Dutch Shepherd Forum

You know, I feel like lately all I do on this board is bit@h. So, being the consistent creature that I am, here i go again.

Rant #1
My puppy class instructor is a wonderful teacher.... WHEN she shows up. I have now been to 4 scheduled classes and have only had 1 ONE lesson. Why? Because when I called her the first time to make sure class was on for that night she said "yes". Two hours later I show up, no one else is there so she postpones it. The second time? Her car broke down in Charleston and I didn't get the call... The third time she was there, (hooray), but she intended to change the time back an hour and forgot to call and tell anyone. The fourth time, we all waited patiently and .... no show. no call. no e-mail, no apology, nothing. Now, I was a kid once myself, and I certainly understand being a little scattered. But this is crazy. I take off of work early for this. I live in a small community and I am afraid of ticking her off for lack of options, but GEEZ!

Rant #2
Xena has taken to attacking strange dogs. It is all fear based. Anyone her size or smaller is fine, anyone bigger gets lunged at, growled and barked at and BITTEN. When I pull her away and try an under the chin pop correction she goes for ME!! If I try to turn her away, she snarls at me. IF (and it happens alot more than I would expect) The kind soul and the gentle patient giant allow her to go through her bravado, she will settle down, submit, kiss noses and try to play.

Rant #3
Fordogtrainers.com..... my nemesis. I ordered one harness for the wild child from dean and thomas. They sent it out right away. It was the wrong type (actually a better harness) and her adult size. I fussed and within 4 minutes they offered to replace it. I thought better of it and kept it and ordered the original type from NEMESIS. I was now in a rush so I paid 19.00 for 3 day shipping. EIGHT days later it arrived (from ISRAEL??? instead of New York!!!) and it would not possibly go around the dog. An 18-22inch harness does not go around the 20 inch dog. If you could see the correspondence you would snort (After giving them measurements of dog and harness, they had the nerve to ask if I MEASURED the dog before ordering). They take at least 5 days in between each e-mail. I have sent answers and pictures etc etc. Now they are expecting me to pay shipping to send it back, a 10% restocking fee AND the shipping of the replacement on an item that they falsely advertised! . The shipping will now far exceed the original cost of the item. It has been 4 days since I e-mailed them the last time. Hopefully I will get return authorization tomorrow so I don't go over the 21 day limit..... UGH!

Ok, after this, will try to switch my posts to goodness and light. TRY. whew.

im frustrated for you!

i think i would go bat shit crazy on the instructor and the company. im no help on the #2 part but both of those are totally unacceptable!! is that chick a total flake?? i mean who does that just wastes peoples time!! im really annoyed for you. is she the ONLY trainer around???

i cant believe the run around that the ompany is giving you!!! how completely annoying!! Hopefully you get that email from them today and can get it all straightened out!!!

breathe in....breathe out....

any new news on the harness/ company? hopefully =)


did your trainer cancel this weeks session too? or did she decide to not flake out on you guys?

Thanks for the empathy, guys. I am feeling better.

The fordogtrainers folks said that I could send the harness back, but were not sure if I could exchange it for a leash instead. (he has to check with a supervisor) He also was not sure if they would waive the 10% restocking fee or shipping since they advertised the wrong size. The supervisor must be pretty far away because that was over 24 hours ago and still no answer.

My trainer did show up last night. I called first. The other puppies in the class did not show up. She was shocked that we had come last week. Her grandmother had been hospitalized and the co-workers at the shelter were supposed to call us. They didn't and didn't bother to walk up the hill when they saw us last week??? I had heard that the shelter was having internal upheaval... maybe we were just pawns. SO... I told her about our dog fear-aggression thing and she went and pulled a great big, scarred up pit bull from the shelter for us to work with. It went very well in terms of teaching me how to react to different behaviors from the initial aggressive move, to the too intense play, to the get in the pitbulls face and try to snap at him etc. I was VERY glad I went.

HA! I just got a response from for dog trainers while I was typing the post. No restocking fee, and I can exchange it for a leash... no mention of the shipping, but I can live with that.

nice!!
thats awesome that you had such a good session and it was a private one to boot!! and yay for the leash! =) maybe next week at class you will luck out again and no one will show up again and it will be just you guys =)