zero attention to where he’s stomping), trembling, panting and general inability to settle. Before long, my weather radio will go off with a severe storm warning that Belgian radar had already predicted.

Jamie sees no point in sleeping anywhere when there’s seriously rough weather and thinks no one else needs to, either. However he’s not content to be wide awake on the floor. He gets lots more reaction and attention from the humans if he’s stomping on them. I’m willing to endure a bit of this behavior for the sake of loving this crazy dog, but when storm induced behavior turns my night’s sleep into a trampoline routine, Jamie goes in a crate — where oddly enough, he settles almost immediately. Probably because he’s exhausted from jumping up and down on my head.

Phoenix is oblivious to storms but sees no point in being the only one who is NOT on the bed when one strikes. Once Jamie leaps up to join us, Phoenix is usually right behind him. Fortunately, Phoenix spins in a tight circle, plops down and won’t move unless bodily evicted – no panicked thrashing.

Phoenix did enjoy a brief stint of being allowed to sleep at the foot of the bed, although it was not sanctioned by either me or Jeff. Once he grew up enough not to eat the house and was allowed loose-in-the-house-at-night privileges, his main goal in life became sleeping on the bed. He was a dog on a mission. I don’t know how many times I woke up to find him perched on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, one paw already on the quilt and one paw raised in anticipation of sneaking on the rest of the way. No doubt he thought if he crept up slowly and silently enough, he could curl up undetected and spend the night. I’m ashamed (or amazed!) to say this occasionally worked. The dog has definite feline tendencies and can move with considerable stealth for something that weighs 50 pounds and usually careens around the house like he’s been shot from a cannon.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time chucking Phoenix (usually verbally, occasionally physically) off the bed. He finally decided it was a battle not worth fighting and made a happy nest on the floor next to my side of the bed.

Once we had established that the bed was not an extension of his own personal lounging space, I would invite Phoenix to come up and cuddle while Jeff and I read or watched TV. The rule was “When the lights and/or the TV go off, the dog goes off, too.” This worked well and usually the very act of reaching for the remote control resulted in a polite exit.

That fall, when Jeff began working late hours during the harvest, I amended the “Dogs off the bed when the lights go out” rule. If I went to bed before Jeff, Phoenix could snuggle and sleep on the bed until Jeff came in, then he had to get off.

Well, that’s what I thought the rule was. Phoenix interpreted it more like “Finders keepers, I have a warm spot and I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.” He never growled at Jeff when he came in or showed any sign of resource (bed) guarding. He suddenly developed total deafness, put his head down, closed his eyes and wouldn’t move.

Jeff was usually too tired to argue with him so Phoenix thought he’d won that battle. The bed was warm and soft and the human didn’t seem to object to him being there, at least not enough to do anything about it. It was a classic example of “If you allow it, you train it.”

Then I started waking up in the middle of the night to find both husband and dog wedged onto the same side of the bed. Phoenix looked happy. Jeff, not so much. Not for the first time in my life, I realized here was another problem not of my own creating that I was going to have to solve. Phoenix simply could not be allowed to sleep on the bed full-time. He took up too much room.

Ever notice how dogs expand in every direction when they get on the bed? Phoenix was a blanket hog. He was so heavy if he rolled onto your feet, he cut off circulation. He was given to having chasing dreams (cats, I suspect) which always seemed to come to a violent conclusion. It’s cute to watch your dog dreaming when he’s laying on the floor. It’s not so cute to wake up to find him sound asleep, growling and thrashing and baring his teeth six inches from your ankle.

It took a lot of insistent reinforcing to convince Phoenix that his own bed was where he needed to sleep. I’m still not sure he really buys that but he’s gracious enough to play by our rules now.

*****

This is my last column for Front and Finish. I’m sad. I’ve written for 15 years, since 1996. It’s been a wonderful experience but time and circumstances have a way of changing life’s priorities.

My job (which I’m happy to still have) has changed tremendously in the last year and while I’m writing more than ever for the paper, other responsibilities have been added as well and the down time that allowed me to craft these columns in spare moments has virtually disappeared. Time for writing at home? In my dreams. Household demands, helping with our farming operation, training Phoenix for his UDX career, teaching classes and the inevitable family demands have a way of occupying every available second. Funny how time can become such an elusive and precious commodity. I knew it was time to bow out when I found myself facing column deadlines with a sense of desperation, not enjoyment.

