Last night I spent the evening helping out a friend of mine. She has a wire fox terrier who needs 3 little points to be finished. This boy is very nice structurally. A couple of years ago when I first met this boy he was a happy, super, confident boy complete with a terrier attitude. She sent him off for 6 months with a handler. In that time he was rarely shown, (as documented by the entry results showing absent time and time again). He came home with one or two points, as a quivering shaking mess of a dog. Oh, he is fine outside of a show/training environment, but bring him into a training situation or a show and he stresses out, big time. Now during the last year and a half, he has made some improvement, and has been being handled by a different local handler, and had some successes, earning both his majors and just needing a few points to finish.
Buster likes me, at least he used to, until I made the mistake of taking him to the drop in conformation class last night to practice and see if we could work together. See, I am going to show him in a few weeks, since his regular handler isn't available for a while. Lets just say that after the class (which we ended early to not stress him as much) he wouldnt come and see me at all. We plan on visiting and practicing a little more over the next couple of weeks. Poor guy, he gets so nervous about being in the ring, he shuts down. I really like the little stinker, so I hope he will forgive me.
Speaking of forgiveness, my 4 at home sure were not happy about those other dog smells! MOM how could you!
2 comments:
Oh, Dawn. I feel so badly for this poor dog. It's wonderful you're able to help out a friend like this. I hope you are able to get those last few points needed.
oh that sucks. poor little guy- it's sad how all it takes is a few bad experiences to wreck a dog like that.
amanda
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