Positive and negative experiences with giving demonstrations with our dogs

Acira

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Its been bothering me since previous weekend, took me a while if I should post it but here we go...

Two weekends ago we gave a three day demo in Jarabacoa with our dogs, we did Dogfrisbee, Obedience and Security work with them.

It was a great weekend, lots of people watched the demo's and afterwards we got many congratulations from people that it was nice to see the dogs and the relationship we have with them.
A lot of children played after the demo's with some of our dogs, I found it very interesting to see that initially where most of the children were very afraid of them, they pretty soon turned in to children who couldn't stop calling our dogs to them, stroking them nicely and enjoying the fact that they could be so close near a "big" dog.

The next week we were happily surprised that a lot of people called us that they would have a go with on or two of their dogs to start with them to get some basic obedience. In the weeks passed the demo's we were working with people towards taken their first steps in obedience with their dogs but like it is with us, we were actually more learning them to really enjoy their 4 footed friend and learn to play with them, for some it was a revelation that you actually have to play with your dog and still can learn him basic obedience commands like Sit and Stay and Lay Down.

This is more then we wished for and absolutely the positive side of our demo's.

Previous weekend however we got a nasty negative side effect of giving those demo's.

We are living in a very quite secluded area, not far from town. The reason we live here is simple, our dogs are our life and we need space for them and at the same time we do not want to live somewhere very isolated because we love to be nearby Jarabacoa.

Its a vast piece of land (not ours) but there is only one house on it, ours. The rest is ocupied by some herds of cows and the boy's who run a little business with their horses at La Confluenzia let their horses graze on this land.

With those boy's its a non verbal agreement, they come and collect their horses or drop them off alway's being attentive to putting the barb wires, from the farmer who owns the land, back in place, our dogs will bark at them but they are not afraid and they never run or shout loud near our house. Its nothting we agreed on, its just as it should be, they know our dogs and respect them (they helped us retrieving one of our pups who get lost near the river and didn't ask for anything, just glad they found here), and we are alway's friendly to them (putting our hand up, saying an hola) and when they are really having difficulty catching one of their young horses, I alway's put my dogs in the closed fence or take them in house in order for them to have a go to get that stubourn horse back in the row.

Sweet life goes on like this since 7 months now and I think its ok like that.

But last weekend our closest neighbour uphil (500 yards away) decided that it was time to "broaden" his horizon with his noisy quad and bike, breaking down the barb wires on his way, racing at minimum 70 m/h right in front of the closed fence of the dogs which ofcourse gave a riot amongst the dogs very agitated barking from all the dogs.

He suddenly stops in front of our house where my husband was watching to all that commotion and the neighbour reaches for his cell and started to talk to somebody, he slams shut his cell and starts to yell at my husband that those damn dogs make too much noise, that they are dangerous, that he has seen us at the demo's, that are dogs need to be locked up because - again - they are dangerous and they bite, that he will call the police etc..
He couldn't be calmed down so we asked him to go away since we do not talk to people who only shout instead of reasonable speak to us.
He could alway's come back when he calmed down and have a chat with us but he rushed away shouting that it was his last warning and we could expect the police.

Luckely our dogs are know by the police and military in town, we alway's take one of them alternating into town and they are much appriciated so the threats of this American do not really frigthen us but it is a nuisance that one person "playing" on private roads decides he has to make a lot of noise and has to annoy people whilst he has an enormous amount of space on his domain all for himself...by the way his wife cannot sing a straight note when she is playing karaoke...should I complain about that?
 

mountainannie

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Cobra.... Do you know this American Guy who is bothering these nice Belgians?

Perhaps you could round up a team of really big buffed guys with tatoos on Harleys to go talk to him?

Mike Fisher will come up from Punta Cana with his Che Guevara T Shirt

I will come up from the Capital with my Shizu and a big rented SUV with tinted windows

Ginny and Grahame can come from Puerto Plata with rolled umbrellas and stiff upper lips.,

Any one else for the BBQ?
 
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Acira

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Cobra.... Do you know this American Guy who is bothering these nice Belgians?

Perhaps you could round up a team of really big buffed guys with tatoos on Harleys to go talk to him?

Mike Fisher will come up from Punta Cana with his Che Guevara T Shirt

I will come up from the Capital with my Shizu and a big rented SUV with tinted windows

Ginny and Grahame can come from Puerto Plata with rolled umbrellas and stiff upper lips.,

Any one else for the BBQ?

