I paid a good sum (cheap now in retrospect for what I got) of money for Zuni. I Paid for training with a dog included. He was going to be just a pet to protect us. But, 'green me' who yes, knew how to train circus acts to dogs, was unaccustomed to a dog trained for work and in need of structure... Not much of that around here.He was used to sleeping in a confined space, a kennel or a crate, and ended up eating my antique couch and table as I'd removed this ugly eye sore from my (then) pretty living room.
Due to my lack of knowledge I'd put him in the garage due to that eating of the antiques, on day three. Went to sleep and at about midnight heard a soft "Whao Whao" from very nearby. I was upright in bed thinking, that is NOT possible that he's in my house!
WRONG, he was in the house. I scratched my head and walked to the kitchen into the garage door and it was open.
He managed, in a short period of time, to open that heavy door which opens toward him and help himself into my house. THEN he announced it to me like "OK, I got this challenge, what's next?"
Needless to say, he was sleeping in the house from then on and in the crate with the kennel door open.
We went for a walk on about Day 5 OFF the property and into that infamous Arroyo where little Ginger was attacked. Mind you, Zuni didn't really listen to me at all yet, as he thought I had no idea what was going on. But, I figured he'd shown good instincts and was a truly calm dog and did stick around so off we went.
We're on our way back and suddenly out of nowhere come three dogs charging downhill and Ginger at 20lbs and Tornado at 45lbs charge UPhill towards them! I had a heart attack, needless to say. And I was speechless. I saw Zuni look at me, and I was like 'GO' (in other words save the mutts from their extinction) And OFF he went charging like a missile towards those dogs. The hilarious part was, that those dogs saw him coming and screeched to a halt, and turned and ran off. While the two mutts, Ginger and Tornado thought that they'd done this great feat, they had no idea of that power house behind them.
The beauty of this was, that at that point Zuni stopped and came back. He'd done his job, done it precisely the way I would have wanted him to do, without getting in a fight. Diffuse the situation.
Awesome, just awesome.
