Honestly Folks, I can't make up stuff like this.
About a year ago I had the pleasure of meeting a client who I will call "Horace".
About a week prior a frantic email came in and stated a lady I will call "Maddie" had recently bought, a few Border collies.
She had scoured the states and found beautiful Border Collies.
She was basking in the love of them when she realized the deal on the ranch she was trying to purchase as their home fell through!
She still wasn't giving up she was still looking for her dream ranch, but she was really upset.
She had envisioned a huge property where her beauties could run and play.
The best of intentions was hers (however unrealistic) but now she was at a unpredicted impasse.
Maddie was living in a two bedroom condo with her love Horace, it had the smallest of postage stamps as a yard.
I thought she meant three or tops four pups when she said a few so when she told me she had paid top dollar for seventeen Border collie pups and two pregnant females, I nearly fell off my chair!
"Oh you say seventeen?". I said "Interesting". "How can I help you?" She said that she wanted them all trained." Oh", I said, "I can only take in 2 right now".
I only take in tops, four dogs at any given time anyway and half the time only three.
She was really disappointed and kept trying to make me take in at least nine!
But I couldn't, so I suggested she bring in two and then we would see how that goes and then two more.
I knew of course that I could train them and I wanted to train them but my concern was they would regress under the conditions at her home.
So I told her when they got home they would become part of the pack of seventeen plus and being she had no room to practice what they were being trained to do, she might be wasting her money.
I knew this might stop her from hiring me and she may have sent them all to a huge kennel type of training facility that would take them all with no questions asked, but I have to be honest so I told her again " only two".
Because of the huge pack conditions in her small condo, if they were going to regress they would still regress and much faster if she sent them to a huge facility as I always continue to back up my training when each dog goes home but this is not so with less personal trainers and facilities.
I must say to my reader that there are lots of really honest and reputable gentle trainers out there but make sure to ask the right questions about their philosophies on dog training and their experiences before you hire anyone.
Maddie said she wanted her pups to have my training, and so it was we made an appointment for her to drop of the first two pups.
About a week later the doorbell rang and they were here, two very beautiful Border Collies wearing diapers, a brother and a sister and Horace, Maddie's boyfriend, a very nice man in his late forties.
He was looking a bit stressed out, I'd say.
I wrote up our agreement and Horace left.
I took the diapers off both pups and went outside with them, trying to get them to relax and to get to know me better.
I really do not like when people put diapers on young and healthy dogs as I think it hinders their natural sense of cleanliness. they don't learn that the action of going pee pee or poop has a result, such as a wet spot or a feces there on the ground where they did it. They don't learn to associate it all together.
I started the training and I must say it was going well but there were some hiccups as these pups were not use to outside or most important they were not use to being without their huge pack.
They were very frightened at first but I understood their mind set and took it from there getting them use to all types of stimulation a little at a time trying to build their confidence and not scare them at all.
When after 3 weeks Horace came to pick them up and bring the next two they had had lots of training and behavior modification but I told Horace he did need to practice.
He was overwhelmed and told me he did not know why Maddie bought all these pups.
He said " Maddie's daughter can't visit us anymore and neither can anyone else, because all the dogs bark at once as they become very defensive trying to protect each other and us".
I kept up training their dogs and the pregnant dogs had their pups but for poor Maddie and Horace, I don't think life will ever be the same!
The last thing Horace told me was that they appreciated all my help but he and Maddie can't go out together anymore or invite company as their dogs don't like being left "alone".
Can I do some separation anxiety behavior modification next, but this time at their house with all the dogs at once?
That sounded like a oxymoron so I said "you will be wasting your money for sure on that one, there are too many"!
No, I didn't do it, it wouldn't have worked! All it would take is one dog, one in the 29 pack starting them all up for it to snowball into a choir of barking!
I did tell them though that if they ever sold any I would help the new owners for free with the training so they will get the full benefit of all my work.
My heart will always go out to, two nice folks and 29 Border Collies in a 2 bedroom condo!
I do hope they finally got their ranch!
