I have been approached almost every single day last week by people telling me that what I am doing is horrible and abusive and all that crap. Normally I can brush it off and I don't care that much, but this week was just one after another. I am sick of it! They tell me that it is awful that I would force my dogs to work and that my dogs looks so sad. I feel like I have been getting stomped deeper and deeper into the ground every day.
On Monday it was this lady in a fast food restaurant. I corrected Sherman for going after a French fry on the ground. This lady just freaked out and started yelling at me. (I barely corrected him; it could hardly be categorized as a correction. He can be quite sensitive so he only needs a gentle reminder) But the lady railed on me about how it is just a little piece of fry and it isn't going to hurt him. I tried to explain to her about it being distracting and how he needs to focus on his job and not the food on the floor. The lady just would not listen! I finally just excused myself and left the restaurant. (In a fairly bad mood)
Then on Wednesday it was this guy who approached me and told me how sad Sherman looked. (completely disregarding Sherms tail wagging a mile a minute, so he has a droopy face, so what?!) He told me that it “disgusted” him how people forced dogs into a job, when dogs really want to spend their days being spoiled rotten and sleeping on the couches, and beds. (Sorry but my dog likes being with me, he could not be happy spending his day in the backyard by himself or left alone in the house for hours until I got home from work or school, and my dogs are spoiled and loved unconditionally) I tried to tell him that no dogs are “forced” to work and that if they don’t enjoy their job or don’t want to be guides they won’t be. That they can find happy, loving homes as pets. (Glennie is a perfect example. She was the third pup I raised and she HATED being a guide dogs puppy. She didn’t like going out in public and so GDB decided to have her career changed when she was six months old.) He obviously would not listen to me. I wanted to ask where his dog (if he even had one) was at that moment.
Thursday it was another “I can’t believe you force these dogs to work!” people and then on Friday someone sent this article to a yahoo group that I am on, and frankly, I was offended. This lady really needed to do more research before posting such a insulting article.
Saturday was the one day I was looking forward to. Our club was having a big outing in Salt Lake where we rode Trax and walked around this amazing Library with glass elevators (they freaked me out a bit) and glass walkways and stairs. It was really good for the dogs. After we get into the library we were given about fifteen minutes to walk around and let our dogs experience everything. I took Sherm on the elevators and down the stairs, let his sit by a railing on the third floor so we could look down. He did really well! I was done so I went down where there was a circle of raisers who were chatting while the rest finished walking around. This guy came up behind me and here is our conversation: (I am still mad that he singled me out especially because of all the other people this week who took thier frustrations out on me, and there was a good seven or eight other raisers he could have talked to)
Guy: How much would you sell your dog for?
Me: He is not for sale.
Guy: Do you know how much he is worth?
Me: I dunno, he is not for sale. He is in training to be a guide dog for the blind.
Guy: You don’t know anything about these dogs! I know everything about these dogs. These dogs want to hunt and catch birds.
Me: Well, these dogs are bred to be guide dogs. So they like just hanging out and being with their handler.
Guy: No you don’t know anything! They want to hunt and run and have birds in their mouths. (all this while Sherman is absolutely comatose on the floor)
(This is where another raiser jumped in, THANK GOODNESS!!)
Raiser: Thank you, bye!
Guy: (still spouting off something about knowing everything there is to know about dogs and how I knew nothing)
Me: Thank you, bye!
And the guy finally walked away. Still muttering things about dogs wanting to hunt.
I am normally a very positive person and it takes a lot to get me down. But even for me it is hard to recover from all that coming down on me at once. Oh, and then to top it all off. . . I drove another raiser up to Salt Lake and afterward I dropped her off at her house. I went to get back in the car, loaded Sherman and just as I was closing the door Sherman moved and his tail came out the door. I was already in the process of slamming the door closed, so I tried to stop the door so it would not squish his tail and in the process decapitated my thumb. (At least I managed to save my boys tail) My nail is all gross and black and blue and I should probably get a few stitches to put it back together, but since I am absolutely terrified of needles I am hoping that it will heal okay without them. :[
Thanks for listening to me rant. I thought that you all would understand where I am coming from in my frustrations with people telling me how horrible I am for raising guide dogs. It is so nice to have other raiser friends who experience all this too. I am so glad that it is a new week and hopefully this week goes better than last. :)
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