Hey folks, I'm Kellie and my girl is Piper. I moved up to Sevier in the winter of 2020. Hip deep in the days of Covid. It proved to not be a big deal here, but where I came from in Southern California, everything was shut down and had been for many months. When we moved here, I was 60 and Piper had just turned a year old. Now let me tell you a smidge bit about my God given heart dog.
Piper was a rescue at about 14 weeks, had been quite neglected and was wound super tight. She was not what I was looking for, but God made it very clear that she was to be my dog. So, onward...
We used to have lots of doggie play dates for her first six months and you can see that she was fearless and alpha right out the chute!
By the time we moved up here, Piper had all her basic commands but zero self-control and was officially dog and some people aggressive. Which meant that I kept her away from any situation that could cause her or others harm. Surprisingly, she was fine with my cats and chickens.
It quickly became a very lonely life for us both and pretty much stayed that way until I met Roxanne in the summer of 2023. She said she was an avid hiker and loved taking her dogs. Oh how I missed those days of hiking and playing with friends and our dogs! I wasn't allowed to bring my wild child for reasons that soon because obvious, but watching her and Mary work their dogs off leash and on the trails hooked me. I desperately wanted that life for us!
So I signed us up for Roxanne's KMODT Foundations Course. Both her and Mary warned me that it was a tough course, but I was sure we could handle it.
It almost broke me. Piper was hard yet easy. She is incredibly smart and responsive... if you know what you're doing, which I most definitely didn't. I was slow, clumsy, impatient, forgetful, stubborn and prideful. I cried, whined, rebelled and at one point even quit. I was really hard work for Roxanne and Jessi! Yet neither of them gave up on me. I was so full of fear and pride that I found it impossible to relax and have any fun with the process.
There comes a time in the training when you hit the tipping point. Ours came on the tail of finally getting through the week 6 exam. I finally shifted; stopped fighting my dog, stopped trying to protect my ego by muscling through the work, and finally started to relax and actually work with Piper. Then Roxanne's coaching really started to sink in... I can still hear her voice. Patience. Calm. Focus. Timing. Repetition. Technique... it all matters. It all started to make sense. Yes, I can be quite slow in more ways than one.
The change was beyond dramatic. The work was still crazy hard, but Piper and I had finally become a team (even though one of us was (and is) still super slow and clumsy) and started to gain traction in our efforts... and we actually started to have fun, laughing and even dancing in the final weeks. In hindsight I feel like we sailed through weeks 7-10. Cake, hard cake, but still cake.
The fun, laughter and bonding really exploded when we joined Roxanne's Retrieve Course this June. We had finally graduated to group training and were blessed to be teamed with some truly amazing and wonderful people, who I suspect will remain my friends for life!
Glad you pushed through! I hope we can too!
ReplyDeleteKellie, I'm not sure I got the chance to thank you for sharing this the last time. Thank you. ❤️ Also- Piper's happy smile in that last photo is the same one she gives me when she knows she's being naughty taunting Niko, and having a blast doing it. 🤣 She is a hoot.
ReplyDeleteJessica and Dustin- About the time Kellie first drafted this intro, but before I had a chance to read it, Niko, just coming out of *her* first heat, charged and attacked Boaz, Roxanne's big male lab. He left a nice puncture in the side of her face. It was... an experience.
Having said that: I cannot imagine what would have happened if Roxanne had not trained me, and if Roxanne had not been there to coach me through that moment. Because of the work we had done through the FC and RC (and the next course, Tech-Savvy), she gave me instructions I could follow, and then we relied on *Niko's* training and continued to work her against Boaz until she understood he was NOT to be touched. Without these courses, my hair-brained puppy that is acting too big for her britches could have killed another dog- or another dog could have killed her. I had some very basic training experience so I believe we may have worked through it, but not in the amazingly short amount of time we were able to resolve the issue and reestablish appropriate behavior with Roxanne as our guide.
I *definitely never* would have done CGC with her or any type of dog trials. One of the judges at the last trials mentioned Niko was the best behaved malamute she had ever seen, aside from one she competed against, herself, for Master(?) title. Never, in any other circumstance, would these amazing possibilities be open to me.
The past few days I have had the opportunity to have Piper in our home. We have set strict rules- for Piper, for my dogs, and for my boys (Dox has forgotten a few times... 😰). Because of my training and Piper's training, we have been able to work through tense situations, I know not to let Piper succeed at failing, and she has done remarkably well. These two dog-reactive dogs who both are vying for TBIC ("Top Bitch in Charge") status, have been running together on 2-4 mile hikes the last couple weeks with nary an issue. *This* is the training. ❤️
Beautiful dog. I have always had a soft spot for the brindle coat.
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