Sassie was our second Sheltie. Everything our first Sheltie was Sassie
was not. She was a scared little dog who had clearly been abused and had
been starved nearly to death. When she was rescued she was just a shade under
16" and weighed in at 9 pounds. Her first vet exam found her to be
full of parasites, suffering from malnutrition, and much too weak to be
spayed. 6 months later when we took her in, she weighed 14 pounds.
This was all thanks to a breeder who had taken the time to follow up on the
progress of the puppy she sold. After discovering the terrible conditions,
it took her nearly 3 months and a great deal of persistence to buy her puppy
back.
 
She was extremely nervous. Quick movements around her caused submissive
urination. She was very apprehensive of other dogs and unfortunately of our
cat.
She tended to slink around the house and quick movements by either our other
sheltie or our cat caused her to lunge and attack. The cat was too quick for her
and Sable had far too much hair to be badly bothered but Janet was really
afraid we would have to give up on her. Sable was so easy to deal with and this
was a challenge that we had not really anticipated. Sassie's given name when we got
her was Lassie. Not wanting to deal with the "Little Lassie"
syndrome, we had changed the name to
Sassie. We have often wondered if that might not have been a
mistake as she has definitely become a "sassy girl" In any
case 10 weeks of obedience lessons proved to be useful and got Janet hooked on competitive obedience. She was actually doing quite well despite the fact
that we were using the jerk and pull training. After more trials than we care to
try to remember Sassie actually got her CD's in both Canada and the US. In
the process she had probably committed every error that could have been
imagined. She was never really happy in the obedience ring but it seemed
like a necessary thing as she was making wonderful progress in and around the
house. Housebreaking had been successful and the submissive urination had
just about completely disappeared. She had made peace with the cat and was
much more tolerant of Sable. Best of all she was totally enraptured with people.
Obedience was in her mind a thing she put up with but never really enjoyed
The real breakthrough came when we discovered agility. It was clearly
her thing. She is a natural jumper. In probably thousands of jumps in practice
and trials, I have only seen her knock a bar 3 times. Once on slippery
footing and twice on tight turns on triple jumps. Despite all
of her other fears, she raced across a dogwalk the first time she was on
one. Best of all she really seem to enjoy what she was doing. Her
enjoyment did not preclude her creativity in finding ways not to qualify but she was always happy
out there.
 
The next discovery that was a major change in her life was the clicker and
our move to completely positive training. She is a very soft dog and any
criticism sends her into a tizzy. If she could get over her abiding desire
to talk to Janet on the course and to develop her own courses she would be a
force to be reckoned with. At nearly 10 years of age, I suspect that will
not happen. When she is not using the dogwalk to spy on the neighbors, she might
be pretending she is a beagle searching out the elusive rabbit that visits us
frequently. She still acts like a
puppy at times and you never know when she might simply take off in a mad dash to get to some destination that no one knows about except her.
All in all she is our princess and is a true joy to have around. In
keeping with her royal status she has adopted the role of family
enforcer. Our three boys live in total fear of those moments when
she decides that one of them is acting inappropriately. That is
probably a good thing because it keeps them from wondering who is the top dog.
Sassie just turned 13 this past Sept 2005. She has a CD in obedience and
Excellent titles in Agility standard and JWW. For the past couple of years
we have been running her in Preferred Agility for one run a day-either Standard
or JWW because she really enjoyed the runs; however recently she has been having
trouble with the A-Frame and hesitating a bit in front of jumps so we felt it
was time to retire her from agility. She is now the social butterfly at
the agility trials and of course the ruler of the motor home. Fortunately Rally
obedience has come along and she truly seems to enjoy that so that will be her
new activity. In her first Rally outing she got her first two novice legs
both with good scores and with a second place finish for one of her legs.
We strongly believe that it is as important for a dog as for a human to remain
physically and mentally active for as long as possible.
 At 13 she is
still ready to romp and play
Every time I
look at her now, I feel a real sense of self worth because she has had a really
good life after a horrendous start. There really is nothing quite like a
rescue dog. Everybody should try it. |