This is Tina. She was my very first dog, and to her I owe everything.
She was the reason I got "into" dogs.
She taught me to persevere, to never give up.
Tina was a decent obedience dog, a mediocre agility dog, but was my best friend.
And when you're a lonely school age kid those are pretty rare.
She was a pretty awesome dog, and I will never forget her.
We got her as a family pet, to replace my guinea pig Lucky (whom I was VERY attached to. lol) She was a horribly behaved- jumped on the kitchen table once while we played a board game, ran away, chewed our toys, and never listened. I took her to Obedience classes through a school program and it changed my life.
She was a tough dog- and never gave an inch. She was stubborn, very independent and had dog aggression issues. She was trained through to Open/Utility but was a mixed breed so couldn't compete. We kicked butt in fun-matches though! She was my first agility dog too- although never made it out of advanced. We kinda fumbled around together. :) We even played flyball although she never did learn to stay in her own lane.
But she ignited that spark, that desire to learn about dogs and how to relate to them. Without that I am not sure where I would be at this point in my life. I owe her a lot and thought a blog post was in order.
So, who was your beginning? That first dog that triggered your love (and obsession) of all things dog. Blog about it and post in the comments. I will add your blog to the post so others can check it out.
4 comments:
When I was a kid, we had all sorts of smaller animals. Hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, guinea pigs, cats...but my mum was holding out on the the dog. When I was 12, my dad brought a cairn terrier cross pup home one day, from someone he was working for, and I was hooked:). My next dog was an Irish Setter, my 'dream' dog, and she was the dog I had when we got married. Then we inherited my dad's yellow lab after he passed away. Next was a black lab that we adopted, and she was my first agility dog. It didn't last long, she was sound sensitive, and I didn't seem to hit it off with anyone in the club I joined. There were quite a few years in there with no agility. When we got Calli, I started again, and there's been no looking back:) Here's a link to a post about Coco, our first dog http://wyndsonfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/nostalgia.html
Tina sounds very special.. :) and she's oh so cute ... I'm you had her in your life - think of all the dogs who have benefitted from your first dog
aaahhhh, I remember Tina, she was a great dog Amanda!!!
Tina WAS a nice mellow girl. We could toss her in the back of my vehicle with any of my dogs and they always got along and kept their own space (that was before we crated the dogs in vehicles)...and Baylee, my first registered dog (Golden Retriever) didn't get along with just "anybody" but Tina and pretty much all of Amanda's dogs have gotten along with my dogs.
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