My dog Zara had quite an adventure last weekend. One that ended up with me buying a shock training collar for her and also enrolling us in Obedience Classes.

Most weekends Zara and I go to Victoria Beach with my boyfriend John and his dogs. The dogs love it there and Zara especially enjoys the water.

Last weekend I took the 3 dogs for a walk down to the beach. It wasn’t that warm out and the only other person there also had a dog.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, there were fish carcasses on the beach. And Zara found 3 of them! The first 2 were relatively easy to get away from her. I got them out of her mouth, distracted her and threw them away. The third one was another story. For some reason she absolutely loved this third one. These remains weren’t  just a carcass  like the first 2, but had skin and bones on it. In this first picture you can see her in the bushes with her prize.

Pretty cute isn’t it? In fact, this was after I  had attempted to get it away from her the first time and had thrown it into the bushes. She went right after it and retrieved it.

She had a ball with it in the water as you can see from these pictures.

 

The fish is flying out of her mouth here! 

 

I used everything I could think of to get the fish away from her: yelling, smacking her nose and pulling her ears. None of it worked. She was not going to give up her fish. It was embarrassing to have people watching this display of outright dog disobedience.

The only way that I could get the fish out her mouth was by prying it open with brute strength. The second time that I got it away from her I again tried to distract her and I threw the fish  down on the rocks; thinking there was no way she was going to get it back; but of course she did. At this point I was fit to be tied and ready to give my sweet little girl away,  but thought that at least we would go back to the cabin and that would be the end of the fish.

Well my little evil pixie outsmarted me. Even as I write this, I am amazed at how smart she is. She must have read my mind and thought, “She’s going to take this fish away from me, so I’ll hide it in the bushes.” And that is exactly what she did. I tried to find the fish but could not.

Zara was tied up for the rest of the day after her misadventure.

The next morning she was let loose and I came out of the cabin to find her savouring the smells and flavours of one dirty, rotting fish. She knew exactly where she had left her fish and got it as soon as she had the chance.

One thing is certain after this incidence. Zara, although sweet and cute is also very stubborn and only listens when it suits her.

That is going to change. The training collar came in the mail today and the Obedience classes start in July.

The question that I ask myself is this: ” Can I bring this dog in line?” What do you think?

You can see the rest of the pictures that I took here:

http://www.chrismcwilliamsphotography.com/Proofs/Zara-at-VB-6-15/