DAVE'S LEGACY A Great Australian Blue Heeler Cattle Dog Story

by Lou-ann Atkinson
(Lismore, N.S.W., Australia)

DAVE'S STORY

It's my pleasure to introduce my beautiful Australian Blue Cattle Dog - Dynamic Dave, sometimes also known as Manic Dave, for reasons I'll explain later. Dave was the inspiration for all that you'll see at www.dog-harness-solutions.com, CLICK HERE TO Learn More.

Dave has now sadly passed away and we miss him terribly but, during his lifetime he taught us so much and it is these lessons we hope to share with you.

We pray, for Dave's sake, that these lessons can be used to help dogs and their owners to have more rewarding and loving relationships.

One of the most important lessons I learned was; to work with the dog personality and the dog characteristics presented to me and not ignore them or even worse, as I did in the beginning, work against them. Also, dog temperament needs to be understood as it can help the dog handler to effectively get their messages understood in the easiest and fastest way.

PLEASE ENJOY DAVE'S STORY...

DOG PERSONALITY is definitely personified in the Aussie Blue Heeler, being a working dog with extremely strong inbred instincts, Dave was a living nightmare to take out walking on a leash. He was as strong as the cattle he was bred to work and to him, walking on a leash was just not on, he didn't get it and probably more to the point he didn't like it.

As I'm a rather small framed person and weighing in at not much more than Dave himself my battles with him on the leash often ended in a great upset, with Dave winning.

These battles always involved him choking himself on a collar and this caused me great distress, I knew he was hurting but his instincts were greater than his pain. As you can imagine, I started dreading walk time however, at that stage in our lives we lived in a suburban area and our backyard was not adequate for Dave, a working dog, to get the exercise he needed.

I should mention here that we already had Nugget, another Australian Blue Cattle Dog. Having not had any problems providing for his needs, such as; daily walking, we felt confident of being able to offer Dynamic Dave a good home as well.

All we knew of Dog Personality, Dog Temperament and Dog Characteristics from Nugget had gone out the door when we welcomed Dave into our home. He challenged us at every move but, by this time he had won our hearts!

It was now up to us to meet Dave's needs and to make it work for all of us as a family, with the benefit of hindsight, we can honestly say we don't regret one minute of that journey - Dog Personality aside, you can't have a more loyal friend than an Aussie Blue.

Getting back to the main lesson I want to share with you...

How to Control and Walk an overly exuberant big dog on a leash; having tried numerous different training devices that I could find in pet shops, such as; check chain, muzzle harness, etc I started to despair and more importantly I started to become very concerned that Dave was going to do serious and permanent damage to the vital structures in his neck area because, none of these so called control, training devices were making any difference at all to his energetic behavior on a leash.

His energy and enthusiasm for his walks were infectious, unfortunately it had become unsafe and too distressing to take him out.

As the walks started to become less frequent, his behavior started to change from being confined to the house and backyard. We knew it was absolutely necessary for us to solve this problem so, we employed a well known Dog Trainer to come in and work with us. To cut a long story short, it didn't work....

OUR HORROR STORY

I'll share one of our very bad experiences to give you an idea of how dangerous this situation had become.

Surrounding our home we had access to a great area with walking tracks for dogs, which also included a disused water canal. One day as we were crossing one of the bridges over this canal, Dave started to run and pull with all his weight while, jumping in the air - one of his favorite tricks. Probably, trying to free himself from whatever device it was that he would be wearing. Anyway, this particular day, he launched himself into the air and went straight over the edge of the bridge that we were crossing. My 46Kilos couldn't hold him, the leash slid through my grasped fingers. My heart sank, thinking that I had killed my beloved dog.... I looked over the edge of the bridge, expecting the worse, to my utter surprise there was Dynamic staring back at me - thankfully, with no serious injuries.

That was the day my husband, Stephen, went to work on the Walk-Me Slip Harness.

I'm happy to report that; our story has a very happy ending. After years of trial and error, we finally got it right, a comfy, kind and humane walking harness that gives excellent control while, conveying a clear and consistent message to your dog, allowing them to learn easily and quickly.

Dave learned and we went on to enjoy many years of happy walking together before he passed away in 2007.

I hope for the same success and happiness for you and your dog,

Kate and Dynamic Dave