I had been looking for a shelter dog for about six months. I first fell in love with a Poodle mix who was adopted by someone else five minutes before I arrived.
I figured there must be a reason, and the reason turned out to be Daisy. Gorgeous eyes, immediate eye contact, skinny, ratty, and dirty – she was the most beautiful dog I’d ever seen.
For the first week after I brought her home, she got tired just walking around the block. In addition to being weak, she was completely untrained and unaccustomed to being around kids and people. Her way of saying “hi” generally involved teeth, and her idea of a walk was straining at the end of the leash, wheezing because this cut off her airspace.
I dealt with the most pressing problem first – the biting. I deliberately got her excited, put my fingers and face in harm’s way, got bit a few times (not badly, no leaking), and finally she stopped. After that, Daisy socialized to people quickly but was still very jumpy when she heard loud noises.
She is smart, so smart that when I worked on teaching her “come” and “time to go” she instantly figured out every trick I tried to get her back into the car or the house. This got worse before it got better, with Daisy running down the street, not caring that there was a liver treat in the deal for her when she came back, not responding to love, open car doors, a tennis ball, or the kids she loved. Her refusal to come had clearly gotten out of hand.
One day I made a mistake that nearly ruined our relationship. I was late to work, and when she pulled the running away bit I got really mad and yelled at her. Then I put her in submission while I told her how mad I was. Needless to say, I lost all control of her, and my own, behavior that day.
The fifth time we went to Pt. Isabel, she ran after and retrieved about 200 balls. When I threw the last one back in the direction of the parking lot, she knew what it meant and revolted. I, my family, and kind strangers all worked hard trying to retrieve her, but despite tasty food lures, balls, toys, and starting the car engine, she just wouldn’t come. After 75 minutes, my son finally got hold of her. I cried on the way home, convinced that I wasn’t getting anywhere with her and couldn’t put my family through the drama and trauma of her behavior anymore.
I had been training Daisy for 40 minutes every day and I suddenly felt like it had been a total waste of time. My family was sick of the avoidance behavior. I was still crazy about her, had never felt such a strong emotional connection to a dog – and I’ve had dogs my whole life – but my nerves were worn ragged. So I seriously considered giving up and surrendering her to the shelter.
I decided to give her one more chance, and so we went back to working with a professional dog trainer. I began to understand that training isn’t about making your dog do what you want in response to a command. It’s about developing a permanent relationship with your dog, a bond of trust that makes her want to do what you say.
I was fortunate to have an incredible trainer, one who was clear, consistent, and strict with me, so I learned to stop getting in my own way, training-wise. I saw the differences in Daisy by the second class and our life together got consistently better after that.
I now have a dog that intuitively knows when I want her to get the tennis ball that bounced weirdly off the wall vs. when I want to run for it myself. She sits, stays even when I can’t be seen, retrieves, searches for a lost ball in a quadrant (modified) pattern, rolls over, stands, shakes, flips, climbs the ladder at the playground (the short “U” one – but I still have my hands there, just in case!). She dances, begs on command, and catches flying discs – that was scary for her to learn, and we had to start with cloth, then progress to harder and harder discs. She now runs with me or walks at my side to and from the car at dog parks.
Daisy has come to trust me, as I trust her. When my son and daughter were walking both dogs one day, I waited at home. Suddenly, Daisy high-tailed it back inside and gave me “the look.” I hustled out the door behind her, and it turned out my daughter had fallen on the sidewalk. Daisy acts like the children are hers, and they fight over who gets to sleep with her.
Daisy and I still train 30 minutes a day. She loves the attention and having a “job” to learn and do. After about a year of progressive training, she just successfully learned to swim. That one was hard – she was terrified of water and was really uncoordinated her first few tries. She’s training to search for the kids by name now.
Once I lost my keys in the pitch-dark at the Buchanan Street beach. After looking for an hour, I called for help and a flashlight. Just as I was about to give up, Daisy barked. She was about two feet away from me, facing the opposite direction from where I was looking. I checked to see what was up and she had barked at my keys. Really.
Daisy is my best friend and being with her has become completely intuitive. She will always be the independent type, but I like that about her. We still drive each other crazy sometimes, but what relationship doesn’t include such moments now and then? When I think back to the day that I was ready to surrender this awesome little canine, I feel grateful that I gave her that one last chance.
Kristiane Nygaard is a physical therapist and proud mom to two children and two dogs.
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