Its Hard Out Here for a Pit
For the past 2 weeks at work, I've been attending obedience classes.
And yes, the joke you're thinking about making is in fact accurate, because I'm actually the one who needs to be trained... My boss and the shelter's canine manager both said they'd like to see me learn more dog handling skills. As much as I like dogs, I'm not really that good with them. I've got more of a cat personality; soft-spoken, shy and sedentary. Unfortunately these are all traits that don't really make for someone who can handle a dog under pressure. So, class for me.
Its actually pretty fun so far. My boss set me up with a pit bull named Maribel who's been through obedience training already, and is generally very easy to handle. The poor girl's been in the shelter system for over 6 months, because apparently people would rather take home a German Shepherd puppy that routinely bites hard enough to draw blood, or a 4 year old Chihuahua that tries to tear the throat out of any other animal it sees.
Anyway, on Sunday I'm sitting in a folding chair in the classroom and scratching Maribel's back, when one of my classmates comes in... A Great Dane by the name of Blade. Now, Blade is easily twice Maribel's size, perhaps even three times. Hell, he's twice his owner's size. The aforementioned owner, a tiny mexican man, pulls up a chair a few feet from me and sits down. And suddenly Blade sees Maribel. I enter a minor fugue state at this point... Blade fixes Maribel with a piercing stare and starts to growl. What immediately goes through my head is that this could turn into a knock-down, drag-out dog fight. At that point I'm not really worried about myself because, clearly, Blade wants Maribel. Maribel who's standing there with her tail wagging limply and her head lowered (signs of a submissive dog.)
Realizing that whatever is going to happen will happen in less than a second, I grab her leash and hold it taut just as Blade lunges at her. Fortunately Blade is also on a leash, and his owner (barely) manages to hold him just as his teeth close around the exact spot where Maribel's throat was a second ago. And what is Maribel doing all this time? Well, in the same second I'd grabbed her leash, she had taken a single, very casual step backwards. So there's Blade, snarling just a few inches from her head, and she's standing there, looking at me with her sweet brown eyes as if waiting for me to say something on her behalf.
Fortunately the instructor sees this happening and asks Blade's owner to go sit on the other side of the room away from the other dogs, which he does. And while Blade spends pretty much the entire class agitatedly barking, Maribel behaves perfectly.
I think I just became a pit bull lover.
And yes, the joke you're thinking about making is in fact accurate, because I'm actually the one who needs to be trained... My boss and the shelter's canine manager both said they'd like to see me learn more dog handling skills. As much as I like dogs, I'm not really that good with them. I've got more of a cat personality; soft-spoken, shy and sedentary. Unfortunately these are all traits that don't really make for someone who can handle a dog under pressure. So, class for me.
Its actually pretty fun so far. My boss set me up with a pit bull named Maribel who's been through obedience training already, and is generally very easy to handle. The poor girl's been in the shelter system for over 6 months, because apparently people would rather take home a German Shepherd puppy that routinely bites hard enough to draw blood, or a 4 year old Chihuahua that tries to tear the throat out of any other animal it sees.
Anyway, on Sunday I'm sitting in a folding chair in the classroom and scratching Maribel's back, when one of my classmates comes in... A Great Dane by the name of Blade. Now, Blade is easily twice Maribel's size, perhaps even three times. Hell, he's twice his owner's size. The aforementioned owner, a tiny mexican man, pulls up a chair a few feet from me and sits down. And suddenly Blade sees Maribel. I enter a minor fugue state at this point... Blade fixes Maribel with a piercing stare and starts to growl. What immediately goes through my head is that this could turn into a knock-down, drag-out dog fight. At that point I'm not really worried about myself because, clearly, Blade wants Maribel. Maribel who's standing there with her tail wagging limply and her head lowered (signs of a submissive dog.)
Realizing that whatever is going to happen will happen in less than a second, I grab her leash and hold it taut just as Blade lunges at her. Fortunately Blade is also on a leash, and his owner (barely) manages to hold him just as his teeth close around the exact spot where Maribel's throat was a second ago. And what is Maribel doing all this time? Well, in the same second I'd grabbed her leash, she had taken a single, very casual step backwards. So there's Blade, snarling just a few inches from her head, and she's standing there, looking at me with her sweet brown eyes as if waiting for me to say something on her behalf.
Fortunately the instructor sees this happening and asks Blade's owner to go sit on the other side of the room away from the other dogs, which he does. And while Blade spends pretty much the entire class agitatedly barking, Maribel behaves perfectly.
I think I just became a pit bull lover.