Why Am I here?

Every since I was old enough to walk and talk, I wanted a horse. I remember every birthday and every Christmas begging for one. I was so obsessed, that as I got older I could lay in bed at night and think of horses and fall asleep to wonderful dreams of riding fast through woods and pastures. When I finished graduate school, my parents presented me with a check and told me that they’d saved my horse money up and when I could live somewhere that I could have a horse, I’d have the money to get one. It took a couple of years for that to happen, but the day I finally loaded my Palomino, Sam Spade, up in the trailer and drove him home, had to have been one of the happiest days of my life. Sam was what horse people call “green broke”, meaning you could get up on him without a fuss, but he didn’t know much more than that. I figured it all would be a breeze since I’d managed drag my friends and family off to rent trail horses at every vacation we took where there was a stable within 10 miles. Well, I am here to tell you that I couldn’t have been more mistaken about that! It took about 4 rides, several near misses, two spills off the side, hanging off the horse’s neck as he’s trotting down the road, and getting dunked in a river a couple of times because Sam liked to swim, before I was tired of playing the Don Knott’s character in the Apple Dumpling Gang!

I’d learned already, the hard way of course, that if you’re going to have a dog you ought to know a little about how to train him. It just somehow NEVER OCCURED TO ME that if I were going to be able to have a horse…….one that you actually ride, not a lawn ornament, that I would need to learn something about how to train him. So, after the last embarrassing moment with Sam………..well, not THE LAST, I headed in the house, grabbed the ice pack out of the fridge, and found Jeff’s stash of Horse Training Books. Thank you, John Lyons! John taught me how to train my horse, and I picked up a few great nuggets that applied to dog training in the process.

So.

Here I am. A Blogger Wannabe. A Blogger Newbie.

A couple of my fellow dog trainer friends came down to visit me this past weekend and the topic turned to blogs.  Well, obtaining a blog, to me, is a lot like getting a flu shot or going to the dentist. Every time I think about a blog, I get that same feeling of dread I get when the doctor hands me the paper you have to take to go get a mammogram. (Those always seem to end up at the bottom of the pile that sits atop my desk.)

I am a dog trainer. It should be pretty simple, right? 

Not so much.

I think if I ever do leave this profession, I could go straight to marketing without more than a change of wardrobe and a car that doesn’t have dog hair on the seats.

Who would have ever thought that if you wanna be a dog trainer, you gotta learn to blog!!!