Unfortunately, my access to the digital version of Front and Finish is also severely limited. With dial-up Internet at home, loading the pages progresses at an agonizingly slow pace. After spending 8 hours or more a day working on a computer, I’m not eager to sit in front of one again for any length of time when I get home. I understand the economic pressures that led to launching the digital version of F&F but I very much miss the hard copy edition that fit in purse and training bag. I find myself in the awkward position of writing for a publication I no longer have access to reading.

Sigh. I will miss you all. I will miss Bob Jr.’s support and Teresa and Thomi’s silly comments back and forth when I e-mail columns.

Thank you for reading. As always, I invite you to share my world at http://exercisefinished.blogspot.com.

'This will make you a better trainer'

Random thoughts about me, Phoenix, training, the past, the future, stupidity, hindsight and forgiveness

Over the years, I’ve frequently heard people say “My dog hates obedience.” I never really understood what they meant because I’d never had a dog who hated obedience. That was something I had no point of reference for. Jess, Connor and Jamie all had hang-ups on certain exercises but as a whole, they loved going into the ring. I think this was just who they were, not the result of any brilliant training skill on my part.

“My dog hates obedience” have always been fightin’ words for me. I thought “Well, it must be your fault, what have you done to make him hate it?” Never thought I’d be asking myself that question!

Maybe that’s a little extreme. I don’t think Phoenix hates obedience. After this summer’s training experiences, I absolutely believe he KNOWS what to do, he just doesn’t have the “want to” to do it in the ring when the pressure is on. After a great deal of woolgathering on this, I’ve decided the problem is not rooted in Training Method A vs Training Method B.

I think I have managed to convince him he can never be right so why should he even bother. Wish I could pinpoint when this happened in our training but of course, it wasn’t during any particular year or at any particular level. It just happened.

Although I thought I was helping him understand what to do by tweaking, adjusting, correcting and repeating, repeating, repeating the individual skills and complete exercises, the message I was actually sending was “You’re never right. You cannot make me happy.”

Well, that sucks! No wonder the poor guy looked miserable in the ring. He was pretty sure he was being set up to fail and there wasn’t even the outside chance of getting a cookie or a ball there to offset the constant reminders that he was wrong.

Here’s one of the places I totally misread my dog: on one hand, I have Phoenix, Dog Of Steel. He is the most incredibly athletic and physically hard dog I have ever owned. No wonder the military jumps out of airplanes with malinois! On the other hand I have Phoenix, Dog of Marshmallow Fluff. He is by far mentally the softest dog I have ever trained. (Not to say he is soft in the head. I think that’s ME.)

He reads and reacts to my emotions to a much higher degree than any dog I’ve trained. Although I was trying so hard to teach him how to be a brilliant obedience dog, instead I taught him frustration. Training and showing was an endless void of performances that just weren’t good enough, all wrapped up with my disappointment in the ring. Since I wanted more than just qualifying scores, I put a tremendous amount of pressure on both of us. Neither of us handled it well!

So maybe there is another type of performance crisis in addition to the dog who can’t perform without cookies — the dog who can’t perform, no matter how careful his training has been, because he has no self-confidence?

More than once this year I’ve found myself wondering if Phoenix’s obedience career was going to end with his UD. While that wouldn’t be the end of the world, it wasn’t the picture I’d always held in my mind of our journey together. I contemplated an obedience-less future for Phoenix for about 5 minutes. Then I thought, this is absurd. I can’t NOT do obedience with him.

I am convinced beyond a doubt he knows how to do the exercises. It’s not a training problem. It’s not dependent on the show site or the time of day or who the judge is. It’s a relationship problem. You can’t correct a dog for being unhappy. I don’t think the answer is throwing cookies at him all the time but I don’t think the answer is grinding away with drilling and constant formal training, either. I refuse to show a dog who doesn’t want to be in the ring with me. I don’t care how technically perfect we might become as a team, if we can’t do it happily, then we’re not going to do it. I've never been a fan of "making" a dog do something - it's akin to dragging a terrified dog across the teeter in agility and then saying "There! He did it!"

With Jess, Connor and Jamie, building the “want to” for obedience was never a problem. They CAME with it. How did I get so lucky! (Of course, now I am clueless about what to do with a dog who DIDN'T come with it.) I could tweak their “have to” without unbalancing their “want to.” Right now, Phoenix and I are seriously unbalanced. He isn’t being deliberately disobedient in the ring. He’s doing the best he can — and given that he clearly doesn’t want to be doing it at all, I’m amazed he’s even bothering to try. He loves me even though he probably thinks I am a flaming idiot.

