Turn down sound.
It's a Belgian Sheepdog, Chien de Berger Belge. Genetically they're all the same confirmation and temperament but the coats are different between types. In Europe they're interbred to keep their traits blended, and their coloration strong, but the American Kennel Club insists they be treated as separate breeds.
The types are Groenendale, all black, Tervuren, multi colored long coat, Malinois like a short haired Tervuren, and Laekenois, a blonder wire coat. Shave them, and they're the same middle-size dog.
My third Belgian received the least training of all my dogs. But I did want to have a formal routine amounting to level 1 obedience seen at trials. One we could run through together on days when something goes wrong, say, if she did something that put our moods off, we could return to the routine, a thing that she knows she excels where she can do no wrong, and that would erase the bad vibes for the day and put our little minds back on track.
I meant to say her little mind.
And it worked.
One day a couple of friends were visiting. I go, "Wanna see our little routine?" The guys go, "sure."
Heel, sit, down, stay, come, heel, sit, heel, sit, boom done.
Except she does it like a fierce little Nazi.
And I meant it. It's frightening. All of them were. I had to make sure to do this outside on the grass because on down command she'd throw out her little doggie arms out forward like a Nazi salute and I could hear her elbows crack on a hard surface. She could not go down any faster. She is very VERY VERY fast.
So that was that.
A few years later that same friend and others were talking about hunting dogs and training them. He said back then that the best trained that dog he'd ever seen was that little demonstration we did. And believe me, that was no training at all, just our little routine. Nothing the slightest advanced. No jumps, no herding, no tracking. Her real training was all the talking I did with her every day. Not formal. *sweet voice* "Get out of the kitchen" She'd pull her one paw back to the carpeted floor from the kitchen tile. That sort of thing. A definite line between tile and carpet. She sat right at the line and watched my every move. She would test the kitchen line rule with one paw. To this day I get surprised when I see cooking videos with a dog in the kitchen. Don't the dogs have a rule?
3 comments:
Awwwwww.
*occurs to Deb to keep the two cats and two dogs out of the kitchen*
I have a full bred Rottie that would be considered a poor example of breeding. I found a site comparing the European standards to the American. Falls way short in both. Looks really more like a doberman, except in profile her head is very Rottie. From the front she has what the standards called a hound head, or something. That is, it is domed. She is very silly looking sometimes. She is a moose. Biddable and affectionate.
Who's the cutest little Nazi I'm looking at? Who is she??
Seems to me as though some of the order and discipline valued by a father was absorbed by his son and used with positive result on an attuned, determined, devoted and willing subject.
Good dog story about a good dog.
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