Enthusiasm

Last month we added two new dogs to our family with a plan to train both of them as service animals. Based on individual personality it’s our hope that one of them will become a disaster recovery dog who will assist first responders dealing with their emotions during both rescue and recovery phases of disaster. It’s a tough job for a dog…being squeezed, cried over and listening to terrible secrets whispered in its ear by strangers but the dog we think will do the job is following in the footsteps (pawsteps?) of a brilliant and mostly self trained dog who left us earlier this year.

Our volunteer for this job is a mixed long hair dachshund, Papillion female who loves to be around people and thinks her job is to be part of your life. Amber is less than three months old so we have a lot of training to do, but like most dogs of that mix of breeds she is a fast learner and also eager to teach us what she thinks we need to do to make her life more fun. She is a three pound bottle of enthusiasm that fizzes up and bubbles over at odd moments and thinks all things are there for her to play with.

Sometimes her targets don’t want to play. Last night for example we heard our oldest dog (who is blind and is in liver failure) whining because the pup had her by the hind leg and was pulling her into the other room so they could play without interference by the humans. All Abbie wanted to do was take a well deserved nap and she really wanted us to rescue her from this small, bouncing energy source that was making life difficult.  Because she is blind she didn’t know where to bite so she had to call on her humans to rescue her.

A training moment followed and much discussion ensued on ways to channel this energy without modifying the enthusiasm we need Amber to bring to the job.

I see many stories in the future.