Post by oksaradt on Jul 7, 2008 19:41:29 GMT -5
Tempe’s 11-month fear worked about to be about fireworks. Over several years I was able to minimize it, but never eradicate the fear. So, with Murphy I was determined for this not to happen. The city I live in has a VERY patriotic view towards fireworks. All the civic groups, cheer-leading squads, bands, etc. all put up firework stands. The city opens itself up as a place for families to shoot off fireworks to their heart’s content. The other cities nearby have made it illegal to shoot off fireworks. Some have made it illegal to even own fireworks. So, on the Fourth, the city’s population grows to over double its size with families just itchin to blow stuff up.
I decided to take Murphy up to the next closest city for their large night time aerial fireworks show. Our clinic is there, so I could park with Murphy and I on the grass of the clinic lawn to watch the show. Before the show could start, someone was shooting off their own which made a pop then a snap-crackle. Murphy could care less about the pop, but the snap-crackle had him concerned. I afforded him to sit in the back of the Xterra till the show went off. He was still showing no problem with the concussions, but crackles…. So, after 10 minutes I decide he’d had enough. He wasn’t panicked, just not excited. I got in the truck and headed home. A highway goes through the center of my city, Mustang, and I have to drive through town to get to my place. From four miles away, it appears as if there is a virtual fireworks war going on. Mustang hosts no fireworks show. They don’t need to. All these people were competing to have the most spectacular fireballs going off above them. At least 0.5 miles to either side of the highway was solid fireworks going off into the night sky. Roman candles were shooting over the highway from either side. 40 foot diameter fireballs are going off all over in greens, reds, pinks, yellows, and whistling whites. I look in the rear view mirror to see what Murphy is doing and his head is resting on the dog barrier behind me and he looks like his eyes are closed. I reach back to touch his nose and seem to wake him up. There are booms going on all around us and he’d fallen asleep. His eyes look from side to side, he heaved a deep sigh, and went back to sleep. I heaved my own big sigh of relief. When we got home, I put him out with the other dogs and got their food together. Murphy has to eat on the floating platform where he does his sit-wait along with the other dogs as I place out their food bowls. A firework went off from one of my neighbors. Murphy barked at it defiantly. Life is good.
So, the following morning was team training. Murphy is still going through his brain-fart or blond stage. I set up a problem for the cross-trained dogs similar to a typical search I might get called on. I knew where there is a 6-foot diameter pipe under the road near where we were training. It’s about 20 foot long and runs the width of the road. The ditch there is well over 8 feet below the road, but vegetation hides it nicely from the road. If you don’t know it’s there, you won’t see this hidden world that runs 150 feet along the road on either side. I placed a blood soaked rag in some debris wood at one end of the pipe. Only when the first dog team was working the problem did we noticed the six boney remains of filleted fish someone had tossed from their truck above lying just two feet from the bloody rag. On the other end of the area I placed some fresh remains under some rocks in the middle of the dried ditch that was strewn with people’s tires, fridges, a washing machine, etc. This city has a monthly dump day that allows you to have all your large junk picked up from your drive, yet people still dump what they don’t want on country dirt roads… The first handler that worked this with his dog stood on the rocks over this source for a good five minutes while his dog searched all around him. I heard comments like “gross!”, “people are such *&%$!”, “you expects us to search down here!?” I just laughed and said, “welcome to my world…..” Most of my searches are in worse conditions. This was shaded, dry, and the vegetation didn’t have four inch barbs on it. It wasn’t bad at all.
This decomp problem was a good 200 plus feet from Murphy’s skeletal/dental problems, yet he decided again he had to go check the decomp out. His nose is great, but his brain is just not firing on all cylinders right now. I had a weak moment and said, “go ahead.” The problem is designed such that the dog has to go down into the ditch on it’s own as the other handlers didn’t know the area was even there. They would never search it on their own unless the dog exhibits scent behavior. My directions to them was they could follow anywhere the dog went in pursuit in scent, but to otherwise stay on the dirt road.
So, Murphy got the same restrictions. If he didn’t go down, life was good, we’d go back to what he was supposed to be training on. Murphy went down. He found the fish and ignored them. I was happy. He started to go into the tunnel and balked, so to avoid his fear I stepped into it and walked to the other end to show him no big deal. Murphy wasn’t convinced (blond fear stage at work). He finds a dead possum and checks it. I have a weak handler moment and yell “NO!” The *cough* metal tunnel made my voice come out as similar to what Moses must have heard on the mount. Murphy jumped up a foot and I can guarantee he’ll never confuse dead possum with HRs for the rest of his life. I sighed and walked out of the tunnel, called him to me, hooked him up on a lead and we walked the tunnel back and forth till it had become boring (about 8 laps). I took him off lead and he went out the other end and promptly found the fresh remains in the rocks and yipped. This dog barks like he’s a bloodhound on steroids, but this day of blond moments only a yip comes out. I rewarded. During blond times, you take what you can get. We had to go back into the tunnel and he found the bloody rag. He backed up big eyes and yipped at me. I asked him to “show me” and watched him put out a paw first a foot away, then six inches, then finally an inch away from the bloody rag where upon I rewarded. So, while Murphy still won’t be doing decomp regularly till mid-September, he got imprinted a bit more on it on the fifth.
