Puppy Bootcamp–take 2 (and a surprise!)

Hello all! Long time to chat, right? That’s on me, and I take full responsibility for it. There is a reason for that, though–which, go figure, is what we’re going to talk about. 😄

As I write this, it is Monday, February 22, and I have gone radio silent for exactly two months–since December 22. The reason for that is something that happened on December 28 at a Scout’s Legacy outting. Before I start to explain, let me preface with this: everyone is fine; no one died–especially not puppy-boy. Everyone is fine. Repeat: everything is fine. Everyone take a deep breath. 🙂 Okay. Now that I got that out of the way, what happened on the 28 was that we learned everything was not as okay as I had thought. 

I had figured we were out of Cor’s current fear stage. Worst fear stage of puppyhood? Please, you haven’t met this poodle. Turned out, though, it had. And it was hanging on like a tick, because it really happened to like Cor–who doesn’t? He’s a great dog. Bit of a punk, but, hey, what puppy isn’t?

The first sign that I was wrong about where Cor was came while we were practicing ‘walk over dog,’ which is what it sounds like–training the dog to be chill and stay laying down when people walk over them, which people will do. Not that I blame them–some of these dogs don’t realize how big they are when they’re sprawled on the floor, no matter how much work we do with rear-end awareness. We’ve done this before. He’s not as chill with it as Yaha was, but if you promised Yaha a treat, he’d let you do anything. Cor is a bit more assertive of his feelings, even if he doesn’t feel the need to tell anyone that passes us on a walk that “this is mY HUMAN–BACK OFF! Don’t worry human–I’ll get them for you. Aren’t you so proud of me???” All the same, Cor generally chills out once he realizes that this is just another Weird Human Thing, and he’ll get treats if he just lays there–best game ever! This night, though, he was not only not loving the idea of being in a down-stay, but the moment that Amanda came walking over the line of dogs, he jumped to his feet and came to hide by me.

That was… weird, but he gets puppy brain, sometimes. I put him in down-stay again, and, when the next person walked down the line with the weird high-steps you have to do to get over some of these dogs, it was decided they’d walk behind Cor. Not that they even got that far before he was up and by me again, not liking this game in the least. 

Amanda came over and told me to take a walk–let her work with him. I didn’t go far, but stayed out of sight like she asked, heart starting to pound, and mind starting to swirl like the warnings of a tornado in the Walmart parking lot. (Not that I know from experience, or anything.) He wasn’t listening to me. He was scared, just like Yaha had been. We’d done this–why did it spook him so much? 

Amanda called me back, and we moved on to the next exercise–working the dogs with people other than their own. My heart sank. This one was specifically for him, wasn’t it? She paired him with a friend of mine whose dog is fully trained and is her fourth. Poop. That couldn’t be good. I was paired with a dog who was nearly graduated. Okay. Surely I could work–what was this dog’s name? Amanda was gone, switching more dogs. I didn’t know the dog’s name, or gender, and it didn’t listen to me when I asked it to go into down. I didn’t get it into down before she called Rudder’s name, and, after no one else stepped forward, I realized that was us. 

I hadn’t even gotten him into down. How was I supposed to get him to wait on one side of the aisle of dogs and people–including Amanda, who he was living with–and then get him to come to me when I called him? Especially when one of the big things we work on in training is ignoring people who aren’t your person? He came, but only after Amanda came and helped him start moving. Cor’s turn was next, and he tried to get to me when given the come command, I’ll give him that. The woman working with him caught him before he made it, and brought him back to his spot.

Yaha had washed. Cor was spooking at nothing, just like Yaha had, and a nearly-graduated dog could sense I was losing my grip on my own reigns enough to know I wasn’t the one in charge of the situation. There was one common denominator, here–me. It was my fault–all of it. I was ruining perfectly good dogs that could’ve helped others. There aren’t many dogs able to do this job, and I was making the number fewer and fewer because I was doing such a bad job.

That wasn’t true–I knew that. It wasn’t my fault Yaha washed–he hadn’t been able to handle his big-boy hormones coming to a tee, and his German shepherd protectiveness was coming to bear. He was trying to protect me, not help me. That hadn’t been anything I could help.

But I saw Amanda and Mom talking in low voices with somber faces, and suddenly I couldn’t remember anything other than Amanda saying Yaha had to wash. I heard my voice asking if she needed his vest back now, then. Hers saying that’d be best. I couldn’t get a grip on my imagination, spinning off in the direction of could I handle it if that happened again, this time with a third-generation service dog from a breeder who bred for service dog temperaments? We had stacked the deck in our favor, and yet… Amanda wasn’t often that somber. I knew that expression on Mom. It wasn’t good, and why wasn’t Rudder going into down? This was lesson one stuff–what was I doing wrong?

