George Bailey
05-28-2009, 03:07 PM
Around 1980, BSL was becoming what it is today, pit bull attacks were in the news all the time, and it was time for us to get a new dog. We selected a piebald patch-faced male who became my husband's dog, and joined an obedience club. Back then, in Houston, and most big cities, you had a choice of conformation, obedience or tracking, and there were many AKC shows compared to almost no UKC shows. UKC was just getting their obedience program started. It was still possible to get an ILP on an intact dog, so we did so.
Sixteen weeks after joining his first obedience class, Jimmy and Maugrim earned their first Novice leg. Back then the method of the day was primarily jerk and praise, it was crude, but it worked. People used to make fun of Jimmy because they always said they could hear them coming;you could hear the zing of the choke chain, and they joked that his collar rings were oblong shaped.
Maugie was a tough little dog, one of the ones who was always in your face, always into everything, so the method suited him well. By the time they were done, he was the one dog in my house who would obey any command from anybody, all the time. I don't remember that they ever failed in the obedience ring. In his lifetime, we had to replace the door of his heavy duty crate three times as he would pull the bars off.
He finished his AKC and UKC novice titles and provided us many hilarious moments while he earned two open titles, a TT, and an HIC on sheep. We have a video of the HIC, it was an instinct test and was done on a long line with Barbados sheep, which look like goats and are tough, onery little animals. They put a medium sized prong on Maug, and he was working well, at a consistent distance of about ten foot, showing great eye and gathering, pushing any renegades back into the flock. Two lambs broke away and the prong fell off. I was outside wondering if there would be enough left of the lambs to cook as for sure we were going to have to pay for them. Jimmy hollered down, Maug went down like he'd been drop kicked, everybody started cheering, and the sheep lived to baa another day. When he passed his TT, the AKC people were critical, because he really came on to the threatening stranger, he was dead serious in his intent, scoring a 10 on that portion of the test.
We tried a little weight pull and a little conformation, but it just wasn't our cup of tea. We played with scent hurdle racing (the precursor to flyball), participated in an impromptu British style trial, did many public demos for our obedience club, and started a UKC club.
We helped build the first agility course in the state of Texas and had an all pit bull team at the first demonstration of agility at a big AKC show. Our team was The First Airborne, I still have the tee shirts, our logo was Maug jumping the moon. We were competitive with all the other non pit bull teams and might have won except for the fact that my bitch picked up one of the number markers and refused to release it.
Life got in the way, we had two kids, Jimmy went back to school and left dog training to me. I tried to work Maugrim after that, but one day, while releasing him off the down on a drop on recall, he flew through the air from about twelve feet and almost broke my jaw. I just wasn't manly enough for him, so was he retired;
U-CDX PR Maugrim Mugwump CDX TT HIC
Julie K
Sixteen weeks after joining his first obedience class, Jimmy and Maugrim earned their first Novice leg. Back then the method of the day was primarily jerk and praise, it was crude, but it worked. People used to make fun of Jimmy because they always said they could hear them coming;you could hear the zing of the choke chain, and they joked that his collar rings were oblong shaped.
Maugie was a tough little dog, one of the ones who was always in your face, always into everything, so the method suited him well. By the time they were done, he was the one dog in my house who would obey any command from anybody, all the time. I don't remember that they ever failed in the obedience ring. In his lifetime, we had to replace the door of his heavy duty crate three times as he would pull the bars off.
He finished his AKC and UKC novice titles and provided us many hilarious moments while he earned two open titles, a TT, and an HIC on sheep. We have a video of the HIC, it was an instinct test and was done on a long line with Barbados sheep, which look like goats and are tough, onery little animals. They put a medium sized prong on Maug, and he was working well, at a consistent distance of about ten foot, showing great eye and gathering, pushing any renegades back into the flock. Two lambs broke away and the prong fell off. I was outside wondering if there would be enough left of the lambs to cook as for sure we were going to have to pay for them. Jimmy hollered down, Maug went down like he'd been drop kicked, everybody started cheering, and the sheep lived to baa another day. When he passed his TT, the AKC people were critical, because he really came on to the threatening stranger, he was dead serious in his intent, scoring a 10 on that portion of the test.
We tried a little weight pull and a little conformation, but it just wasn't our cup of tea. We played with scent hurdle racing (the precursor to flyball), participated in an impromptu British style trial, did many public demos for our obedience club, and started a UKC club.
We helped build the first agility course in the state of Texas and had an all pit bull team at the first demonstration of agility at a big AKC show. Our team was The First Airborne, I still have the tee shirts, our logo was Maug jumping the moon. We were competitive with all the other non pit bull teams and might have won except for the fact that my bitch picked up one of the number markers and refused to release it.
Life got in the way, we had two kids, Jimmy went back to school and left dog training to me. I tried to work Maugrim after that, but one day, while releasing him off the down on a drop on recall, he flew through the air from about twelve feet and almost broke my jaw. I just wasn't manly enough for him, so was he retired;
U-CDX PR Maugrim Mugwump CDX TT HIC
Julie K