I'll be happy to organise a BBQ if you guy's come over, give me some time as I have to order a delicious piggy from Whirleybird or had you something else in mind to put on the BBQ ;)
 
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bienamor

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he is meaty, and from the reaction and maturity he gave me with his answers... he is well marinated as well....;)

Sounds good when is the party, and as a fellow American, I am anxious to meat the guest of honor. Pun intended. :cheeky:
 

Lambada

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he is meaty, and from the reaction and maturity he gave me with his answers... he is well marinated as well....;)

That is one of the funniest lines I've seen on here for a long while. Kudos for subtlety in a second language :).

Was the American neighbour living here before you? This might be something as simple as jealousy. You're are new on the block (or in the field :cheeky:) yet are getting a lot of attention in the community because of your dogs and demos. He might be resentful, he might think he is the foreign king of this particular outpost. Insecurity & immaturity displayed by a few expats in all sorts of strange ways, never ceases to........well I was going to say surprise me, but it doesn't. Not any more.

If it is that, then the power force response wouldn't work. If you think he will be troublesome in future, try to find out what his problem is. Then once you know the 'what', you can devise the 'how' to deal with it.

mountainannie, Lambada & BushBaby don't use rolled umbrellas and stiff upper lips. Lambada is a dab hand with a whip and BushBaby uses The Look. :cheeky:
 

mountainannie

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Oh Good, Lambada... the whip is so much better... Actually I ride the back of a moto concho and read Tarot Cards and lay on curses.

But I agree that the guy is just insecure and feeling threatened. I had a bad rural neighbor situation once and it can make life hell.

Probably best to meet his wife .. if he has one.. and make friends with her, if you can
 

rio2003

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he is meaty, and from the reaction and maturity he gave me with his answers... he is well marinated as well....;)


On a serious note, could his erratic and uncharacteristic behaviour be drugs related? I have seen similar episodes before such as this and it would give me some cause for concern.

Rio
 

Hillbilly

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I could introduce Yoshi and Missy to the bloke!! That would leave a broad swath of well furtilized land leading back to his place.

Did you, by any chance, happen to have him fix the fence?

HB
 

Acira

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The neighbour has his house maybe longer then we but he lives here only in the weekends as its his second summer home and we live here fultime.

We know how to deal with such people and putting more fire on it (although very tempting such a BBQ :)), is not the solution, we want our dogs to be left alone and to be safe, thats are main concirn...however we will not give in to stupid threats also and certainly not coming from such a guy.

One of his yelled comments that particular weekend was that he "demands" to use the road in front of our house because they are public roads.
He wants to use that particular road in front of our house although a few 100 M across our house there is another road he can take (just has to turn right at the corner of our house...but still then he has to cut through the barb wire - which by the way he does not fix after he returns - because suddenly he wants to access the river from that side.
Well...he can kiss my **s and is not coming through (surprise ;), these are not public roads so he can take the main road uphil, drive some 800 M and take the other entrance down again to this land far away from our house and that is a straight road all the way right to the river...should'nt be that difficult with his quad?

He is still welcome to have a chat with us, have to tell him still the story of one of his dogs wandering off down the hill, putting his mark on every corner of our house, agitating my dogs with his dominant behaviour and then jumping half over our fence to start a fight with one of my young males, where at that point I put my slipper in his face (despite the growling and showing all his teeth when I approached him) in order to get him back going to his own house before he was "eaten" by my dogs.

And as he claimed to be an excellent trainer of dogs, I would like to see him at work with one of his dogs who are constantly taking off to have a walk and where he has to send his children to collect the strayed dog who doesn't ofcourse not listen to a few children and it takes them a long time to retrieve that dog and if the dog becomes an annoyance to him, he just dumps them anywhare away and buy's another one.

Still...a BBQ sounds nice :bunny:
 

belgiank

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of course we did not fence of a public road... the whole property of around 40,000 m? is owned by 2 sisters, who don't like each other... so they split the property in 2, and fenced off the 2 roads that connect the properties...

As one of the sisters has rented her part out to a herder, and our side is used by a different herder, they keep that fence up, to avoid that their herds mingle...

