Consultation & Nerves

~Georgia, showing her Irish pride with some green grass as her backdrop and her green tag, so festive!~

Our first meeting with our dog/human trainer, C, started out like any other visit when someone comes to our house, Georgia gets incredibly excited and jumps – a lot! Georgia really wanted to be near C because she had treats with her. C sat down on our couch and Georgia was basically trying to crawl into her lap (Georgia is just over 40 lbs). C then sat down the on the floor and Georgia was practically laying on her! While Georgia was getting all sorts of attention from her new friend, we chatted with C about the testing process and situations that may arise if/when we become a Pet Partners Team. To be totally honest, when we went over the skills test that Georgia and I would have to pass together I got scared. I didn’t have confidence in her or myself. I didn’t say this out loud, of course, I just was freaking out on the inside. I actually was talking myself out of doing this whole thing while we were sitting there talking to the trainer.

C let me know that 24 hours before any visit Georgia has to have had a bath and her nails trimmed. This is what really sent me over the edge. I’d tried cutting her nails before and that resulted in us both rolling around on the floor and me dripping with sweat after 2 nails! So, from that point on we’d always had them do it at PetsMart. I instantly starting thinking that I couldn’t do this, it would be too hard. I let C know that I had some issues with nail trimming, still not letting on totally what I was feeling. She went over how to desensitize Georgia to it. We started by me just touching one of her toe nails and if she didn’t pull away I gave her a tiny treat. I did that a few times and then would actually hold her nail for a second and if she didn’t pull away she got a treat. Then I started just touching her foot with the nail clippers and if she didn’t pull away she got another treat. After 2 minutes tops she didn’t seem to be nervous around the nail clippers, because in her mind they equaled her getting a treat (she is VERY motivated by food). C instructed me to continue doing this on my own and then eventually cut one nail and reward her. Then on another day try two nails so as not to overwhelm her and so on and so forth = baby steps!!! I’m proud to report that the following day I cut a nail and another nail the next day without incident! It’s the small victories, right?

Then C wanted to see how Georgia would do with a little exercise called, “Leave it”. This is just what it is called; you make a treat available to the dog either in your hand or on the floor and you instruct them to leave it. It starts out with holding the treat out in your left hand and telling the dog to leave it, if they do then reward them with a treat from your right hand. If they try to take the treat tell them no and close your hand. Doing this several times should teach the dog to leave the treat and look to you, their owner. Within a matter of minutes Georgia worked up to having multiple treats thrown on the floor around her and her leaving them alone! If you know Georgia then you realize this is practically a miracle being that she LOVES food. I felt so proud, I imagine that it is what a parent feels when they child does something impressive. Yes, I just compared my dog to a child…deal with it. Seeing Georgia be successful with “Leave It” in such a short amount of time made me relax and get excited again about embarking on this journey. C left us saying that in her brief visit with us she felt that with training Georgia and I could be a good Pet Partners Team and that if we didn’t teach Georgia to do something it would be an injustice, being that she’s a smart, sweet, sensitive dog. Again, this made me feel very proud, like I had some role in this…I mean maybe I did in a way, but she came to us already smart, sweet and sensitive.

In that hour I went from being excited, nervous, panicked, negative, doubtful, worried, happy, excited & positive. That’s a lot of emotions in about an hour time frame…I was kind of worn out after it all. I decided to discuss with Nathan and really think about it for a few days before I made a final decision about moving forward and booking training lessons with C. Nathan is and has been very supportive, of course!! As you have probably figured out by now, I made the decision to move forward and book some lessons. I am doing this for Georgia, other people we’d visit and mainly me (I recently determined that). I’m taking a risk and putting myself out there. Can I do it? Will I succeed? I don’t know the answer to that yet but I can answer this question already – “Will I try?” YEP, I will!

Wow, I got pretty sappy/corny there at the end – sorry folks! I hope if nothing else you’ll consider trying something too, could be fun! Who knows? My next post will be about our first official lesson. Until then, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!!!!!!  Advice: eat or drink something tinted green – it’s just more fun that way (except for green ketchup, that’s just gross and wrong!)!