I'm sure that you guys have all heard about the Meredith Emerson case, the hiker who was murdered here in north georgia on the Blood Mountain Trail. A few of you may have heard about a similar case right in athens, ga involving another missing woman, Cayle Bywater, who was eventually found at the bottom of a shallow pond in a small, popular park (in town) where she often takes her dog (both went missing on New Years, and the Emerson case had more publicity).
Normally i am pretty oblivious to the morbid goings on in the media, but where these two cases are concerned my boyfriend and i have both been unusually emotionally involved. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that both of these women are my age, were hanging out in places that i frequent when they went missing,
and both adore their dogs and had their dogs with them when they went missing (and i had met Cayle before through a good friend mine, and had met her dog, Ollie, a vizsla, on numerous occasions) . Charlie and i were actually on our way to the Blood Mountain trail on New Years day (when Meredith was kidnapped), but had to turn around and come home when i became very ill. This has led to both of us feeling
very sad and a little guilty... we are always the last ones to get out of the woods and back to our car... it's that feeling of "i should have been there".
Charlie actually took off work that week to go north and join the search parties, while i joined the ones in athens for cayle.
I have rarely ever hesitated to run off on my own to go camping, hiking, mountain biking, etc. with only my dogs for company. In fact, i do so frequently. I will note that lately (considering the tragic events involving these two women) i have caught myself feeling uncharacteristically nervous and on-edge in my usual outings (such as driving outside of town at night to get to the slaughter house). I always have a dog or two (or four
) with me, and I appreciate them for the
visual deterrent that they can be, especially when i have all of them.
However, my dogs are
not trained in protection. Therefore, i do
not expect them to protect me when push comes to shove. Instead I take measures to protect
myself. I.e. when camping alone i carry a .44 special, I keep a cell phone with me and wear dog tags when biking alone, and i am downright
unapproachable in the woods (maybe to a fault :blush
.
So what's been bothering me is this: even during the search for and soon after finding Cayle, i would see these young college girls jogging around the
very area cayle was last seen in (i drive right by that area after work each day) after dark. Alone except for their goofy looking mix dog of some sort. And i think to myself, "this girl probably feels that her dog would defend her if someone decided to mess with her". Now, please don't get me wrong, i certainly don't think that we should all hide behind closed doors after sundown for fear of being attacked, and having a large dog of any kind with you can definitely be a
deterrent against panhandlers and trouble makers. But i almost hit the floor when i was expressing condolences to the mutual friend whom i shared with Cayle, and she looked at me, the "dog trainer", and asked me why i thought that Ollie (the vizsla) didn't try to protect Cayle from her attacker?! (FYI ollie was found running loose in the neighborhood where the park is located, and many of Cayle's supporters and loved ones believe that she was attacked and didn't just fall in the lake and drown, though the case is still pending) I gently explained that dogs have to be groomed specifically for protection work from a young age in order to protect,
and that Ollie is a hunting breed, not a protection breed. When she inevitably asked if i thought my dogs would step up and protect me, i told her honestly "no, they were not trained for that". And truly i think they would
want to protect me, porter at least has shown a true protective streak (and he's my little coward), but i know that one good, mean, loud yell from a stranger in their direction is gonna send every one of them running.
The event that triggered this long (sorry!) rant happened last night. I received a voicemail from a very good friend in Seattle. She's preparing to hike the Appalachian trail in it's entirety starting next month, and her mother is very concerned for her safety after all the news coverage on the Emerson case. So my friend wanted to get my advice on how to train her 5 year old german shepherd to protect her on the trail..... fat, goofy, overly-submissive ol' "Luna". Yep. I almost laughed... and then i was just sad. Sad for any dog that's ever had it's owner or the parents/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc of it's owner look into it's eyes and say "why didn't you protect them?".
So, to training.... aside from telling my friend to purchase a gun and pepper spray and learning to use them (which i've already recommended to her), i was thinking about telling her how to teach Luna to bark in response to a subtle command to create a better visual deterrent if the need arises (making it very clear to her that this will only be a "trick" at best). Obviously i will not be able to work with her myself (because of distance), and i'm concerned that we may inadvertently train her to alert too much to hikers on the trail (or stress out when she sees them). This is a really sweet pet dog, and i don't want to give out bad advice. I've certainly taught dogs to bark on command and it's easy enough, but i've never tried to tell someone over the phone how to teach their dog to do it. It seems innocent enough, right? Anyone have any tricks up their sleeves, or think it's a bad idea?
Synchronized Chomping
a disturbing trend...
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