After we all got our dogs back, and Cor turned round and round in my arms as though it were the safest place in the world–which only made me feel worse–I made a beeline for Mom and Amanda. If this was going to happen, putting it off wouldn’t help anything. I needed answers, and I needed them now. Was I the first person Amanda was going to kick out of the program for simply being terrible at this–for losing a rigged game?

These were lies going through my head–I knew that. I knew that one bad outing wasn’t enough for her to kick me out. But… what if, somehow this was unfixable?

The final verdict? He was in the middle of his fear stage, still. He was a year old–this was normal, it was supposed to happen. But, the fact of the matter was, his confidence was coming from me. He wasn’t confident in his ability to do the job on his own merit. The improvement he had made when he was working with someone else was noticeable. That was all he needed–a chance to work with others, especially the trainers. He needed a chance to grow his confidence in himself. He needed me to leave.

For how long, I asked. I was leaving for Wisconsin in a little over a week. How would we do this in time?

…we wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to be coming with me to Wisconsin. He was going to stay in Texas for the four or five months I am up here.

My scalp tingled in panic, and my stomach became the Gordian knot. I was going to leave my dog in Texas while I went up to Wisconsin because there was something he needed to work on? That sounded familiar–too familiar. Far too familiar for comfort. That was exactly what had happened with Yaha at the beginning of the end. For as much as Amanda assured me this wasn’t a matter where washing was on the table–for as much as I trust her–I couldn’t help my brain connecting words and phrases and expressions. I couldn’t help the feeling of “going white as a sheet” as the saying goes. I couldn’t help but feel Cor lying on my feet as though he never wanted to leave this moment.

So I was going to leave my family with Cor for several months? Mom assured me they’d make it work, but for going on ten months, the longest we’d not been around each other was two one-night dog sitting sessions for Yaha. We were just going to go from that to several months? Were they going to be okay with the responsibility for him dropped on their shoulders cold-turkey like that? We didn’t really have a choice, but it was probably a good thing no one said those particular words to me.

All that to say, why haven’t I posted in two months? Because, as good as I hear he’s been doing, as fast as he’s been racing through lessons, as much as my soul has been eased about this not being a matter of washing, I still haven’t been able to put these feelings out there in writing for a while. I’ve written them, before, but I haven’t been able to share them, because I’ve been reminded of what the scared to hope feeling feels like in a very real way. 

He is doing well, though. He has had three day-training sessions with the trainers, where they take him out into public and work with him. He’s gotten praise from each of them about how he did. Watching his private Facebook page’s test and practice videos has reminded me just how much of a quick study he is–how fast he picks up on things. During the Texas Blizzard of 2021, he was apparently as well-behaved a dog as one could’ve hoped, and is back to his punky self, now that the power and water have been restored, the snow and ice have melted, and Texas is back in the seventies as though nothing happened.

He is doing well, he is training well, and he knows when I’m on Zoom and does the looking-not-looking thing, just to show me he is a big boy who is perfectly fine without me, thank you very much, Hooman. He is still laying on my clothes and bed and–to hear my family tell it–noticeably missing me even though he doesn’t let me see it.

As for me?

I’m managing. I didn’t realize how much comfort and steadying his mere presence gave me until I no longer had it. I didn’t realize how empty a room can feel when there’s no quiet sleeping-puppy breathing. I didn’t realize how much how I walk in public places changed with him. How much less I relied on my family in the case of seizures and started relying on him more while in public. I didn’t realize how light I could pack when I don’t have to bring toys and treats and chews, not to mention the vest and leash. I didn’t realize how much Cor kept me moving. I underestimated just how fast you can become one creature with six feet, rather than two creatures.

I’m keeping busy, though. The reason I’m up here–homeschooling my cousin–is keeping my mind occupied a large amount of the time (Wide Open Spaces is going to fill out–I promise 😉). Crocheting, as always, helps keep my bouncing knee under control. And, writing keeps my mind from getting too full.

Speaking of writing, it’s time for the surprise. I have a new book coming out soon! 🥳 This is something I’ve dreamed of my entire life–being a published author. And, due to the amount of freedom Cor and Yaha have given me and shown me is possible, I think it’s only right that my first published book is about the service dog life. Six Feet to Independence goes into six areas of life that change when you introduce a service dog or a service dog in training to your home. So if you’re looking for more of a practical, thousand-foot-view of the life with input and advice from people in this world–from families of handlers to trainers who have done this for years and were deep in the dog world for years before that, stay tuned! It’s coming soon! (And, yes. This is a shameless plug. This is my website. Why wouldn’t I share what I’m doing in this realm? 😉)