I never put much stock in a dog’s “desire to please” until now. My previous dogs all had plenty of desire to please — desire to please THEMSELVES. But maybe with Phoenix, he really cares about making me happy, even though I’ve been pretty oblivious to it.

So what’s next for us? We’re entered in Wild Card Utility and Versatility this weekend, then nothing after that. What exactly are we going to do in training now? First, nothing formal. Forget being OCD about everything. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I want to recapture that "I don't care about scores I just want to have fun" attitude I had with my very first sheltie. If that means sacrificing precision for the time being, that's fine. If we don't get the joy back, there's no need to worry about precision.

Having a dog who’s not crazy about obedience is very much a new experience for me. Everyone tells me it will make me a better trainer and I know they’re right! Oddly enough, I’m not totally devastated by the fact my dog is a total mess in the obedience ring. Disappointed and frustrated, yeah, cuz I sure didn’t see any of this coming and I really hate that I’ve put Phoenix through this. He is being very patient with me. I know he forgives me for my blundering and bad training decisions.

This is getting long. I’m babbling.

Tonight I’m going to take my tree climbing, bubble chasing, flower-pot-carrying, tooth snapping, funny, silly, goofy dog to a park. We’re going to chase a ball, do some recalls, go for a walk and enjoy the wonderful cool pre-autumn weather we’re having.

I can't make this stuff up

The Farmer was flipping through TV channels the other day and came across “Hogan’s Heroes.” Since we are both children of the 70s and 80s, of course we had to watch it. Hogan and Klink were having a discussion about prisoners who had escaped from Stalag 13 and a neighboring stalag.

Hogan: Stalag 19 will catch their escaped prisoners much faster than you will here at Stalag 13.

Klink: Why?

Hogan: Stalag 19 has smarter dogs.

Klink: Smarter dogs? What do you mean?

Hogan: You use German shepherds. They use Belgian shepherds.

Of course, I was roaring with laughter, thinking this was the funniest thing I’d ever heard on a sitcom and the Farmer was looking at me like I had horns. That happens a lot around our house.

And my apologies to all the beautiful German shepherds out there who I am sure are just as smart as any Belgian shepherd and, from what I've seen of Phoenix lately, probably a good deal more sensible. The Skinny Little Dog has taken up tree climbing. He's not any good at it but he keeps trying to climb the big maple tree south of our house. He is sure there is a cat up there somewhere. I guess everyone needs a hobby.

A few funny photos

I just happened to be ringside with my camera when they were judging groups one day this weekend. This St. Bernard wasn't having any of it.

Love the handler's reaction. I mean really, what are ya gonna do when 120 pounds of dog says "I don't think so"?

Trust me, I am the last person who should be critiquing others' fashion choices but leopard skin print boots? Really? Oh well, what else would you wear with your leopard skin print skirt? 

We live just a few miles from the show site and got 3.6 inches of rain Saturday so the boots were not overrated. 

Today at the trial was just plain odd. Phoenix and I had possibly our worst run ever in the history of Utility, an NQ or major deduction on every exercise . . . broken only by stunningly perfect go-outs. Silly boy.

Open was much better. With the exception of refusing to release the dumbbell on the retrieve on flat.

Me: Out.

Phoenix: No.

Me: Um . . . out.

Phoenix: Um . . . no.

Me: Seriously, OUT!

Phoenix: Seriously, NO!

So he finished with his dumbbell in his mouth and seemed very pleased with himself.

The experiment

Yesterday I showed Phoenix again. Our Utility run was not a thing of beauty but it WAS better than Thursday's. Even though we NQ'd 2 exercises, I felt like he was working a little better and giving a little more effort. 

The longer we were in the ring, the more relaxed he seemed to get. He was still pretty "sticky," not the relaxed, happy dog I ultimately want but he managed a couple of perfect exercises and had lovely straight go-outs and didn't sniff the gate this time. This tells me he was at least trying. By the end of the run, I was seeing little signs he was relaxing, like "up" ears, more eye contact and a willingness to bounce.

I realize 3 months of a new training method won't create overnight results but I had expected to see some indication that what we were doing was working this weekend, even if the finished product wasn't complete. And now I feel like I did.

