My Jessie is nearly two and a half years old, and is German Shepherd cross Border Collie. Just before her first birthday, we discovered that she has hip dysplasia. We had a very weepy week, trying to decide what to do, considering that it was likely to get worse as she got older and whether this was fair on her in the long run. Not to mention our feelings and emotions later on! We decided to keep her around as there are treatments and surgery available when it becomes necessary, and we couldn’t imagine life without her anyway. Besides, she just enjoyed life so much.Jessie is timid by nature, and nervous in new surroundings. She always has been and is even wary of people she knows. Concerned that if she wasn’t socialised, she might end up biting someone out of fear one day, we started going to puppy school when she was about three months old. She loved playing with ‘Puppies’, and we had to avoid using the ‘P’ word in normal conversation because she would think she was going to school and be disappointed when we didn’t.
When she grew too boisterous for the class I started asking around for affordable training for teenage lunatics. A friend said she took her nutty mutt to Sun Valley because Taryn had great imaginative solutions to keep the attention of a dog who found everything else irresistible. We never miss a Saturday class if we can help it. It’s the one hour a week that nobody can get hold of me - Me-and-My-Dog time. Jessie knows that if the children don’t get out of bed to go to school, then it must be her turn. At first she thought she was there to play, as a group of ‘Puppies’ together could only mean one thing, but as she matured, she realized that work came first, and playtime later. Oh dear, the control required! She made best friends with a border collie called Mika, and then we had to avoid the ‘M’ word at home too. Mika’s Mom and I had to stand at opposite ends of the row of dogs in class in an attempt to get them to concentrate, but they were always trying to catch a glimpse of each other, whining and barking. Nowadays, they are much more focused, and the word to avoid is ‘School’. (Wish our children were so enthusiastic!)
After a few months of training, our class entered the Canine Good Citizen test at the dog show, and all achieved our certificates. This basically means that we will all be well behaved in public, and apparently the certificate will stand up in court if there is a discrepancy in a dog fight as to who started it all (and there are vet’s fees to be paid for)! Jessie still gets nervous if one of the other dogs moves from a ‘stay’ command and gets reprimanded. Thinking she is at fault, she starts to leopard-crawl towards me. I reassure her a lot and she is slowly improving. We have even started Protection Training to help boost her self-confidence. This really isn’t about teaching dogs to be aggressive, but more of a game channelling and controlling a natural prey drive in enthusiastic dogs. Jess isn’t one who wants to chase everything, but now that the new field and people are familiar to her, she is aware that there is more School in addition to the Saturday morning class, and won’t settle down unless she’s had all the fun she expects for the weekend. Unfortunately we can’t do Agility with her because of her hips, though I know she would love it. She always takes her toys onto the metre-high trampoline, where she sleeps in the shade and jumps with the children, and can see what’s going on over the wall.
At home Jessie is surrounded by more that the normal array of pets in a household, with hamsters, cats, chickens, budgies, finches, another dog and a snake, but her favourite is supervising the incubation and rearing of quails which we breed for the table (and sell their eggs). If she had hands, I think she would turn the eggs in the incubator herself, and eagerly watches as the tiny cheeping chicks hatch. When they are old enough and promoted to a large outside aviary, she carefully steps between over 100 birds, checking and nuzzling each one.
She loves to play hide and seek, when we hide one of her many toys. She usually chooses one of the squeaky ones, making it noisily known when she has found her prize. She also likes to pick the one she wants to take to School as her retrieve article for the day. If we forget though, she is quite happy to fetch whatever happens to be in my pocket - keys, remote, lead… anything. Handy to have around at home, she will courier a cell phone or remote control on the command ‘Take it to Daddy’, or ‘Take it to Mummy’, and in the evening when she thinks it’s time for food, she will bring us papers or things that she finds on the floor, knowing that she will receive a kitty pellet or tiny treat in return (we have little packets all over the house, just in case). I received a barcode label once. She also steals things that are not on the floor. She brought me a calculator from the couch - I think she thought it was a remote with all its buttons, and was sure I’d like the gift. She tries to talk too, with a ‘wowowow’ for hello and a ‘yip’ for yes. If we ask her a question like “Are you hungry? Say Yes”, she yips. She’s terribly jealous, and if a cat looks like it’s even thinking of walking in my direction, she’ll be up like a shot and standing in between us.
We are very fortunate to have Jessie sharing our lives. We’ve never had a dog from puppyhood before, having adopted older dogs, and she is such a treasure.
Submitted by Susan
