I think it has been a while coming, but yesterday kinda sealed my decision.
We drive 45 minutes each way to get to our indoor training facility - on the weekends, the trip costs us about $25 including training fees - during the week, my mom and I both leave work a little early so by the time you factor in the time lost at work plus travel, I'd say it costs us about $100. We have put two dogs through three levels of training this summer, which has given the club over $600. It's not like we're freeloaders.
Yesterday, the woman overseeing our training (not our actual coach, but standing in for her - who, by the way, lives about a five minute drive from the barn we are now training in) was ten minutes late and we stood around waiting... finally we decided to pull some equipment out of the trailer because we might as well look busy.... she showed up late with no apologies and proceeded to grouch and basically b*tch at my family (AP, myself and my MOM - who, by the way, is not paying anything to the club but has been very actively volunteering to set things up/tear things down/help out wherever she can - basically being a "go to girl" all summer long). I was so turned off by her disrespectful behaviour, I was ready to leave before we had even WALKED THE COURSE! This woman is a horrible teacher - she speaks to everyone like a child, is constantly grilling us - I don't know about anyone else there, but my dog is a PUPPY (*just* 12 months) and I am there to have FUN. If I wanted this kind of stress and condescenion I would have gone back to showing horses. I have never felt so disrespected in my life (and this was not just yesterday - this has been all summer when she's been "assisting" with our classes - she is fairly tame when the other coach is there because she knows she really has no business teaching, but take Jeri out of the equation and everyone is fair game for her barbs)... We suggested that maybe someone could email us a list of what we need to have out of the trailer the night before a session so we could have it all out and ready to go if we happened to be the first ones there and she nearly had a hernia, went off on a tangent. It wasn't requested in a disrespectful way and she's not even the one who would have to do it - the number of times she's stood in for Jeri I can count on one hand... and when we mentioned it to Jeri (our regular coach), she thought it was a GREAT idea, but this trainer took it very personally and defensively..
Our regular coach is nothing like this - but with three teenaged kids, she can't always find the time to be at the barn the same time that we are. I think it would be a little juvenile of me to say "I'm only training when Jeri's there.", so I am considering just taking off for the winter. Hopefully after Christmas I will build myself some two by two's and a couple of jumps and mostly work on focus.
I don't want to give this woman ALL the credit for my decision though. The barn is just not a very conducive place for Morrie to be working, I don't think. Her turning me off yesterday didn't make my decision but it made me fall a little "out of love" with what I am doing and a little more able to read my dog and forget about my desire to continue training. He is stressed out. He is constantly showing signs of distress when we are in the barn and the environment is terribly distracting (Everyone is meant to have their dogs in crates but abovementioned "trainer" and her sister brought one small Canine Camper for three keeshonds yesterday, and another woman showed up with two before her crate was set up and so there were about 8 people and four ill mannered dogs standing around the doorway).. he doesn't focus on me and he takes off on the field on a regular basis. People take all kinds of measures to protect reactive dogs and themselves against reactive dogs, but no one is taking my puppy into account - ie - I would never imagine opening the heavy sliding door and bringing my dogs in when someone else's dog was on course - but everyone seems to do it with me.
Furthermore, Morrie has just turned 12 months old (no worries about jumping, our coach has been very prudent about this!) and we have been at this since May. Maybe it is time to take some of the stress of expectation off of him and just let him be a puppy.
I don't want to sound like I am whining (though I obviously am, lol), and this has been a difficult decision for me - I have two GREAT horses that I would like to show this summer and Morrie is so laid back, I can totally see him being my "horse show dog".... and maybe if we spend some time just working together and bonding more this winter without all these expectations on him, he will be ready to go back to work in the spring...
aaaand a cookie for anyone who read through that entire thing.
We drive 45 minutes each way to get to our indoor training facility - on the weekends, the trip costs us about $25 including training fees - during the week, my mom and I both leave work a little early so by the time you factor in the time lost at work plus travel, I'd say it costs us about $100. We have put two dogs through three levels of training this summer, which has given the club over $600. It's not like we're freeloaders.
Yesterday, the woman overseeing our training (not our actual coach, but standing in for her - who, by the way, lives about a five minute drive from the barn we are now training in) was ten minutes late and we stood around waiting... finally we decided to pull some equipment out of the trailer because we might as well look busy.... she showed up late with no apologies and proceeded to grouch and basically b*tch at my family (AP, myself and my MOM - who, by the way, is not paying anything to the club but has been very actively volunteering to set things up/tear things down/help out wherever she can - basically being a "go to girl" all summer long). I was so turned off by her disrespectful behaviour, I was ready to leave before we had even WALKED THE COURSE! This woman is a horrible teacher - she speaks to everyone like a child, is constantly grilling us - I don't know about anyone else there, but my dog is a PUPPY (*just* 12 months) and I am there to have FUN. If I wanted this kind of stress and condescenion I would have gone back to showing horses. I have never felt so disrespected in my life (and this was not just yesterday - this has been all summer when she's been "assisting" with our classes - she is fairly tame when the other coach is there because she knows she really has no business teaching, but take Jeri out of the equation and everyone is fair game for her barbs)... We suggested that maybe someone could email us a list of what we need to have out of the trailer the night before a session so we could have it all out and ready to go if we happened to be the first ones there and she nearly had a hernia, went off on a tangent. It wasn't requested in a disrespectful way and she's not even the one who would have to do it - the number of times she's stood in for Jeri I can count on one hand... and when we mentioned it to Jeri (our regular coach), she thought it was a GREAT idea, but this trainer took it very personally and defensively..
Our regular coach is nothing like this - but with three teenaged kids, she can't always find the time to be at the barn the same time that we are. I think it would be a little juvenile of me to say "I'm only training when Jeri's there.", so I am considering just taking off for the winter. Hopefully after Christmas I will build myself some two by two's and a couple of jumps and mostly work on focus.
I don't want to give this woman ALL the credit for my decision though. The barn is just not a very conducive place for Morrie to be working, I don't think. Her turning me off yesterday didn't make my decision but it made me fall a little "out of love" with what I am doing and a little more able to read my dog and forget about my desire to continue training. He is stressed out. He is constantly showing signs of distress when we are in the barn and the environment is terribly distracting (Everyone is meant to have their dogs in crates but abovementioned "trainer" and her sister brought one small Canine Camper for three keeshonds yesterday, and another woman showed up with two before her crate was set up and so there were about 8 people and four ill mannered dogs standing around the doorway).. he doesn't focus on me and he takes off on the field on a regular basis. People take all kinds of measures to protect reactive dogs and themselves against reactive dogs, but no one is taking my puppy into account - ie - I would never imagine opening the heavy sliding door and bringing my dogs in when someone else's dog was on course - but everyone seems to do it with me.
Furthermore, Morrie has just turned 12 months old (no worries about jumping, our coach has been very prudent about this!) and we have been at this since May. Maybe it is time to take some of the stress of expectation off of him and just let him be a puppy.
I don't want to sound like I am whining (though I obviously am, lol), and this has been a difficult decision for me - I have two GREAT horses that I would like to show this summer and Morrie is so laid back, I can totally see him being my "horse show dog".... and maybe if we spend some time just working together and bonding more this winter without all these expectations on him, he will be ready to go back to work in the spring...
aaaand a cookie for anyone who read through that entire thing.
