After 7 months of living with Zeus last night I finally saw issues. For 7 months we've done no formal training with him at all, we've only taught him the lesson of life, how to live with us at Blanik. He has been super, he is a happy, bubbly, lovely boy, but last night he fell apart. I've taken him to ring craft before, but I've not put him in the position of being "gone over." Last night Ian was doing the first class, he's comfortable and happy with Ian so I asked him to stroke him on his head and then go over him. He did exactly as I asked, but as soon as he went to the side and was out of Zeus' vision the dog became tense. Almost instantly, his eyes and ears flicked back and he started to growl, an unhappy warning growl. I told Ian to walk away, he did. Now I'm sorry if it offends, I'm old school and at that moment I need to show him his actions were unacceptable .. I don't know how to do that with treats and toys. I was already holding him either side of his face, so I lifted his front off the floor and said "What did you say?" I put him back onto the floor, but I could see he was worried. In my mind I had, "Finish on a good note." I re-stood him, but stroked him all over myself, before telling him he was a good lad. It's quite a hard situation really, Zeus growled, he gave a warning, he said "I'm not happy." We must be thankful when a dog does that, though fearful he made no effort to bite ... we must respect him for that.
I was teaching the second half and Ian had Zeus. I watched them interact, the dog was again happy and relaxed with his friend. "Stand your dogs." As Ian went to stand him, Zeus immediately changed. The ears went back and the eyes showed worry and concern. I told Ian to leave it, to merely go round with him and let him stand naturally. That was fine. Zeus could cope with that. When it was his turn I told him to just let him stand and I went over him, of course there were no issues, there is complete trust between me and Zeus.
Steve and have talked a lot about last night, and we can only conclude that the situation triggered an unhappy memory. It put him back in a place of pressure and stress. As I said he's been here 7 months and I've never even heard him growl before, that must mean something? I'm not saying for one minute that he was cruelly handled, but I do think he was badly handled in training. Actually, I'm not blaming the owners for that .. they had a dog trainer on board who thought Zeus could be a suitable Police dog .. no, never, not in a million years! A lot of what I was told happened during the training concerned me, but I was not there to judge and with his credentials I really thought they were on the right track. I was told by a third party when Zeus came back that there had been a lot of pressure on him to get things right, to be good, to be quite .. when he was and still is to some extent a very young dog! Too much training and not enough playing!
So Zeus' show career is over before it starts. Why would I put him in a situation that obviously concerns him so much? Why stress an otherwise very happy dog? It really is not worth it, I love him too much to stress him like that. The dog at club last night was not the dog who has lived here for 7 months. All I want is for him to be happy, not all dogs are happy in the show ring, Ziva never was and has been out of the ring for 8 of her 10 + years. She is a beautiful bitch, so yes, I tried with her, but when they hate it, it really doesn't work. I have plenty of others to show, dogs that are constructionally better than him anyway. In Stance from a side profile Zeus is a stunning dog, he has a beautiful head and expression, a lovely overline, super colour and a glamorous coat. But judging the whole dog, as we must, he has weak front pasterns which are often obvious in LSH's, and he is cow hocked at the back. As a breed enthusiast these for me would be a serious consideration when judging, these are far more serious than, say light eyes!!! To be honest, taking these things into consideration, in my opinion, as a show dog he would be out classed by Orin anyway! I've always said, knowing what I know now, if I was given my chance to pick "The Show Dog" again, I would make the same decision! Team O for the show - all the way! LOL
Zeus is here to stay, we adore him, his happiness is paramount .. I'm Team Z for fun and games!
