Beauceronen Morris

In hindsight

Text Anneli Tiainen 2005

He stood there, growling, giving me a warning:
-Don’t come any closer.
But, I really didn’t have any choices. I had to. He was my dog. That was my thoughts in 1994 when I was in trouble with my beauceron "Morris". Today, twelve years later, I know it wasn’t that simple. He wasn’t only my dog and I wasn’t only a dog owner.

Life was difficult, being a dog owner was even more difficult. My boyfriend sometimes needed support to get passed Morris. I got rid of him. Yes, the boyfriend, I mean, who needs that kind of a boyfriend anyway? Today when I look back I clearly see why it was so easy to make this choice. Morris wasn’t only my dog, he was my plans, dreams, future, hope, guilt, respect, love, life, responsibility, reputation, honour etc etc. I accepted the failure with the boyfriend without any tears but not the one with my dog. I cried and decided to do something about it.

.... It was about being ten steps ahead of your dog .... unquote

I took a 400-kilometer car trip to Stockholm and got loads of advise but even a small little sentence that I partly chose not to hear: -He is not a hard dog so you may have a chance to fix the relationship, but if it doesn’t work out you can’t go on living this way. Of course, that was never my plan, not at all. To be truly honest, I too did buy my dog to love, cherish and have a good time. For several years I had been planning this life. The life with a working dog, long hard but ever so rewarding hours of training, competitions, having fun with other dog owners, sharing experiences. I had got my fear share of advice:
-Dominate him, don’t let him dominate you.
-Teach him the meaning of the word "no".
-If it were my dog I would force him on his back and sit on him until he stayed calm.
But this day in Stockholm I got different kinds of advice:
-Every time you pass Morris, give him a treat, even if he growls at you, she said.
Three days of training and he stopped growling at me. During these three days I learned to cross the borders of pure fear. Never show your feelings, pass on an image of calmness, no quick movements, learn about and control your body language. Use your body, that’s how dogs communicate.

Two years later, he had a diploma in obedience beginner class (class 1), which meant we had got three first prises and we won all those three competitions with really good scores. We were a stunning team on the court. Best of all, he accepted the judges to check his teeth as that is one thing you have to do in class 1 Swedish obedience. It took me one year of training the “checking-teeth” before I had the courage to enter him at a competition. He had got CAC and Best of Breed at a dog show and we had passed novice class in working and we even won that class that day and became the club champions of novice class working that year.

A lot of people probably thought this was just the beginning. So did I but the truth was hidden in my body and mind. They just couldn’t cope the act anymore. The relationship between us worked fairly well as long as I could make ways to avoid problems. We had solved a lot of problems but new ones seemed to approach us every day. Still I took him everywhere, at my friend’s and we travelled by train and bus. Everyday life was about acting to never put yourself or your dog in trouble. It was about being ten steps ahead of your dog.

The truth was that he hadn’t become any better, nicer or more social. I simply had learned to live with him and his personality. But no steady boyfriends in sight and to be honest that would have been more than I could have handled so I adjusted. As long as my dream and images of myself as a competent, responsible and serious dog owner was intact I was content. Or I tried to be content, but along on my road of knowledge and education in dog behaviour I started to walk another path. The way into my deepest and most secret corners.

It was like peeling an onion, layers of layers with thoughts, beliefs and feelings that really didn’t do me any good. I started to hesitate, look at my self and my life. Was I even on the right side of the road? Of life? Have you ever heard and thougth about the sentence "Go with the flow"? That kind of feeling should come easily, effortless. Not by struggle each and every day.

The decision came one day. Go with the flow. An ordinary dog owner doesn’t have to be ten steps ahead of his dog to clean his teeth. I made the situation just the way I used to have done with my other dogs. Morris did bite me. He was six years old but he wasn’t my life anymore. He wasn’t my plans, dreams, future, hope, guilt, respect, life, responsibility, reputation, honour. He was a dog with a behaviour I could not live with.

We had our moments in our life together. Lots of fun and laughs, he was so easy and fun to work with, he never said no, not even to one hour of training heeling. I loved our time on the training field and so did he. Putting him down was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. It took me six years to make that decision.

We had three days of sun and fun before I carried his body out into the car, put him gently down on the floor. I looked at him, stroke him over his head…one kilometre from my parents house I stopped the car, opened the luggage boot and sat down next to him. I truly loved him but still I could feel the fear that never had left me. I put his favourite blanket around his black coat before we descended his body into the grave that my mother had made during the day. He was a large and heavy dog, I almost fell down in the grave myself.

Some glimpses of my and Morris’s life, I could write a whole novel if I wanted to. The only thing I do regret is that I forced him to show aggressiveness towards me before I could be a competent, responsible and serious dog owner. But that doesn’t mean I would do this experience all over again. Quite the opposite, I advice others not to and I’m using all my knowledge to never ever put myself in that kind of situation again.

This kind of experience can make you weak but if you don’t learn and develop during this time it will do you nothing. It can also make you strong, stronger than you are supposed to be.

WWW.BEAUCERON.NU

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In hindsight

Morris

Mina Krypin