Meet Kellie and Piper - the brilliant one

 

 Hey folks, I'm Kellie and my girl is Piper.  I moved up to Sevier in the winter of 2020.  Hip deep in the days of Covid.  It proved to not be a big deal here, but where I came from in Southern California, everything was shut down and had been for many months.  When we moved here, I was 60 and Piper had just turned a year old.  Now let me tell you a smidge bit about my God given heart dog.  

Piper was a rescue at about 14 weeks, had been quite neglected and was wound super tight.  She was not what I was looking for, but God made it very clear that she was to be my dog.  So, onward...

  

We used to have lots of doggie play dates for her first six months and you can see that she was fearless and alpha right out the chute! 

Then her first heat hit and Covid restrictions started getting serious. When she got aggressive with three different dogs... and terrorized a UPS driver, I knew it was time to get real help and quick.  I tried working with three different trainers but pickings were slim and none were what we needed.

By the time we moved up here, Piper had all her basic commands but zero self-control and was officially dog and some people aggressive.  Which meant that I kept her away from any situation that could cause her or others harm.  Surprisingly, she was fine with my cats and chickens.  

It quickly became a very lonely life for us both and pretty much stayed that way until I met Roxanne in the summer of 2023.  She said she was an avid hiker and loved taking her dogs.  Oh how I missed those days of hiking and playing with friends and our dogs!  I wasn't allowed to bring my wild child for reasons that soon because obvious, but watching her and Mary work their dogs off leash and on the trails hooked me.  I desperately wanted that life for us!

So I signed us up for Roxanne's KMODT Foundations Course.  Both her and Mary warned me that it was a tough course, but I was sure we could handle it.  

It almost broke me.  Piper was hard yet easy.  She is incredibly smart and responsive... if you know what you're doing, which I most definitely didn't.  I was slow, clumsy, impatient, forgetful, stubborn and prideful.  I cried, whined, rebelled and at one point even quit.  I was really hard work for Roxanne and Jessi!  Yet neither of them gave up on me.  I was so full of fear and pride that I found it impossible to relax and have any fun with the process.

Mary was my saving grace.  (I suspect we are actually sisters by different parents.)  She was able to identify with my clumsy forgetfulness, countless fears and talked me off the ledge repeatedly, calmly helping me with exam after exam.    

There comes a time in the training when you hit the tipping point.  Ours came on the tail of finally getting through the week 6 exam.  I finally shifted; stopped fighting my dog, stopped trying to protect my ego by muscling through the work, and finally started to relax and actually work with Piper.  Then Roxanne's coaching really started to sink in... I can still hear her voice.  Patience. Calm. Focus. Timing. Repetition. Technique... it all matters.  It all started to make sense.  Yes, I can be quite slow in more ways than one.

The change was beyond dramatic.  The work was still crazy hard, but Piper and I had finally become a team (even though one of us was (and is) still super slow and clumsy) and started to gain traction in our efforts... and we actually started to have fun, laughing and even dancing in the final weeks.  In hindsight I feel like we sailed through weeks 7-10.  Cake, hard cake, but still cake.  

The fun, laughter and bonding really exploded when we joined Roxanne's Retrieve Course this June.  We had finally graduated to group training and were blessed to be teamed with some truly amazing and wonderful people, who I suspect will remain my friends for life! 

And, now we have just graduated the Retrieve Course, and are slowly wrapping up our Tech Savvy advanced course.  It hasn't all been rainbows and unicorns.  Piper still has to be muzzled in open play, or on a long line on the trail, but it's huge progress... We have found our pack, even though we still need tons of learning the nuances of pack dynamics and where we land in them.

Piper is still a brilliant alpha dog.  She is still crazy stubborn and challenges the top alphas far more often than I like, but she is lightyears ahead in self-control and they keep inviting us back as long as I do my part to keep us all safe.  I will always need to closely monitor my little wild child, but by this time next year, God willing, we will have retired the muzzle for good.

Welcome to the journey of a lifetime.  If you see it through to the finish, you will definitely have a dog to be proud of... share lots of laughter, memories and friendships... but most importantly the learning and growth you will experience for yourself will be truly priceless!