I won't go into a lot of detail here...but in my description I shared how I acquired Maisie. This going to be - very briefly - how we started to became a team. (All the details would make this WAY too long!)
As I mentioned, she was all but feral, and she was very VERY strong from spending her whole life pulling against the short chain. Given my physical lack of strength and skeletal issues I almost didn't take her. But I did and invested in the strongest non-pulling harness I could find. She didn't connect with me at all (to be expected, I guess) much less care what I was saying to her, and to walk her I stayed along a line of trees. As soon as she took a step I'd move to the other side so the tree would take the force...at one point she did jerk MrTom - stronger than me - out the door and down the steps to land on his face. There were no house manners, we had lots of chewed-up furniture and carpeting in the motorhome in which we were living at the time, and would find her on the dashboard or on tables at times. I had always crate-trained my former rescues - no space for a crate in the motorhome though so I had to wing it.
The rest, for this post, is simply this: A strong, feral dog, and a physically fragile old lady determined to make us a team. I have been a dog person my whole life, and trained my own dogs as well as for others; I have started puppies for new owners so they could go home house trained and knowing a few basic commands. I have my own ways. And I was so confident in my own methods that I was certain of a positive outcome. OH - and did I mention that I'd never had, nor trained, a service dog before?
That's how Maisie and I got our start in our life together.
(The photo shows her first picture at the rescue, her coming home day with us 6 weeks later, and a few shots of the first couple of weeks she was home with us - aka Living In A Motorhome With A Semi-Feral Dog!)
)
As I mentioned, she was all but feral, and she was very VERY strong from spending her whole life pulling against the short chain. Given my physical lack of strength and skeletal issues I almost didn't take her. But I did and invested in the strongest non-pulling harness I could find. She didn't connect with me at all (to be expected, I guess) much less care what I was saying to her, and to walk her I stayed along a line of trees. As soon as she took a step I'd move to the other side so the tree would take the force...at one point she did jerk MrTom - stronger than me - out the door and down the steps to land on his face. There were no house manners, we had lots of chewed-up furniture and carpeting in the motorhome in which we were living at the time, and would find her on the dashboard or on tables at times. I had always crate-trained my former rescues - no space for a crate in the motorhome though so I had to wing it.
The rest, for this post, is simply this: A strong, feral dog, and a physically fragile old lady determined to make us a team. I have been a dog person my whole life, and trained my own dogs as well as for others; I have started puppies for new owners so they could go home house trained and knowing a few basic commands. I have my own ways. And I was so confident in my own methods that I was certain of a positive outcome. OH - and did I mention that I'd never had, nor trained, a service dog before?
That's how Maisie and I got our start in our life together.
(The photo shows her first picture at the rescue, her coming home day with us 6 weeks later, and a few shots of the first couple of weeks she was home with us - aka Living In A Motorhome With A Semi-Feral Dog!)
- Next page: The Early Story, part II
