I was introduced to Nin sometime during the first week of Team Training, I cannot remember exactly which day. I do remember one of the trainers brought her over to me and handed me her leash. Nin was fairly easy to pick out in class, she was mostly black Labrador with a drop of Golden Retriever in her, a small female. She bounced when she walked and she had this ripple of skin on her nose. Instantly, I did not understand her. First, she’s a girl, my two other dogs had been males, bigger dogs, and she had more of the Lab face. Steeler and Ivan had more pronounced Golden features and that bounce – I did not trust the bounce. But time and time again, we were paired together. She responded ok, no better or worse than any of the other dogs, I watched her carefully because we kept getting paired together. I saw my destiny unfolding before me.
The first night that the trainers told us we could take our dogs back to the dorm they handed us each a leash and Nin came bouncing over but as soon as I grabbed her leash her head sunk down as if to say, “No, not her!” To be honest, I probably was thinking the same thing. I took her back to the dorm and she went right into her crate, she was not really interested in the toys or sniffing anything just into the crate and slept. “Hummm,” I said.
The next day she was still bouncy but not too excited, she clearly did not want to poop for me, despite my and trainers best efforts. She was getting a bit more stubborn on the commands and buried her head in my lap a lot. I kept looking at that ripple on her nose, “my dog is defective,” I thought.
That night, I knew we needed to bond. I called her up on the bed and that was it. She jumped on the bed and planted herself. She made it clear she was not going to move, no matter what. She had received the golden ticket, the world could come to an end -the dog had made it on the bed. The fact that she was half on me did not matter-she had made it to the bed. You could see the happiness in her face, I started to pet her and her beautiful and unique ripple. Contentment went through her body. I was not sure if I would ever get her off the bed again. We fell asleep there together.
The next day we worked in class on the “tug” command. This is the command where the dog tugs on a rope or strap to pull something open, to pull a sweater off, etc… If I thought the bed was the golden ticket for this dog, we were now going to meet her utopia. This 62lbs dog could tug open the heaviest of doors and pull a laundry basket full of weights, all with her head held up and her tail wagging. I was shocked. She wanted to tug everything, tug for everyone and would hold the door so me and my Mom could go through. I was so excited, we worked with her on taking off my jacket and to this day she “tugs” off my jacket and anyone else's she can find around. She loves to tug.
That was the first day I got a glimpse of Nin’s personality. It appears in team training we are not the only ones tired, frustrated, and confused but our little furry friends are too. The thing that you don’t know (and no one tells you) is that the personality of the dog really does not come out until you have been home for about a month. Each day they show you a little more of themselves but it takes awhile for them to get the feel for you and trust you and boy was I in for a surprise as this little girl’s personality started to make its debut.
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