How do you know as a green novice

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

It strikes me as an interesting way to put it, that rehoming the dogs that don't fit in makes room for those who do. Jen and Ann were both pups I raised from scratch, both in fact I'd handled them from the day after they were born. I had SO many hopes for them but both of them had pieces missing that made them very poor prospects to even be farm dogs. Deciding to sell them on caused a lot of anguish for me, but it wasn't fair to them to have to sit in the kennel all day, every day, while the daily work went on. They were much too keen to go chase sheep to leave in the house - we had too many incidents where they sneaked out behind the kids and got in the pasture while I was occupied elsewhere.

 

Selling them gave us the space and means to obtain two trained dogs - one last summer and one who arrived a couple weeks ago. Circumstances beyond anyone's control made both dogs "the odd man out" or fifth wheels in their previous homes, but they fit in here like they've been raised here from birth. If I still had Ann and Jen, I couldn't have given these amazing dogs, Cord and Gus, a chance to work at their full potential (or they will when we've gotten up to speed on handling skills!).

 

But an important thing to note is that all the years I pegged away at trying to make it work with Ann and Jen, I got a lot of comments and advice from advanced handlers I trusted. By the time I was seriously considering my decision, I had a consensus picture on both of these dogs' faults, what I'd have to become or do to work around them, and how long it would take.

 

An independent expert opinion - preferably several - is important because as a novice without a lot of experience starting dogs, one is tempted to go two ways on a dog that's not progressing. You might cling desperately to the hope that someday, somehow, it will click because this is your dog and you want this so badly. Or, you might suddenly and independently decide your lack of progress is completely a fault of the dog's, when it's actually a handler problem - and then spend the rest of your life trying to find a dog that works for you.

 

I went through a bit of this - my sheep are fairly tough natured and I thought the problem I was having with my dogs was related to my sheep. I held on to this belief until I hosted a clinic with Jack Knox and was moving sheep around early and he took the reins on Ben, my supposedly "screwed up" dog, and did things I thought were impossible with Ben. We had some long talks subsequently about Ben and the wrong notions I had about what I needed in a dog - that had, in fact, made me abandon Ben's training long ago. I really am grateful for this gentle kick in the seat of the pants which applies to the topic at hand - his advice boiled down to, "Never make excuses for your dog, work on solutions" and, "Every dog has limits, the question is whether you can live with those limits."

[Pippin's person]

What a great post Becca--one of the most heartfelt expositions of the issue of rehoming and why that I've read or heard.