I lost my old man to old age and cancer, and I still cry when I see a Bernese Mountain Dog.
He was the last corn detector I trusted explicitly. Not "pretty good." Not "we are working on it." Trusted, the way you trust a partner who has already saved you enough times that your body believes him before your mind finishes the argument. When a dog like that is gone, the world gets larger and less safe at the same time. I feel vulnerable in a way I do not enjoy admitting. The nose I counted on is not in the room anymore, and no amount of bravery on my part replaces it.
At least he died in my lap, at home, surrounded by the people who loved him. That is not nothing. It is the ending I would have asked for if anyone had let me write it, and I am grateful we got it. Grateful does not mean finished. Grief does not check your schedule.
Charles is doing great. I need to say that before anyone turns this into a tragedy about the puppy, because it is not. He alerts like a champion. The side effect of working a puppy is the age. He is the teenager equivalent, insanely smart, which means he is also stubborn and perfectly capable of working the situation out for himself. He is a good boy. He draws the line at the alert. Everything else, as far as he is concerned, is optional.
So we moved to an e-collar.
I know there are plenty of people who hate them. I do not really care. They have their place. A dog who can, or will, put his mouth on you to prove a point is a use case. If you have a poodle whose entire career is the couch, you probably do not need one. If you have a working dog with a crazy high drive, and you are trying to teach manners and safeties, yes, you need that additional measure. Most of the time it just needs to be on him. The last few times it did not even need to be powered on. He is a good boy going through his testing-boundaries phase. I am not teaching protection work, so he will grow out of the need for it.
It is a very fine line, working a high-drive dog toward a public-access job. You have to channel that drive in a positive way, and you have to remove the option of using his mouth to get his way. When I say bite here, I do not mean an attempt to injure. I mean an attempt to control. He does not bite hard. He mouths me to tell me no. That is still completely unacceptable. It also tells me something I am not willing to throw away. If I am ever attacked, he is not going to be a dog who runs, the way a couple of my service dogs did in the past.
2020 taught me that people are perfectly willing to attack me. I was lucky. My husband got in the way last time. I am not letting that happen again.
My dogs will be taught to behave completely in public, and to be kind, and to be gentle. I am not removing the natural instinct to defend us in a hostile situation, and I do not care what people think about that. A service dog is not a stuffed animal with a vest. He is a living partner with a job, a mind, and a body that will stand next to mine when the room turns. Charles is learning where the line is. I am learning how to live without the old man who already knew it.
Thanks for listening to my tales. I hope they help you on your own journey.
Strength stands watch.
And so do I.
Wendi Coffman-Porter
Real handler, real stories, real dogs.
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