As I told a novice handler recently, during the blond times I chant, “My dog is not broken. My dog is not broken. My dog is not broken.”
Jim
I decided to take Murphy up to the next closest city for their large night time aerial fireworks show. Our clinic is there, so I could park with Murphy and I on the grass of the clinic lawn to watch the show. Before the show could start, someone was shooting off their own which made a pop then a snap-crackle. Murphy could care less about the pop, but the snap-crackle had him concerned. I afforded him to sit in the back of the Xterra till the show went off. He was still showing no problem with the concussions, but crackles…. So, after 10 minutes I decide he’d had enough. He wasn’t panicked, just not excited. I got in the truck and headed home. A highway goes through the center of my city, Mustang, and I have to drive through town to get to my place. From four miles away, it appears as if there is a virtual fireworks war going on. Mustang hosts no fireworks show. They don’t need to. All these people were competing to have the most spectacular fireballs going off above them. At least 0.5 miles to either side of the highway was solid fireworks going off into the night sky. Roman candles were shooting over the highway from either side. 40 foot diameter fireballs are going off all over in greens, reds, pinks, yellows, and whistling whites. I look in the rear view mirror to see what Murphy is doing and his head is resting on the dog barrier behind me and he looks like his eyes are closed. I reach back to touch his nose and seem to wake him up. There are booms going on all around us and he’d fallen asleep. His eyes look from side to side, he heaved a deep sigh, and went back to sleep. I heaved my own big sigh of relief. When we got home, I put him out with the other dogs and got their food together. Murphy has to eat on the floating platform where he does his sit-wait along with the other dogs as I place out their food bowls. A firework went off from one of my neighbors. Murphy barked at it defiantly. Life is good.
So, the following morning was team training. Murphy is still going through his brain-fart or blond stage. I set up a problem for the cross-trained dogs similar to a typical search I might get called on. I knew where there is a 6-foot diameter pipe under the road near where we were training. It’s about 20 foot long and runs the width of the road. The ditch there is well over 8 feet below the road, but vegetation hides it nicely from the road. If you don’t know it’s there, you won’t see this hidden world that runs 150 feet along the road on either side. I placed a blood soaked rag in some debris wood at one end of the pipe. Only when the first dog team was working the problem did we noticed the six boney remains of filleted fish someone had tossed from their truck above lying just two feet from the bloody rag. On the other end of the area I placed some fresh remains under some rocks in the middle of the dried ditch that was strewn with people’s tires, fridges, a washing machine, etc. This city has a monthly dump day that allows you to have all your large junk picked up from your drive, yet people still dump what they don’t want on country dirt roads… The first handler that worked this with his dog stood on the rocks over this source for a good five minutes while his dog searched all around him. I heard comments like “gross!”, “people are such *&%$!”, “you expects us to search down here!?” I just laughed and said, “welcome to my world…..” Most of my searches are in worse conditions. This was shaded, dry, and the vegetation didn’t have four inch barbs on it. It wasn’t bad at all.
This decomp problem was a good 200 plus feet from Murphy’s skeletal/dental problems, yet he decided again he had to go check the decomp out. His nose is great, but his brain is just not firing on all cylinders right now. I had a weak moment and said, “go ahead.” The problem is designed such that the dog has to go down into the ditch on it’s own as the other handlers didn’t know the area was even there. They would never search it on their own unless the dog exhibits scent behavior. My directions to them was they could follow anywhere the dog went in pursuit in scent, but to otherwise stay on the dirt road.
So, Murphy got the same restrictions. If he didn’t go down, life was good, we’d go back to what he was supposed to be training on. Murphy went down. He found the fish and ignored them. I was happy. He started to go into the tunnel and balked, so to avoid his fear I stepped into it and walked to the other end to show him no big deal. Murphy wasn’t convinced (blond fear stage at work). He finds a dead possum and checks it. I have a weak handler moment and yell “NO!” The *cough* metal tunnel made my voice come out as similar to what Moses must have heard on the mount. Murphy jumped up a foot and I can guarantee he’ll never confuse dead possum with HRs for the rest of his life. I sighed and walked out of the tunnel, called him to me, hooked him up on a lead and we walked the tunnel back and forth till it had become boring (about 8 laps). I took him off lead and he went out the other end and promptly found the fresh remains in the rocks and yipped. This dog barks like he’s a bloodhound on steroids, but this day of blond moments only a yip comes out. I rewarded. During blond times, you take what you can get. We had to go back into the tunnel and he found the bloody rag. He backed up big eyes and yipped at me. I asked him to “show me” and watched him put out a paw first a foot away, then six inches, then finally an inch away from the bloody rag where upon I rewarded. So, while Murphy still won’t be doing decomp regularly till mid-September, he got imprinted a bit more on it on the fifth.
As I told a novice handler recently, during the blond times I chant, “My dog is not broken. My dog is not broken. My dog is not broken.”
Jim