Post by oksaradt on Jul 2, 2008 17:00:36 GMT -5
I tend to follow my wife’s example of never telling someone when his or her dog should be put down. Though in my case it’s never telling another dog handler when they should retire their dog. I’m discussing this now because I forcibly retired Dax when it was confirmed she has a mass along the side of her neck that the vet professors are “pretty sure it’s thyroid cancer”. They are “pretty sure” because it’s right where the thyroid is supposed to be, but even with a CT and sonogram they can’t tell for sure. A biopsy showed all cells to be carcinoma, the mass is well encapsulated (a good thing) and not aggressive (another good thing), but the mass has a lot of veins and arteries running through it(a bad thing). The goal is to shrink the mass to at least half the size the CT showed it to be and then they’ll attempt surgically removing it. Dax got her first round of chemotherapy yesterday and so far so good. I’ve been researching the chemicals and how this plays out. Day 6-10 after the injection is when discomfort should hit her hard. Yada yada yada….Anyway, I promised myself and Dax that she would get a retirement years ago. When Tempe was field ready, I expected to ease off on Dax’s work requirements. Tempe died and I put Dax through 3 months of arduous training, basically to tell me what she was still capable of. She still loves the game and stepped up. I was hoping to serve the community with Dax until Murphy could step up, but life isn’t always as we plan. Dax had a search the day before her CT and she was retired once they showed me the results of the mass. I’ve had five calls for her in less than a month since and I’ve had to refer them to other dog teams. My main goal is to get L.E. what they need, not to satisfy my ego. Dax did not exhibit any symptoms of feeling ill. I found the mass grooming her.
Some dog handlers will work their dog up to the day it dies. I know of three personally. Partly this occurs because (I believe) HRD dog handlers invest so much of themselves into their dogs. The bond that has to develop to get a good work ethic where your dog searches for you in the crappiest of conditions (and you are tromping right along with it) has to be almost at the hip. Dax was very polite and well-mannered with all the vets at the university and the chemotherapist, yet Dax considers my wife direct competition for my affections and grumbles at her routinely. Considering my wife and Dax have very similar personalities in many ways, I have to grin at their predicament. At many seminars, I could lay down on the grass, place a hat over my eyes and Dax at my side. Dax would growl if anyone approached. My solution was to unhook the lead and push her away from me. She would shut up, grumble, and then curl up behind me.
Dax is now getting what I promised her years ago. She now resides in my office with her own crate if she wants it (the door is always open) and my futon if I’m not crashing on it when I’m taking calls for the M.E. The other dogs get house visitations, but my attitude with MY working dogs is they must be acclimated to the current weather be it 105F in the shade or below freezing. My rule is they can come in if the temperature drops below 10F. I’m sure those that live in the northern climates have a lower limit. A fire chief captain buddy of mine in Louisiana brings in his dogs if it drops below 25F.
Instead of being tortured by me in her search problems, Dax gets to stop at one if she finds it on her own if I’d set up some problems for Murphy in the near vicinity. She now gets her ball for free and tortures me for endless games of tug-of-war. If she feels good enough to play tug, I’m happy to oblige.
The point of this post is not for an “awww geeee” moment nor to draw sympathy, I’ve never gone in for that. It’s to raise the awareness that there comes a time in the dog’s health when its searching capabilities will fall off because it feels like crap or its nose isn’t firing on all cylinders. When I’m training other dog teams, if their dog appears to be limping or sluggish, they get 20 questions from me to determine what’s going on with the dog. This is because the dog should always have a positive experience in scent in training. Real searches do not always have this luxury, but the dog has previous experiences to fall back on and depends on the handler to make the reward compensatory to the crap it’s dealing with in pursuit of the scent source (or lack thereof). I prefer the dog handler to tell me if the dog is having issues and ask if we could tailor the training to those issues for now. I don’t like having to lecture the dog handler that they should not be working their dog right now, but I will for the sake of the dog’s training.
