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The value of a responsible breeder


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Well, I've been meaning to make this post for months and just haven't been able to. But I've been wanting to post on the boards lately, and figured I'd better tell our story in case anyone notices I switched dogs. Please don't judge, this was a difficult ordeal for me, that's why I am only just now posting about it.

 

Last April I learned the value of a responsible breeder. Brahms, the pup we got last December to train to be a service dog for me, was always a bit nervous. Despite lots of positive training, he slowly and surely developed fear aggression. After having some family over in April, we realized the severity of the problem. If he hadn't been restrained on a leash or in a crate he definitely would have bitten my father in law out of fear. For the four months we had him, we tried socializing and lots of positive based training. We got him so he was great with women, but he just kept getting worse with men and was uncertain around kids.

 

If he had just been a pet, we would have probably gotten some professional help, and he would have worked out as a family dog with some management. However, we really got this dog to train as a service dog, and I knew it would never work out. We contacted his breeder, who promptly offered to not only find him a good home, but even refunded our money. It broke my heart to have to make the decision, because with me and my husband, he was a really sweet loving dog and I was really attached. But it was unfair to me to have a dog that would never meet my needs, and unfair to Brahms to keep a fear aggressive dog in a place where his only exercise option was walking in a city that stressed him out. So he was relocated to a trainer friend of his breeder that was going to train him to herd cattle and work out his fear issues.

 

I have no idea what we would have done if it weren't for that breeder. It was already a hard enough decision when we had a good option to rehome him. Do your research, get a breeder that stands by their dogs. It is absolutely invaluable if something goes wrong. You don't want to think about these kinds of things when you're getting a new pup, but you never know.

 

Now for listening to my long sad story, meet Hazel. Got her off a farm that had mixed in one aussie a few years back because they liked the dogs herding, so now they have that coloring on their farm. I actually prefer solid dogs...

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She is eight months old now, and doing wonderfully with her training to be a service dog. She's got her alert and several tasks down, and will hopefully be ready to start going everywhere with me in a month or so. Shes a bit over-friendly and still gets a little distracted by kids, so that's all thats left to work on before taking her to non-dog friendly places. She loves the work and is such a pleasure to train.

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Sue - I was so happy with that name! If you've never seen the commercial "raisin brahms" you should youtube it. But sadly, the guy that took Brahms had a very country accent, didn't know who Brahms the composer was, and couldn't pronounce it. He tried, but it came out as "brooms" so I think he got a new name :rolleyes:

 

Thanks everyone for the support. On the bright side of things, having two polar opposite puppies in one year was definitely a great learning experience for me. But I don't want another puppy for a long time. Hazels overconfidence is a much easier problem to deal with, and in a service dog its a great thing. Nothing shakes this dog, we took her to a 4th of july parade when she was a pup. They shot off a cannon 10 feet in front of her. She flinched and then wanted to go check it out. That's pretty much her personality, always bounces back from a new "scary" situation. Luckily she's also super attentive to me. We're working one-on-one with a trainer who says she will make it.

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Absolutely what every one said. You thought of Brahm's wellbeing. No sense fighting it with a dog that just isn't built for that kind of work and expect him to enjoy it. We breed hunting labrador retrievers and though it doesn't happen often, we always offer to take our dogs back. In my experience, it's usually the owner that's the problem. We had this happen with our most recent return. Gave us a list of pros a mile long about the dog. All the cons that he gave us were fixable if he had done what he was told. Basically she just wasn't aggressive enough for him. He wasn't even supposed to be hunting with her yet. He only had her 5 weeks. She would hunt for him, bless her heart, but that's not enough time to get the dog used to you as a handler!! <_<

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Dear Doggers,

 

Glad to hear Broom is rehomed. I rehome rarely but have never regretted it. As my old friend Ethel Conrad once said to me, "If you don't like that dog why don't you give it to someone who does?"

 

On another note. Not infrequently on these forums someone will insist that they scrupulously continued with positive training which, alas, failed the dog. The dog is at fault because the training didn't work. I have to wonder why they didn't try another sort of training.

 

Donald McCaig

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On another note. Not infrequently on these forums someone will insist that they scrupulously continued with positive training which, alas, failed the dog. The dog is at fault because the training didn't work. I have to wonder why they didn't try another sort of training.

 

I think, in the case of a service dog, that regardless of what training technique you chose, starting with a dog temperamentally unsuited for the job at hand is not a good idea.

 

Good choice, tough call, and yes, THIS is why you choose reputable, ethical breeders who care about the happiness of the puppy buyer and the long term happiness of the puppies.

 

Best of luck with your new friend!

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Hazel is adorable. I am glad she is working out.

 

I also like the name Hazel. My grandmother's name was Hazel. About 5 years ago, we adopted a pound kitty that I named Hazel because the dam's name was Basil. I thought I was honoring my grandmother in a small way. Then my mother told me that my grandmother always hated her name. [News to me!] And my husband kept calling the cat Squeaky because that was the sound she made all the time. So Squeaky she became.

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I scrupulously continued with positive training because that was what worked with Brahms. In all other areas he responded beautifully to it, and was super eager to learn. It worked with the fear problem as well. The real problem was, you could get him over an individual person and he would then love them to death, but with each new stranger he went back into a fearful, drooling, barking mess. Like I said, could have made an okay family dog with some management, but just was not suited to being a service dog. Service dogs need to be able to adapt and handle new situations, and that just wasn't Brahms. It would have been cruel to put him through that. It wasn't a decision we made lightly, we consulted a vet to rule out medical issues, and a trainer. It wasn't really the dogs fault or ours, it just was a bad match and I was grateful to have a responsible breeder that helped us out of the situation. I'm definitley not against using whatever training works for the dog, in fact positive only turned Hazel into an absolute brat, so we went a different way with her. Each dog is different.

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I think some dogs are just like that. It's just their temperment. And you can probably train around it to a certain extent. But it's not a good temperment for a service dog or any dog that has to be out in public.

 

My Tommy and Joey have the same father and we're raised in the same house the same way. Tommy is a lot more social and outgoing. Joe just doesn't like strangers. But he's a great house dog. They both are. Joe would not be a good service dog. He probably would be a good working dog. He responds very quickly to commands. Tommy not so much.

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