I loved dogs. One could say I was obsessed with them, at one point. I went to a dog training class and that’s where my love for dogs increased substantially. But this is also the place that led to my gradual decrease of love for dogs.
But it wasn’t so much the place as it was the incident that happened at the place and the inaction that was taken (or rather, not taken) from the incident. This place I am speaking of is a socialization class for dogs. We go out into this huge piece of land surrounded by a gate and we basically let the dogs run loose, the owners just walk around in circles and chat and what-not. The trainer was a good guy… kind of stiff, even rude at times, but he knew what he was doing and Rocky benefited a lot from his socialization class and an earlier obedience class that I had taken. I made good friends there, I settled in. It was an all around great place.
It was on one socialization class… this new guy came. He had a GSD puppy. Rocky for some reason found his dog to be a little too interesting and followed it everywhere. It was as if Rocky saw the dog as a steak on legs or something. The guy apparently didn’t want any dogs around and he told me to get my dog away or ‘he was going to take care of it’, I kind of gave him a look and thought ‘what’s he going to do? It’s a socialization class and this is natural behavior’.
And then, he kicked Rocky in the face. Rocky yelped. And I went over to see if he was OK and told him calmly, as steaming as I was, that he had no right to do that as this is a SOCIALIZATION class and what they were doing was perfectly normal. He told me my dog was intimidating his and to keep walking and I swear I almost punched him in the throat. It took a lot of restraint on my part not beat the **** out of him. It was probably because I was surrounded by adults, I didn’t want to get kicked out and my adult friends were watching me (who defended me) and I suppose that’s why my inaction, my flight… still bugs me to this day.
I talked to my trainer two or three times and he did nothing about it. If he did it again, he would be out, he said. This wasn’t good enough for me.
I went one last time to this class and I found I had to basically restrain Rocky because for some reason he HAD to pick this one dog to follow around and “intimidate”. And my trainer and the guy who kicked my dog were walking together, talking and laughing.
That was it for me. I felt so bad that I completely stopped going. Abandoned Rock’s socialization, abandoned the friends that I had made…it’s just hard for me to even think about it because I get so angry, there are times where I’ve thought about this and I had to go walking for two hours just to calm myself down some. And now, there’s no money to go to another trainer… he was the cheapest and probably the best trainer there was in Louisiana but he was just too passive in such situations.
And I didn’t want Rocky’s socialization to reverse in case the idiot decided to hit him again. And it just became overall, a lot more uncomfortable to go there because of that guy. But the fact is, Rocky’s socialization has been reversed anyway because he hasn’t been socialized anymore since then. And I’m still trying to find a job so that I can try to help Rocky out with at least SOME of his problems.
Since then, it seems that I’ve gradually lost my interest in dogs. My dad is constantly nagging me about the things he does, no matter how much I do… constantly complaining. It just makes it that much harder to own a dog, especially one like Rocky. He chews on the house and destroys things that we’re trying to renew no matter how much I exercise him which just gets me in trouble with my dad, whenever a friend comes over I have to separate him cause he goes crazy (something I want to work on with a trainer when the money comes). With school and everything, it’s gotten progessively harder to manage him.
And I don’t plan on getting rid of him; I’ve fought too hard to keep him. It just seems like now I don’t really like dogs because I’ve had so many bad experiences doing things with Rocky. And I think ‘is all this going to happen every time I own a dog?’ And I love Rocky, he’s a great dog, I think I’ve just got a case of doggy blues. But everything I mentioned, it’s almost like an internal war that’s being fought all the time and I had to rant. Thanks for reading if you’ve gotten his far.
But it wasn’t so much the place as it was the incident that happened at the place and the inaction that was taken (or rather, not taken) from the incident. This place I am speaking of is a socialization class for dogs. We go out into this huge piece of land surrounded by a gate and we basically let the dogs run loose, the owners just walk around in circles and chat and what-not. The trainer was a good guy… kind of stiff, even rude at times, but he knew what he was doing and Rocky benefited a lot from his socialization class and an earlier obedience class that I had taken. I made good friends there, I settled in. It was an all around great place.
It was on one socialization class… this new guy came. He had a GSD puppy. Rocky for some reason found his dog to be a little too interesting and followed it everywhere. It was as if Rocky saw the dog as a steak on legs or something. The guy apparently didn’t want any dogs around and he told me to get my dog away or ‘he was going to take care of it’, I kind of gave him a look and thought ‘what’s he going to do? It’s a socialization class and this is natural behavior’.
And then, he kicked Rocky in the face. Rocky yelped. And I went over to see if he was OK and told him calmly, as steaming as I was, that he had no right to do that as this is a SOCIALIZATION class and what they were doing was perfectly normal. He told me my dog was intimidating his and to keep walking and I swear I almost punched him in the throat. It took a lot of restraint on my part not beat the **** out of him. It was probably because I was surrounded by adults, I didn’t want to get kicked out and my adult friends were watching me (who defended me) and I suppose that’s why my inaction, my flight… still bugs me to this day.
I talked to my trainer two or three times and he did nothing about it. If he did it again, he would be out, he said. This wasn’t good enough for me.
I went one last time to this class and I found I had to basically restrain Rocky because for some reason he HAD to pick this one dog to follow around and “intimidate”. And my trainer and the guy who kicked my dog were walking together, talking and laughing.
That was it for me. I felt so bad that I completely stopped going. Abandoned Rock’s socialization, abandoned the friends that I had made…it’s just hard for me to even think about it because I get so angry, there are times where I’ve thought about this and I had to go walking for two hours just to calm myself down some. And now, there’s no money to go to another trainer… he was the cheapest and probably the best trainer there was in Louisiana but he was just too passive in such situations.
And I didn’t want Rocky’s socialization to reverse in case the idiot decided to hit him again. And it just became overall, a lot more uncomfortable to go there because of that guy. But the fact is, Rocky’s socialization has been reversed anyway because he hasn’t been socialized anymore since then. And I’m still trying to find a job so that I can try to help Rocky out with at least SOME of his problems.
Since then, it seems that I’ve gradually lost my interest in dogs. My dad is constantly nagging me about the things he does, no matter how much I do… constantly complaining. It just makes it that much harder to own a dog, especially one like Rocky. He chews on the house and destroys things that we’re trying to renew no matter how much I exercise him which just gets me in trouble with my dad, whenever a friend comes over I have to separate him cause he goes crazy (something I want to work on with a trainer when the money comes). With school and everything, it’s gotten progessively harder to manage him.
And I don’t plan on getting rid of him; I’ve fought too hard to keep him. It just seems like now I don’t really like dogs because I’ve had so many bad experiences doing things with Rocky. And I think ‘is all this going to happen every time I own a dog?’ And I love Rocky, he’s a great dog, I think I’ve just got a case of doggy blues. But everything I mentioned, it’s almost like an internal war that’s being fought all the time and I had to rant. Thanks for reading if you’ve gotten his far.
