Mini Rant About Expectations

[Leslie and Halas]

This happened last night at flyball, but I was just reminded of it reading Linda's discussion about Finn and one of Karen's responses to that discussion.  

We had a guest-dog at flyball last night.  A man brought in a border collie-mix that he's been fostering for 3 or 4 months.  We are in central Illinois, and a woman on the east coast is interested in adopting the dog, BUT ONLY IF SHE KNOWS IT WILL BE A GOOD FLYBALL DOG!!!!  If not, then she's not interested.  

The people that run our flyball team reluctantly agreed to let the dog come to our practice and give the woman their opinions.  We don't mind having guest dogs at flyball at all.  In fact, we love that.  But they weren't too crazy about trying to evaluate the dog.  The lady had a list of about 20 things that she wanted to know whether or not the dog could do.  Never mind that it takes a really long time to learn flyball.  It took Halas a year to be able to do a full run, and it was many months after that before he was ready to run in a tournament.  Whether a dog will be good at flyball can't be determined in one practice.  In one practice, you can only determine if the dog has some potential, catches on to the couple of things you show him, and seems to enjoy himself.  This lady wanted to know if the dog could already do certain tasks that take months to learn.  So here comes this dog, in a building she's never been to before, with a man that she's only known a few months, with about 5 or 6 other strange people and their dogs, and she's being asked to do some things that she's never done before.  I turned to some of my teammates, and I said, "The doodle rescue group that I know would never adopt a dog to this woman, just based on the fact that she wanted to put this condition on it."  

In my opinion, even if this dog was a flyball natural, I wouldn't let her adopt it, just because she has these expectations.  What happens if she gets the dog home and it doesn't meet her expectations?

The dog, Mia, really did a great job.  The people and other dogs didn't bother her a bit.  She did great on her recalls, didn't mind the noise the box makes, and was grabbing a tennis ball off the ground and bringing it back to her handler after only a couple of reps.  She seemed to enjoy watching the other dogs run. She even ended the night by going over a jump.  All things considered, that's a really great first flyball practice, and she does show a lot of potential.  But this lady had way more advanced things on her list that she wondered if the dog could do.  It's like she's hoping someone trained a dog for flyball, and then gave the dog up.

The whole idea of getting a dog specifically for it's flyball potential isn't really something our team is into anyway, so that's another part of the reason they were a little reluctant to try to evaluate her.  Our dogs are all family dogs first, flyball dogs somewhere down the list after that.  We all have the dogs we want, and if they are good at flyball, great.  If not, no big deal.  There are plenty of other dog activities to enjoy.  We see other flyball teams that selected their dogs specifically so they would be good flyball dogs.  There are even breeders mixing certain breeds in order to try to get the perfect flyball dog (a team of 4 Border collie-staffordshire terrier mixes just set the world record in UFLI flyball). But that's just not the way our team thinks.

Anyway, Mia may join us a few more times.  It was fun having her there, and she seemed to enjoy herself.  Overall, I think it will be a good experience for her.  And to whatever family does adopt her, maybe the foster can say that she seemed to enjoy flyball.  I just hope that this woman that requires her to be a good flyball dog isn't the woman that gets her.  Mia is a sweet girl, and she doesn't deserve to go to her new home with those kind of expectations placed on her.

[Lorraine Bromley]

My niece came over last night with my Husbands Brother and wife. They brought their 11 year old golden retriever. We have Neely the 2 yr old doodle and the 6 month old great dane. My neice has a year or so old golden that she said couldn't come as it has too much energy and is too much. She said that she should have brought him after she seen that our set up with the yard and the other playful dogs. But she fell in love with the big awkward dane and said that she wanted to take her home and actually said that they shouldn't have gotten a golden retriever as it is too energenic for thier lifestyle. Her mom said yes you shouldn't have but you thought that you were getting a puppy golden that acted like a ten year old dog right away! She agreed that is what she thought the golden would act like right from the start. Not prepared for a puppy at all.

[Donna K & Quincy]

I hope Mia finds a good home with someone who loves her for what she is, not what she can do.