Susan's Open Field
Sue's Story
The First Day
On September 21, 2002, Kate and I went to WalMart. We needed orange juice and toilet paper. Of course, we stopped in the pet section to look at the fish and things. In this particular store, there's a little bulletin board on the wall in the pet department with some of the animals available for adoption through the Pocatello shelter. And on this particular day, there was a picture of a male Pointer on the board.
I'd been looking into what breed of dog I'd like for quite a while, and Pointers were on the list. So we decided to go and just meet this dog and see what he was like. I wasn't planning on adopting a dog, just window shopping.
Well, we got up there and that particular Pointer was gone, but there was another one - a girl. So I took her outside to get out of the loud barky kennels - it was obvious she was really stressed out because of the barkiness. This one particular dog - a German Sheperd - was right across from her and was absolutely raging. So we went outside in the little fenced area they've got up there, and just let her run. She was cute and nice, so we put her back and went home to get Griffin, Kate's dog, to see if they got along. When I put her back in her little run to go home, she jumped to look at me over the six-foot cinderblock wall. And there she was, her head higher than mine for a second, looking at me. Cool.
So we brought Griffin up and the two dogs didn't mind one another. They barely even noticed one another, actually. So there you have it. I decided to adopt her. Kate paid the fees for my upcoming birthday. I had originally wanted a boy dog, and I was gonna name him "Sue" after the Johnny Cash song, "Boy Named Sue." But here I am getting a girl dog, and "Sue" still seems to fit, so "Sue" it is.
While we were filling out all the paperwork and all for her adoption, she was on a leash by my side. Meanwhile, some people came in looking for a German Sheperd that had escaped from their yard a couple days earlier. Sure enough, it was that great big dog that was raising Cain right across from Sue's run. They brought this thing out on a leash made of chain. Not the chain that you often see in leashes, rather it was chain that you would see securing freight to the back of a tractor trailer. And the dog was pulling and barking and entirely out of control save the length of chain, and it wanted to eat Sue. And Sue was shaking. I brought her back into a corner as far from the dog as possible and knelt down with her.
So that dog left and we finished the paperwork and went home.
After being in the shelter around barking dogs for three weeks, Sue was tired. But now she was also in a strange new place with strange new people and strange new animals. For all Sue knew, if she fell asleep, she'd wake up in a stew pot. But she was tired. So she tried not falling asleep.
She sat on the floor watching us intently as we sat on the couch, but exhausted as she was, those eyelids were getting quite heavy. Her eyes would close slowly . . . and her head would start slowly falling to one side . . . followed by her torso. Microseconds away from freefalling helplessly onto the floor, Sue would awaken sharply and stick a paw out to catch herself. She'd then pick herself up, and sit up on the floor watching us intently as we sat on the couch. But she was exhausted . . .
This loop continued until finally she couldn't hold out any longer. And she woke up on the floor, not in a stew pot, on the second day of the rest of her life.
The Rest of the Story
Truth be told, we weren't too interested in getting Sue into a stew pot. She was pretty dang skinny. There wasn't much meat to stew. You'll see that for yourself in her photo gallery. She weighed about 35 pounds when we first brought her home. Pointers usually weigh between 45 and 60 pounds. So we commenced trying to put weight on her. It was easy to begin with; Sue was emaciated and just gobbled the food down. But after a while, she wasn't quite so starved and she began to realize that there was more to life than eating. There were all kinds of things to sniff and lick. So instead of eating, she proceeded to sniff and lick things during dinnertime. She now weighs just shy of 50 pounds, and I'd still like to get a couple more pounds on her, but sniffing and licking is still a priority at dinnertime for her.
For the first week or two of Sue's life with us, she was very content to sleep and eat. Once she started getting strength back, though, she started playing more with Griffin and expending the energy she'd been gaining. And we realized that Sue was a spaz. She's very energetic, and she's still not very reliable off-leash - she's getting better, but she could take off and be gone in seconds if we're not careful. Even in our little yard, she cruises around the yard, spinning and juking to avoid Griffin's attempts to herd her. And when Griffin isn't herding her, she finds other ways to expend all that energy; usually in a spastic manner. She often finds a stick or something, often it's poo, and jumps around it, paws at it, swats it, play bows to it, and barks at it. It's quite amusing. Embarassing, but amusing nonetheless.
In October of 2002, Sue started going to obedience class, starting with Basic Obedience, where she learned very quickly and did very well. Her next class, Canine Good Citizen (CGC), was a bit more of a challenge for her. Still a puppy, she was very interested in playing with and greeting other dogs and people. Most of what we were doing in this class revolved around behaving in the midst of other dogs and people making a commotion. So we failed the CGC test our first time through it. We passed on our second time, a few months later, and we also learned that Sue has skin on her teeth.
Now we're training for agility. She definitely has the energy and ability to do the obstacles and run the course, but her near complete lack of an attention span really limits her trainability and endurance on a real agility course. That, coupled with my ease of frustration and her sensitivity to my emotions is also a key factor in our slow progress. But we're getting there. Slowly. We'll have more information on our training in Sue's Training section.