Many times other dog handlers become our friends and we painfully observe their unwillingness to “pack it in.” Many times this means the handler will quit as well. The one-dog SAR dog team is very common. The SAR team I belong to always asks at the application interview what the handler thinks they’ll do if their dog can’t hack it, dies unexpectedly, etc. Invariably they state they will go on with a new dog, but years later that has about a 50/50 chance of going the other way. Many handlers come to identify with their dog rather than the task. To be fair to the victim, the victim’s families, and possibly preventing future victims one has to always be objective about our own dogs and their capabilities.
To deal with this, many teams have yearly certifications to force the dog handler to recognize the situation at a failure. My personal opinion is this might be too late. The handler is the dog’s manager and has the responsibility to always know if the dog is on top of its game or needs to be benched. There should be no shame in doing this as needed through out the dog’s career.
Regards,
Jim
Some dog handlers will work their dog up to the day it dies. I know of three personally. Partly this occurs because (I believe) HRD dog handlers invest so much of themselves into their dogs. The bond that has to develop to get a good work ethic where your dog searches for you in the crappiest of conditions (and you are tromping right along with it) has to be almost at the hip. Dax was very polite and well-mannered with all the vets at the university and the chemotherapist, yet Dax considers my wife direct competition for my affections and grumbles at her routinely. Considering my wife and Dax have very similar personalities in many ways, I have to grin at their predicament. At many seminars, I could lay down on the grass, place a hat over my eyes and Dax at my side. Dax would growl if anyone approached. My solution was to unhook the lead and push her away from me. She would shut up, grumble, and then curl up behind me.
Dax is now getting what I promised her years ago. She now resides in my office with her own crate if she wants it (the door is always open) and my futon if I’m not crashing on it when I’m taking calls for the M.E. The other dogs get house visitations, but my attitude with MY working dogs is they must be acclimated to the current weather be it 105F in the shade or below freezing. My rule is they can come in if the temperature drops below 10F. I’m sure those that live in the northern climates have a lower limit. A fire chief captain buddy of mine in Louisiana brings in his dogs if it drops below 25F.
Instead of being tortured by me in her search problems, Dax gets to stop at one if she finds it on her own if I’d set up some problems for Murphy in the near vicinity. She now gets her ball for free and tortures me for endless games of tug-of-war. If she feels good enough to play tug, I’m happy to oblige.
The point of this post is not for an “awww geeee” moment nor to draw sympathy, I’ve never gone in for that. It’s to raise the awareness that there comes a time in the dog’s health when its searching capabilities will fall off because it feels like crap or its nose isn’t firing on all cylinders. When I’m training other dog teams, if their dog appears to be limping or sluggish, they get 20 questions from me to determine what’s going on with the dog. This is because the dog should always have a positive experience in scent in training. Real searches do not always have this luxury, but the dog has previous experiences to fall back on and depends on the handler to make the reward compensatory to the crap it’s dealing with in pursuit of the scent source (or lack thereof). I prefer the dog handler to tell me if the dog is having issues and ask if we could tailor the training to those issues for now. I don’t like having to lecture the dog handler that they should not be working their dog right now, but I will for the sake of the dog’s training.
Many times other dog handlers become our friends and we painfully observe their unwillingness to “pack it in.” Many times this means the handler will quit as well. The one-dog SAR dog team is very common. The SAR team I belong to always asks at the application interview what the handler thinks they’ll do if their dog can’t hack it, dies unexpectedly, etc. Invariably they state they will go on with a new dog, but years later that has about a 50/50 chance of going the other way. Many handlers come to identify with their dog rather than the task. To be fair to the victim, the victim’s families, and possibly preventing future victims one has to always be objective about our own dogs and their capabilities.
To deal with this, many teams have yearly certifications to force the dog handler to recognize the situation at a failure. My personal opinion is this might be too late. The handler is the dog’s manager and has the responsibility to always know if the dog is on top of its game or needs to be benched. There should be no shame in doing this as needed through out the dog’s career.
Regards,
Jim