Many, many, years ago an Irish woman called to ask me to come train a Coon hound she had rescued. She said she didn’t know if her husband would be there because “he’s in a band”. I thought “How lovely, her husband is in a Irish band”.
I got to her house and one of the problems she was having, besides the fact she had rescued a Coon hound and they are VERY high energy, rowdy dogs, was that her 2 young kids had never even been around a low energy, calm dog, and they were terrified.
Little did she know she had picked the perfect dog trainer as I have a degree in child development. They had a mixed family with the 2 younger kids and at least one older, high school or college kid.
At one point working with the dog a guy came in the back dog, the dog jumped on him and the guy petted the dog. I thought it was another of the older kids, shoved him out the door and told him to come in again and what to do. He complied and then went off to another part of the house.
One thing I loved about this woman Fiona was that when I asked her how open she would be to re-homing the dog she said “About as open as I would be to re-homing one of my kids”. Good answer!
The problem was that her little kids were very little and very scared and her “puppy” was pretty darn big and rowdy. It’s easy to think a kids fears are foolish but their fears are their fears. (I also happen to think that being afraid of dogs is a reasonable fear.)
I asked the kids what might make them like the dog and one answered with quivering lips “If he just slept all the time”. Well, that I can work with.
I suggested that Fiona send the dog to doggie day care every day. I also suggested she invite some kids over who are used to rowdy dogs so her kids could see them interact with their dog. Also, for her to take the kids to friends houses who had older, calmer dogs, just to get used to dogs,
I went home emptied my pockets, putting the check from her on the counter with my other checks. Later that week I was dusting a clients house (I work a lot of jobs) and I picked up a pile of CD’s to straighten and dust under.
The CD at the top of the pile had a picture of the “kid” I had shoved out the door at Fiona’s house. It was John Prine! Sure enough, I went home and looked at that check on the counter and it was from Fiona Prine.
I called her a few weeks later to check in and she said I had just caught them at dinner. I apologized and she said, no, it was lovely, the dog was asleep under the table and the kids were growing comfortable around him now that the dog was getting his ya-ya’s out at doggie day care.
One of the many times I’ve had a brush with greatness and didn’t even know it.
