Dog Tails from the dark side
by Kaylee
(Canada)
In my first post to this group I told how, when I retired, I gave myself a gift of a puppy. As background, and after much research on show versus field dogs, I decided on a field dog.
To honour her heritage I decided to incorporate some field training as well as basic obedience and bought a book from the source of all knowledge, aka the Internet, to guide me.
My first realization that I was out of my comfort zone came with the recommendation that I keep dead ducks in my freezer - whole ducks, feathers, heads, feet. I was earnestly assured these could be re-used. I assume for training not supper.
With all due respect for the Duck Dynasty guys I will not be taking up duck hunting. In fact, the thought of me and a shotgun inspires either horror or hysterical laughter from those who know me.
However, back to the training. For the faint hearted, companies make artificial plastic ducks with dangly heads to simulate a real duck. With a sense of relief I acquired the aforementioned training ducks. The puppy excels at retrieving these ducks whether on land or water. I was delighted by the progress we were making.
Then we came across some real ducks when out for a walk.
Totally panicked by these scary creatures, the pup ran back between my legs to hide and I did a face plant in a water/mud combination. In case you have not tried to stand up from a prone position in mud, let me assure you it is almost impossible until you get at least one limb on solid ground. As I squelched back home I must confess to being rather discouraged.
The book did not identify this possible scenario.
However, on reflection, I am undeterred and am confident that if there is ever an invasion of plastic ducks we will be able to handle the emergency.
But for now, I am going to change direction and sign her up for agility training. As this also involves my running round an obstacle course with her I am sure there will be more surprises in store.