Then Michele took Phoenix into Open for me. This was a total experiment. I wanted to see if any of his ring issues were connected to me and if I weren't in the picture, would that make any difference in how he worked.

I told Michele if things didn't go well and she wanted to be excused, that was fine with me. She took Phoenix outside and spent some time working heeling, drops and playing with the dumbbell. He worked for her but was constantly scanning, looking for me.

I debated about leaving the building entirely but thought maybe if I just stood in one place and stayed there, so he could get a fix on where I was, that would be the best idea.

It wasn't. In hindsight, leaving the building probably wouldn't have made any difference. And let me tell you, if I ever thought I was nervous before going into the ring, it was NOTHING compared to watching someone else take my dog in!

The judge was Phil Rustad and he was incredibly patient. It took Michele a long time to get set up for the first exercise, the retrieve on flat, because Phoenix kept circling her, scanning the crowd, and wouldn't come to heel. Once they got going, he retrieved fine but didn't front, went straight to heel, then began circling again, with the dumbbell still in his mouth.

The drop on recall followed and it was lovely, complete with front and finish. Retrieve over the high was next and again, the set up was difficult. He was circling and scanning, clearly concerned about where I was. 

He went out over the jump, grabbed the dumbbell and then turned to the crowd, scanning. He missed the jump coming back, Michele released him and Phil asked if she would like to be excused. She said yes, which was the perfect decision.

So . . . what did I learn from this? I think the biggest lesson was that Phoenix may not be the picture of ultimate joy in the obedience ring at the moment but he'd still rather be in the ring with me than with anyone else, even a friend who he likes very much and knows is a generous hand when it comes to treats. That's not to say I'm not part of the problem but at least now I know I'm not the ENTIRE problem! 

Thank you, Michele, for being part of this experiment. You and Phoenix look good together! I think with a little practice, he would happily work for her. It was fun standing back and watching my own dog in the ring, at least when things were going well!

We have today off, then back to the show tomorrow.

I'm already starting to build a new training plan for the coming months. We're definitely not going to show again until until spring (not counting Wild Card and Versatility at Des Moines next weekend) but I'm getting a clearer picture of what Phoenix and I really need to be doing (and not doing) until then. Will explore that in a future post.

What comes before Square One?

Cuz that's where we need to go back to.

I debated about posting today because I'm not sure where things are headed and as a writer, I always think I need to have a clear position to present before I start putting something into words.

I showed Phoenix in a local trial yesterday and it did not go well. I feel like all of our hard work over the summer was a complete waste of time. (Although spending time with your dog is never really a waste, is it?) He was not a happy dog in the ring. He barely managed to go through the motions. We Q'd in Open with a mediocre score. We NQ'd Utility on signals and barely skated through the rest of the exercises.

I tried hard to find something good about the day but "good" just wasn't on the agenda. I figure the purely compulsion trainers will say we just haven't worked long enough to instill the "have to" and the purely positive trainers will say "I told you so" for pulling the rewards out of the picture and asking him to work "just because."

But now I don't think it's either one of those things. He worked just as badly in the ring after 3 months of patient and constructive "no cookies" training as he worked after years of being trained generously with food. He was just plain miserable. A friend watching outside the ring said "He doesn't want to be in there." She was absolutely right.

He had been working well in training and I had high hopes that his confidence had returned with improved understanding and that he could give me some solid effort in the ring. But it didn't happen. Again, Phoenix warmed up nicely outside the ring, ears up, eyes bright, happy tugging on the leash, a few big bounces, into the ring and . . . flat as yesterday's beer.

We're entered two more days this weekend (regular classes), then two days next weekend (Wild Card Utility and Versatility). After that, I do not anticipate showing in obedience for a very long time.

After chatting with a dear training friend this morning (okay, wailing and gnashing my teeth!), I'm going to experiment and have two friends show Phoenix for me - once this weekend and once next weekend. They won't show him in all the classes, just one class each day. I don't expect this to miraculously cause him to start performing like the obedience ring is the best place in the world. Hell, I don't even know if he'll stay in the ring with them. But it can't hurt (and will probably make Michele and Renee appreciate their own dogs even more!)

Like Renee said, no matter what happens, at the end of the day, I still get to take my beautiful, amazing, smart, strong, funny dog home with me. If we need to take a break from obedience, we will. We can play more agility. We can start tracking. I will love him no matter what.