Fight or Flight
A Funny Thing Happened when I Took my Weim to Dog Training
I love dogs, I grew up with dogs — mostly the retrieving variety as my father worked them. In my ownership, I haven’t stuck to the same breed of dog. Small, medium and large, I’ve owned them. This story is about the first large dog I owned, who was like a nanny to my younger children, a Weimeraner. They’re a beautiful looking breed, large and athletic with short, mouse grey fur and distinctive pale eyes — their sometimes called the ‘grey ghost’. The breed makes a loyal and devoted family dog but they’re often a lot to handle, in terms of their strength and their ‘fizzy’ temperament.
Determined to do things right, from the start I took our girl to puppy classes. For the next stage of her training my dog and I drove to an agricultural college where, using a fenced-in field, a weekly obedience class took place.
She was a sociable dog but rather vocal (barky). I suspect our trainer viewed both dog and owner as slightly ditzy. Arriving early to class she was always keen to greet all the other dogs with a sniff and a wag. If anyone arrived late she’d keep barking in the direction of the newcomer, seeming unable to settle til our tea break, when she could say her canine ‘hello’.
Tea-break on wintery days in the middle of a grassy field was fairly basic. Our trainer provided flasks of tea and coffee. Alongside were plastic cups, plastic spoons, sachets of sugar and milk, he brought biscuits and there were stackable plastic picnic chairs for the owners to sit on. We’d gather in a circle with our dogs by our sides to chat, sipping our drinks to warm ourselves.
This one day, the wind was making my dog quite lively. I was holding the lead and my hot drink, but didn’t want her antics to make me spill my coffee. I had a cunning idea. I put one leg of my chair through the hand loop on my dog’s lead before I sat.
Mostly the group of dogs were quite relaxed with each other, comfortable in close proximity. However, on this occasion was I wishing I’d chosen a seat further away from Theo, a West Highland White Terrier who was flexing his dominance.
All the dogs were less than six months old, but Theo’s testosterone was kicking in, causing him to want to be ‘top’. My girl was happy to play, but windy days seemed to make her more spirited. She wouldn’t tolerate Theo using alpha moves or trying to mount her. She was, of course, a lot bigger than him. Their doggy tussles were going on around my chair. I tried to get my girl to sit on the other side of me, away from Theo. I wanted to avoid causing a disturbance, because our trainer was telling a funny story.
Suddenly Theo made another lunge for my Weimaraner, and for her it was the last straw. She darted out of reach, and everybody in the circle was startled by a loud crack like a shotgun report. Every dog owner whipped their head round, seeking the source of commotion.
I was stunned, I couldn’t understand how my dog had moved so far out of Theo’s reach. Then some of the other dog handlers began to laugh. That’s when I noticed that my girl’s was free, dragging around her lead which was still attached to the plastic chair leg. That chair leg, however, was no longer attached to my chair!
How was I still sitting on that chair now it only three legs? And best of all, I hadn’t spilled a drop of hot coffee!
A dog themed romance from Jacinta …
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