I think I can claim one more victory that is related to my dog's
aggression. For some bizarre reason every time my dog would get into the fight
with another dog my daughter would be by my side. This must've been really bad
luck because I always was insisting on walking the dog alone as it would give us
"our time" without worrying about anyone else.
As traumatic as it was
for me, and I am not a wimp, watching my dog attacking another dog, I can't even
imaging how 7 year old must've felt then. For two years my daughter would become
hysterical any time we would consider taking Brandy to public or
camping.
When I started going to Margot for private lessons...
To read the rest of this entry please go to the following blog:
http://skyreflection.blogspot.com/2009/11/another-victory.html
Thirty years ago I was warning people that if we didn't do something about teaching children about animals we would stand to lose them. No one wanted to listen. I begged and I pleaded with dog owners I knew to help stop PETA and H$U$. The problem was that everyone just knew PETA believers were just a radical fringe group and no one knew anything at all about H$U$.
Meanwhile for the same thirty years PETA and H$U$ have been in our children's schools handing out comic books like: http://www.furisdead.com/feat-momfur.asp and of course the most recent madness: http://www.petakids.com/sea_kittens/index.asp
So after thirty years of steady brain washing techniques starting in kindergarten and continuing all the way through graduate school is it any wonder we are losing our rights to own animals? Is there anyone, anyone at all reading this blog who can say they live in a city/town/village/county that doesn't have a pet limit? Gone are the days when we could own as many dogs or cats as we could feed and care for. So just what does this rant have to do with the quote from Yuliya's blog and the problems she was facing with her daughter?
Everything. Yuliya knew she needed help with her first dog. She did all the things she was told were the correct things to do. What it did get her was a dog that was pretty much out of control, has a record with the county and a child that was truly terrified of dogs. So what can be done?
I feel really confident in saying that using any form of a "drug cocktail" would not have solved the problems for either dog or child over the long term. Being a "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead" sort of person, once I learned just how deep the problem ran it only made sense to have the training include both dog and child.
And so, almost every week we had a 7 year old sitting on the sidelines in a huddle, with tears flowing and most of the time eyes squeezed tight shut. I just kept on insisting both dog and child would heal at about the same rate of speed. And so they did.
One of the things I did was to assign a task each week that a 7 year old could do and be successful at doing. It was when they finished up the private sessions and moved to the group class that is when things started to speed up as far as healing was concerned. For the first month, at least once every single class I had to deal with a 7 year old rushing out on the training floor to place herself between one of the little dogs and Brandy.
As she became more comfortable with doing the examination part when I called for a class stand for exam exercise, there was less and less tension in her. The more she was engaged in helping with other dogs the less time she had to worry about Brandy. I think we were lucky since instead of one child we had 3. Neither of the other two children were worried and that helped to make it more difficult for her to worry.
The thing that finally made a difference was when I told "Miss Worrywart" she had to join a close order drill I was getting ready to start. Sam was generous enough to allow Rugby to help with the changes. Once she got a taste of being responsible for a dog and realized she didn't have time to worry about what either her Mother or Brandy were doing things really started to fall into place. As you watch the short video of the work, take note of the children on the sidelines. The bike and also a scooter are there and being used at my request.
Don't know about anyone else, but I get such a kick out of watching this footage and getting to see just how far not one, but several dogs, one child and a couple of adults have come in just a couple of months.
Enjoyed this !!
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