Love is What Makes Me - Subaru
My darling Subie. Always ready to play. She has always had very high toy drive and such an imagination! She comes up with her own little games with dog toys, strange foods and a favorite - bottle caps. Subaru is my little workaholic for toys and play. She is amazing at disc and I wish we had competitions or a club near us because I know she would do great. She catches frisbees with great precision, rarely missing even one of my worst throws. Afterwards she loves to cool off by laying down in some water like a little stockdog in the stock tank. She loves an empty jug to chase and carry around the yard, growling and putting on a show. Always intense! Ready to go, work, full of drive, enthusiasm and energy. She never quits. Her displacement is expressed by going harder. As a pup, she would begin to bite so hard, sometimes drawing blood, so that was my cue to cut her off before she reached that level. She's been on livestock several times and she is very keen and showed good signs. She's a heelwork extraordinaire. She's very sensitive and soft, but has her tough and resilient moments. She defaults to training in a serious way and almost never needs any reminding. She's a wonderful puppy nanny. She is tender, gentle and sweet, giving them endless patience. I have never seen her become overwhelmed or impatient with a puppy. She has the best of times playing with them, kissing them, laying on her back to let them maul her. She really has a knack for it and it's one of my favorite things about her. Now while all of this sounds so good and it is, she also has some negative traits which have been challenging. Subaru is a reactive dog. While this is not at all uncommon for the breed, Subaru's reactivity presented aggressively. She used to be very forward when seeing dogs although through my training, we have overcome this 99%. She has also tested the pack hierarchy here at home more than once. I do not run a "dog park" at my home and things are always structured and well supervised, not leaving much room for error, but she even most recently fought Lapis, which is unheard of. Lapis is an extremely passive dog who has never been in an altercation otherwise and tried hard to get out of the one she and Subaru had, but Subaru persisted after her even as she tried to escape. Subaru lacks an off switch. She is very on the go and hasn't been the type to settle naturally. She's learned an off switch through training. She is better when she's out of the crate but crate time is a fact of life here because I don't have just my dogs. I have client dogs, I have people coming for lessons, I have lessons to leave to attend and that all requires my personal dogs to have a fair amount of crate time. Subaru doesn't thrive on this. She destroys her coat by chewing her fur off her whole body in excess. I know she's not in a good state of mind when she's doing that. She is very sensitive to corrections, even if they are not directed at her. This makes it challenging for her to be out when any clients or young dogs are also out. As an example, we'll be doing placework with dogs who are newer to the concept and they break and are sent back. While this is not a dramatic event, no yelling, no harshness, Subaru takes it hard and thinks that any dog being corrected must mean she is at fault. She gets a wide eyed worried look on her face, ears pinned back, head low and struggles to recover. All of these things have been my experience with Subaru in my situation. Over the summer, she went and stayed with my best friend while we had their dog here for training and many of these issues were not present when Subaru could have endless 1 on 1 in a far less busy environment. Due to these things and some personal reasons with her breeder, I have decided Subaru will not be a part of my breeding program. I have had a feeling for a long time that this would be the case but I try to wait and let dogs mature before making any serious calls because adolescence looks bad on MOST dogs. And she could still very well grow into a perfect dog at a later age but I still wouldn't feel right about producing puppies from her. I wouldn't want to put other dog owners into the shoes I've been in with Subaru; the confusion, frustration, helplessness, stress. I have worried myself to death about her issues, am I doing enough, what can I do better, and that's not a comfortable place to be. While this has been one of the hardest choices I've had to make in a long time, I want Subaru to have the best life she can. I want her to be her happiest self. I know she has not suffered with me but she isn't thriving to the fullest extent. We have found that she can be happier with someone who has more time to dedicate to her, with fewer dogs, more access to sports. Although my heart says I should just keep her, I know that is selfish and I should not hold her back. It breaks my heart and I've cried several times writing this and far more before I even had the words. Subaru is going to be living with our dear friends and clients, Ashley and Jeff. They own another dog who came to us for a board and train and during the pick up days, they fell so in love with Subaru that we approached the topic, discussed it and decided to give it a try. They wanted a dog to do herding, agility, disc, dock diving, and Subaru deserves to get to do those things and enjoy being the center of attention. We have entered this tentatively because there's always a chance it won't work out and maybe Holly won't accept Subaru or maybe Subie won't adjust to the household. But Subaru spent the summer with them and during that time, her fur has grown back 90%. She's been going everywhere with Ash. She even started unexpectedly alerting to some medical things for Ash, which was not the goal but with the training I have put into her she's fallen into the role of a service dog with grace. Her brilliance and all of the work I have put into her is really shining in their hands and Subaru is happy. I would not have let her go to just anyone and I never planned to let her go at all. She's easily one of my most highly trained dogs that I've put so much into. But this situation has been so perfectly aligned and I'll still get to see Sube often, living her best life. As with any dog who comes from me, she always has a home here and endless support, even though she wasn't a dog I brought into the world. She was MY dog. And in some ways, that's even more special.
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AuthorThe human behind the dogs. Archives
October 2024
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