This american comes down during the weekend, and more often than not, just tears the fence down so he can joy-drive here, which he can do just as well on his side...
 

mountainannie

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That's plenty of room for 11 dogs.

Yes, I am sure it is fine for the dogs. I know I had trouble with my neighbors when I had 8 acres and three dogs in NC... only because the house was on a hill and being UPHILL from the dogs and inside , I simply did not hear when they barked at night... We were in the mountains and the way the land lay, the sound really echoed and bothered the neighbors.

I really had to make an effort with them.. got barking collars, brought them in at night... really worked on keeping them quiet.. Now the neighbor was a bit nuts, I will admit since there were 5 of us on 1500 acres and the others all agreed that the dogs ought to be able to at least have a howl now and then. Most of the time they were indoors with me.

Fortunately, they left and new people moved in. They had bought a Macaw when they had one too many Margueritas in the Keys on vacation... AND if you have ever lived across the holler from a MACAW.... well.. a pack of dogs ain';t nothing.. so they never complained

Anyway..just saying,. that 11 plus dogs is a lot of dogs and maybe the neighbor is not such a dog person and maybe since he comes up only on weekends, he is disturbed by them


Anyway.. I think the best think is always to just assume that there was some really HORRIBLE misunderstanding and something along the lines "I just DID NOT KNOW that that Procession that I kept leaning on my horn to move out of the $#^%^$%& way was your mother's funeral....is there ANY WAY you can EVER FORGIVE ME? " or " let us not continue the fued that the two sisters had.. is there anyway that we can live together in peace?"
 

dv8

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he is meaty, and from the reaction and maturity he gave me with his answers... he is well marinated as well....;)

i am afraid the marinade won't help if the meat is slightly off :)
but he may be used as a dog snack, in europe you can buy old dried c**k for doggies to chew on...
 

belgiank

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i am afraid the marinade won't help if the meat is slightly off :)
but he may be used as a dog snack, in europe you can buy old dried c**k for doggies to chew on...

I'm afraid we don't let our dogs eat pork as it is bad for them...:bunny:

we have a handyman, who actually lives next to that porker... and I asked him, and he said he seldomly hears the dogs... on top of that our dogs live in a fenced in area, so they cannot bother him. When we let them loose, a couple of times a day, we always check if there is anybody around. And as I said the local herders, horse-owners, and kids love the dogs. They also come to have a look through the fence, but they do not agitate the dogs. The herders even ask sometimes whether they can borrow a dog to round up their cattle (although they now acquired a moto to chase them, so our dogs became redundant... sniffff...), and the kids ask to play with them...

One of the younger ones escaped a while back, and it where the kids at La Confluencia who spotted her, and expertly herded her back to our house. They were not covered in blood, and our dog quite enjoyed getting all that attention...

These ferocious animals are a great hit at La Confluencia, where all kids play with them by throwing frisbees in the river which the dogs bring back... Up till now these murderous cannibals have eaten no kids at all... not even nibbled at one, nor did they snack on them... At the feria, where water was in low supply, and they were thirsty because of the demo's, they did not even suck the blood of a couple of kids... but instead played with them...

But... yes... they are guard-dogs, and when you stand there making a lot of noise, spin your 4-wheel around in small circles with a hell of a racket, rattle the fence, etc... you agitate them, and their alarm-clocks go of... BTW, the fence is all of 8 feet high... and yes, agitated enough they will jump it, but even then they won't attack, unless commanded to do so...

So, whose fault is it then, that the dogs become agitated?
 

Lambada

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Would the tyres of his bike be susceptible to broken glass tastefully arranged on the road in an artistic pattern? Course if you drive out that way, you'd have to clear it up to protect your tyres....complaining all the while about these bikers who throw their Presidente bottles. Well it couldn't be yours, could it? He's the one who is observed borracho.........:cheeky:

There's also the invisible wire across the road at neck height (you have to measure precisely) - don't worry, it doesn't garotte anyone. Does give them a bit of a sore throat though.....;)
 

belgiank

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lol... I started to think about crow's feet ( in dutch), probably they are called parrot's feet over here, which are essentially small metal tripods, and quite sharp...., perfect to puncture tires, and designed to do so...

On the other hand he is driving a quad with off-road tires, so we would need long spikes..., and it seems such a mess to clean them up every time....

btw... we are saturday, and have not seen porky... of course it rained most of the day...:ermm: