What's your "thing?"

I enjoy learning about food, I care about my pets' diets, but I'm not overly concerned in any way.

I enjoy training and I understand it, and am able to apply it, but I don't have that super competitive edge.

I'm concerned about disease prevention and other veterinary stuff. In fact I adore learning about it and going to conferences.

However... I am anal about car safety.
My dogs ride in Roadie harnesses or in a secured crate 98.5% of the time or more. It drives me absolutely crazy if my dogs are not secured for whatever reason!

What's your "thing?"

Heat/humidity. For some reason I am unnaturally paranoid about the dogs overheating. I will skip exercise if I have even the slightest doubt and have been known to turn on the AC specifically for the dogs.

Dog nails. I'm anal about keeping my dogs' nails as short as possible. When Keegan was a puppy I was dremmeling his nails at least twice a week, when I realized that maybe they were getting TOO short. So I had to let them grow out just a little bit.

At work we're supposed to dremmel nails once a week, but I'm the only trainer who ever actually does that. It drives me crazy that nobody else seems to think it's as important as I do.

Hmm, I guess socialization was my big thing for Sam. I was terrified that he would turn out dog aggressive like my neighbour's golden, or worse human aggressive. Especially because he was so shy of women and dogs when we first got him. Now he loves everyone and isn't obnoxious about it. I know a lot of people here like a more reserved dog, but I'd take a happy-go-lucky dog over dealing with DA or worse any day.

Other than that it depends on what I'm doing. Right now I want to change Sam's diet so I'm all about learning about dog's diets. Yet last summer dominance theory in dogs (or rather the failings of such a theory) was mostly what I was reading about. Oh and LLW is my 'thing' right now too. XD

Sports. I'm a perfectionist about it. Not in a way that causes me to blame the dog or get mad if it makes a mistake, and not in a way that's unsporting - I know when somebody's done better than I have and I have no problem with being honestly beat.

It's just that I'm very, VERY serious about getting things precise and clean. Probably why I like traditional OB so much. Heh.

I guess I'm also kinda nutty about "clean" handling and training for that. I flinch everytime someone "cheats" in the ring by using their body to "guide" the dog rather than training the behavior to better fluency!

:headbanger::cheers: LOL

Reading about dogs. Scientific articles/studies in particular, but really, anything. Blogs, books, whatever.

It's funny you say that, SpringerLover--I'm trying really hard to stop communicating with Elsie so much while we're heeling. It's so hard, because she watches me so hard. If I tense my shoulder slightly she gets closer, if my heel drags slightly, she slows down, if my face gets 'hard' she shapes up. We're working on it.

I'm kind of into diet. There's only so much I can actually do about it (I don't pay for the food) but it kind of bugs me that my dad insists on giving the dogs Beggin Strips, and bugs me that they aren't eating the absolute BEST diet - but I do what I can. I care about the treats I buy. I pay attention to how their diet is affecting them... Juno's coat kind of looks like crap since being put on Fromm, so I intend on changing that as soon as I run out.

So yeah. That's kinda my thing.

I've got some pretty silly video that shows me "guiding" my dog in trials a couple years ago. I've since worked incredibly hard to clean up my handling and training... haha!

Yeah I'm by no means perfect, but I do try to be very careful about my body and not helping the dog!

As far as training or anything like that - the only thing I can think of is manners around horses is a must for me and starts ASAP. I've known too many dogs killed or hurt by horses, and have too many horses that will charge a dog - I'm anal about teaching them about horses. I can not stand a dog that has no problems walking under a horse, or a dog that goes into paddocks, or a dog that chases horses. Puppies learn very early on to mind hooves and to never cross a fence. Diet, training, etc I'm pretty well rounded in as far as interest and knowledge. I read as much as I can but I'm not crazy about one thing in particular. I absolutely love reading about my breed and the historical side of the ES though if that counts.

Feet. I cannot STAND messy/grinchy dog feet. If I had a cavalier, their feet would be getting trimmed up like a papillon's.

I will finally fess up that I see picture threads on chaz and I secretly want to chop off the messy foot hair.

Hmm, well dogs in general are my thing (same as most of us here), and that includes nutrition/diet, fitness, training, responsible breeding, etc. etc. But I think training and behavior is my biggest "thing." I'm pretty passionate about that, especially since I'm the one a lot of neighbors and family members come to when they've been trying to "discipline" their out of control dog and they've royally screwed the poor thing's mind up.
I'm constantly trying to better understand a dog's mind, to find a better way to teach something.
Another thing I really want to get into is rescue. For now I donate to local shelters what I can, volunteer my time when I can, but I want to move onto fostering and eventually run my own rescue. That of course will require a lot more than I have/am capable of now.

We can only have one thing?! I have so many it's horrible.

-Agility, that's obvious
-Training of any kind, gets me all angry like if people have a misunderstanding of training and blame things on their dog.
-Nails.
-Grooming, had to have short hair dogs because I couldn't stand having a long hair dog.

Oh, I have a thing about nails too. Millie has the most ridiculous, fastest growing quicks I've ever known a dog to have and I can't stand it.
Fable has had at least a quick pseudo or real nail trimming/dremelling session every day since the third day she was home. Her nails are great and I am so obsessive about her getting used to nail attention and growing up having nice, tight feet with short nails.

Ummm... my "thing"... it's so hard, I am just into dogs in general. But I'm pretty into canine nutrition and probably know way too much than I need to about it (companies, manufacturers, ingredients, and everything in between).

Second, I think would be training. Even though I'm not really involved in classes or sports (except one agility class), trick training is my thing, and Jackson knows a TON and I really enjoy doing it. But to be honest? I don't really enjoy training other peoples' dogs, I've realized. I just like having really good communication and a great connection with my dog and don't have a desire to work with many other peoples dogs (even though I've tried often, while being a pet sitter, and families dogs).

Oh, and as far as "thing things" - duh, collars! I'm obsessed. It's definitely a "thing" for me LOL.

Oh yeah! Brushing's my other thing! All of our dogs at work are blowing their coats, but we have this one long-haired border collie mix whose undercoat is coming out in CLUMPS. I kept asking our kennel techs to give him a GOOD brushing out, and they'd give him a few strokes with a slicker brush and call it done. I finally got tired of begging and went after him the other day with a pin brush, and by the end of it he was VISIBLY less fluffy. Then the kennel techs got mad at me because he's not as cute without all the fluff.

I guess for me it's manners. House manners in particular. Not begging, stealing food/toys, jumping on people or furniture, being respectful of people (both who live here and visitors). I can't live with a dog who can't abide by the house rules.

Training for me too. Though I'm not really competitive against other people, I more just like challenging myself, my dog and having fun. But yeah, training I think is my thing.

My other thing is dogs being in shape, nothing makes me cringe faster than a really out of shape dog.