Underdogs to Wonderdogs (pt. 1)

September 7th 2011

This past year has proven to be emotionally charged on all facets. A year ago this time, I was involved in one of the most miserable relationships I’ve ever had and as far down in the dumps as one can get emotionally. I was tired and emotionally drained from trying to fix a horribly broken relationship, one that was doomed from the start. Where it went wrong, that I don’t know but it did go wrong and never recovered. While it was emotionally draining, it was also necessary. God has a mysterious way of working things out and while I don’t, and never will, understand how it works, I have faith that it does. It has been proven time and time again. This is no exception.

I had hit bottom physically and emotionally. I was tired from all the road trips, tired of playing 20 questions constantly with the man I was with, and felt abused and more like a slave than anything else. It was horrible, emotionally abusive and just all out draining. While things didn’t end as I would’ve liked, it was abrupt to say the least, it all worked out and I can see now that those emotions were necessary. Why? Because they allow me to realize the blessings and wonderful things that have happened since that relationship ended.

I was able to stop, collect myself and see through the fog of emotions. I still had Eko, I still had my friends and it was the beginning of a new era in my household. I knew it was now time to use those emotions and turn them into something positive. It was time to take that emotional energy and place it on the field. Therefore I began the search for a new addition to the family: the next disc dog to join the pack. Little did I know the insane ride I was about to go on.

Only 3 months later, Brick, an 18 month old Australian Cattle Dog mix, came into my life.

He had been bounced around from foster home to foster home following an unauthorized rescue from a kill shelter. He had been a stray, on the streets, in Dayton, Ohio. That is as far back as his story goes, to my knowledge. He was known as a food thief and escape artist, escaping several times to trot around town in Dayton or chase down the barn animals at Purina Farms. And when he came to me, he was a nut; no manners, pushy, fussy, pain in the ass. But he had a soft side and wanted to bond so very badly with his human.

You could see in his face, he was worn down, nearly broken and sad. It was obvious he didn’t want to be a pain, he didn’t want to be pushy but he was confused, stressed and unsettled. He was this way for several weeks.

He had surgery to remove a tumor on his leg early in his new life, throwing him further into confusion. He ripped his stitches out and would bite me any time I tried to stop the bleeding. It was frustrating but disheartening at the same time. He seemed miserable and nothing I could do would soothe him to start with. But things eventually came together. He adjusted to his new raw diet. The staples in his leg were removed and he was finally free to just be a dog and to play with his new sister, Eko. Things started looking up for all of us.

We began working on a routine for freestyle but I became pushy and hard on him. I almost broke him completely. I forced him into competitions early and had high expectations for him. He was going to play my game whether he liked it or not. Bad approach LT, bad approach. His D/A game shut down. Our freestyle was a jumbled mess of nothing. My handling was horrible. I was letting my little boy down and blaming him when it was my fault, not his.

I finally stopped myself and dialed it down a lot. We went back to working foundational positioning, no disc work. We worked on creating a bond, working focus drills and additional positioning drills. I began working on his jump execution and other little things. Those small changes made huge advances. The game started coming together. The routine started to build itself, for the most part. I was hell bent on making him start the routine with a back stall. I kept forcing it, he kept balking at it and it just led to more frustration until the light bulb went off in my head and I cut the stall from the routine.

Almost overnight, things completely turned around, again. We started to click. We started to find our sync point and the game turned from just a few tricks to a fluid routine with big tricks and solid sequences.

To be continued…