The Next Step

We lived next door to a family who was into showing German Shepherds. In those days, breed was about all there was, at least as far as we knew.

The neighbors bought a nice bitch and bred her, producing a good litter of pups, one of which was a long coat.

My youngest daughter tried to bring this pup home in a shopping bag, so I bought, as an adult, my first pure bred dog for $50.

We named her Mary's Muffin and that she was.

She had huge feet so we realized she was going to be big. Really big. I knew a big dog who was out of control would not work, so I bought a book, the only one available in the Walden's book store.

I read it and wondered about trainers in particular and this one in specific. I was not about to do those things to my dog. However, there were a few things that made sense, one being consistency and the other the need to reward the dog where you wanted it to be.

So, stupid and inexperienced with training, I trained Muffin, who proved to me, once again, that dogs are more intelligent then humans. In 6 weeks she was good off lead. I could take her anywhere and she would stay with me.

And she grew to stand 6' tall on her back feet. Well over 24" at the withers.

Muffin had one hang up. Thunder and fire works.

In those days we didn't have air conditioning in our house so we build a 6' run for the dogs, with an insulated dog house. The dogs slept there on hot nights.

One night a storm moved in and we awoke to someone beating on our back door! It was Muffin. She had climbed the 6' fence and was trying to get in the back door by standing on her back feet and banging on the window with her paw. Or, perhaps, she was trying to wake us up!

Either way, the dogs stayed in at night after that.

During this time DH was working nights and often had to leave at 2 am. One winter morning I went back to bed after he left. Muffin was not allowed on the bed as she would lay against us and we would cook, even in the dead of winter.

That morning she managed to sneak up on the bed as I found out when she suddenly sprang into the window barking like a mad dog. I heard the sound of someone running.

When it became light, I went out and found foot prints under the bedroom window and tracks running away. She had sensed this person and ran them off.

This happened again the next summer, but this time she was outside and hit the fence. I have no doubt that the person trying to see into our bedroom was terrified.

We did report this and were told that the police were aware that someone was looking into windows. After this last occurrence, the person was never reported again....Wonder if Muffin had anything to do with that?