I hate pink

The theme for the 17th Assistance Dog Blog Carnival is "Regrets"

I suppose I'll start with my current service dog: I bought a bright pink pack for Keeper. I thought if she wore such a blatantly "GIRL!" color it would cut down on the number of people who automatically assume she's male because she's large. It hasn't worked. It's not exactly wasted money because it's a good pack, but I really, really don't like pink. I'd much rather have a lime green pack for her. (I also wish I'd thought to Scotch-guard the thing. It shows dirt.)

It's such a trivia thing, but is the color she wears to work, so irks me every time we go out. It's like a rock in my shoe. Also, I do not enjoy sewing, and I stitched patches on it, which means it's The One until it fails, the patches fall off, or something of that nature means I have to get a new one and stitch more patches on. I'm planning to buy things with a green theme for her from here on out, but Duncan's pack from the same manufacturer has lasted 7 years. I'm probably stuck with the pink pack I hate until I break down and shell out the money for another, or Keeper retires.


With Strider, my career-changed German Shepherd, I will always regret that a brilliant young GSD came into my life just in time to hit the peak of my anxiety issues with PTSD from a car wreck. I fell in love with the brains and the drive to work exhibited by the bloodline, and fell in love with Strider in particular, but at that point in my life, even as a pet dog, we were a horrible match. I don't think I'll ever regret knowing him, but I think I will forever regret setting him up to be suspicious and reactive. He's recovered well, but there are still times I miss his quick uptake when I'm dealing with Keeper.


With Duncan, I have a multitude of regrets. I regret not seeing if his left TPLO surgery could have been avoided, but that's hindsight at seeing how poorly he reacted to his pain meds. I regret that I didn't know what I know now about training. However, he's the one who helped me learn, and he forgave my mistakes. I just wish I could have had myself sorted out to be a better owner for him. I wish we could have gone on more hikes.

I think regret most that I have very few, very poor quality photos of him working. As he ages, I wish more and more that I had an album to flip through of all the good times we had. I do have a short video of him working in a mall, but it's from the rear. I'd love to be able to see his face while he worked. He was such an absolute Dork out of gear, and so serious in harness, I wonder what that looked like.

On a more humorous note, oh, how I regret teaching him to open doors. It is helpful, no doubt, but he is annoying to contain, and we've gone through a number of iterations of door-blocks from kiddie gates to x-pens trying to find something to keep Houdini-dork contained that didn't make getting in and out of my room something from an Indiana Jones movie.

We've finally found a simple loop of fabric from inside doorknob of my room looped over the outside doorknob of the linen closet in the hall to be a barrier we can take down easily that does not hurt my hands, but does keep Duncan confined where we want him to be. Him being unable to open the door also keeps the Setter pests from stealing things from my room.

I haven't learned my lesson... or else Duncan's passing on his mischief-making genius, as Keeper is now bumping open doors to see where I am, (especially the bathroom).


For myself, I regret not keeping up with cross-posting from Keeper's Facebook page. It's only easier to use because I am already on the site far too much. It neither archives in as searchable a manner as Blogger, nor allows for subject labels to group things.