I don't come across sore losers too often while I trial. Every now and then someone will regale you with a story that points out their training flaws NOT flaws in the dog. Recently this was discussed as a topic in dogstardaily.com, not under this view, but under the view of corrections being given and what was the right thing to do. Regarding that post as named "What Would You Do", I would have followed someone out of the ring if I had a real concern as to the treatment of their dog. People are much less likely to act out around witnesses than will. This also seems to me to be the more appropriate time to discuss this with someone, rather than before the "assumed act" even happened. It's hard for me to take this author seriously, as seems to be an extremist on one side of the fence. Therefore, anything that she might report may be overstated IMO.
What this post really spoke to for me, was a very small percentage of people who have adverse reactions when their dogs don't do well in the ring. To me, this is more of a training problem for the human, than a flaw in the dog:) Sometimes you don't see the problem until you are in the ring, and you notate it and move on. For instance, last trial with Jack, he was very interested in eating the horse poop flavored dirt rather than keeping a sit stay. So I wasn't angry with Jack, I just noted that we need to practice the sit stay (and down stay) with things he may like to eat on the floor around him.
One time, people assumed I was upset with Jack's performance because I hurried off. The reason I hurried off was that dog number 2 needed to get in the ring pronto for us to compete. I was actually hurrying off to be sure that Jack went to the bathroom first, and was situated comfortably before our spot came up. I heard the comment as I went by, but had no time (and frankly no interest) in correcting the assuming party. Jack just got a bit nervous at a wheelchair beep. We later worked on desensitizing him by finding similar audio beep files on the computer. No big deal. It was a very warehouse like situation too, and he was still getting used to booming echoes.
As a trainer and an owner, it's totally my responsibility, error, or learning in progress if my dog does not do well at a trial or in real life!! It's not his problem if he has not been taught that yet, or taught it badly. Not to say that I am against correction if the timing and situation are correct. A trial is not a time IMO where you really want your dog to experience anything negative, unless a real bad situation occurs (like another dog is on top of your dog or visa versa). Then that is not a correction in my book, and I am not even sure it's a punishment. It's owners taking responsibility for their dogs. I have been lucky enough not to witness this in competition yet. I have seen dogs break from position, play, walk to owners, walk out of the ring, bark, whine, et.... When any of those dogs are doing that, I am hoping that I have done my best training so my dogs won't follow suit in any way shape or form for their own protection. (ie avoiding dog conflicts)
There are times where you should ask or witness before assuming anything about another person. That is just wrong. I am not sure it was right that when the woman said her dog was going to get a correction, that the assumption was the worst. And if there was a suspicion there, that woman should have been followed out of the ring.
Unfortunately, some assumptions were made about Oprah in another post by this author. I was a little horrified that Dogstardaily.com allowed this. I mean you can't talk about all sides of training unless the website owner agrees, but you can potentially libel another's name without any facts? Hope they have a good attorney! You know there ARE more than a few purebred puppies that come into shelters. How does she think breed rescues came into existence????
