It's The Environment Stupid

We rented a small house close-by last week's dog show. Honestly, how interesting can a 3½ hour drive and a dog show be for a dog? So the idea was to give Kenzo and Viva a little bit of extra quality time.

The show was in "Skærbæk". See the right of the map below. And we found a nice place on a small Danish island nearby, "Rømø". A 15 minute drive. We never visited Rømø before, and we did a lot of planning on how to make this work for Viva.


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Traveling with Viva is not easy. Her fear of new places and dogs in particular demands some additional planning. Like to make sure the view of the place we stay doesn't have a whole lot of people and dogs go by. Or to find places for walks that are equally undisturbed.

All our worries turned out to be in vain. The island was beautiful and you could walk and see in all directions without meeting people or dogs. And it quickly showed from the first minute we spent outside, how much Viva just loved this place.

The first thing we noticed her do, was her interest to spider the horizon. You could see miles away and it must have comfort her she could scout the country-side ahead and make sure we were as good as all alone.


When we were on the move, she was ahead of us all the time and made her own decisions as to what direction we should go. Yes, this is the same Viva that is always on my side. Or rear. As manipulative humans, we of course took advantage of the situation and let her walk up and down the sand dunes. A great work-out for Viva to strengthen her muscles in the fight against spondylosis.



Even when we had been hiking for more than 2 hours, she kept on going. Independent. And ahead of us at all times. And sometimes she hit the jackpot. A fresh pile of fox poo to role around in! Sorry there is no video of that, although I am glad I could retrace the spot where I dropped the camera every time she did that.


I have never seen Viva take to a new place like this before. As a matter of fact, she even liked it better than the places we usually have our walks. She told me loud and clear: "It's the environment, stupid!".

My first beauty contest

We are up-hill, what more do you need?

Do our dogs move boundaries? Since I have attended my first ever beauty contest today and I actually enjoyed it, I would say yes.

After deciding that Kenzo needs to be either showed, neutered - or probably both, we visited our very first Hovawart show today, to "sniff" out the atmosphere in preparation of Kenzo's first appearance in September's show.

And we have no regrets. Wonderful dogs of course. But we also met a lot of interesting people. A lot of breeders actually. We talked with some of them and they had so much passion. One talked about his latest litter. Deciding to hold on to his last two puppies that didn't find a home before the end of their socialisation window. Now that's responsible breeding. As it should be.

I was actually most worried about the parking lot, having heard dogs were left in hot cars during shows. But how differently that turned out. Yes, there were dogs left in cars. But they were placed in the shade of trees, with an open hood pointing away of the road - where the dogs enjoyed a good afternoon nap confined in the car. Alright, they were Hovawarts, so I admit we were accompanied by a barking orchestra guiding our way through the parking lot.

I was also impressed with some of the alterations people made to their cars to act as a "Hovie" vehicle. One even showed an SUV with a garden-like interior, complete with garden fences. Travelling safe can be fun too!

Today's winner passing by: Hertos !

The show itself was very interesting as well. The judge gave her verdicts out loud which was very informative. What I loved was that she not only talked colors and looks, but also took stamina and temperament into the equation. Learning her background was equally impressive, as she had a Master's degree and worked with the institute of Genetics, at the University of Bern (Switzerland).

The winner of today's show - Hertos - was an awesome dog. Beautiful and with a lot of temperament. Almost as beautiful as Kenzo of course.

A day with good info, and enough for us to start prepping Kenzo for his first show in September this year - we were too late to register for this one. He will do great on all obedience-related stuff, like standing still and running through the ring without jumping. But we have to work with Kenzo keeping his cool on the touch of strange people. Yet some of our new Hovawart friends got us worried and thought Kenzo could have too much "over-bite" and risks disqualifying. We'll see. Doing the show is the goal, and after all neutering Kenzo is the inevitable result whatever the outcome. So let's enjoy the ride.

Today we also met a "Blau schein" Hovawart. A Hovawart with a special blue-ish glow over his coat. He was not judged as it not an official color, but boy what a good looking fellow he was and with an awesome temperament. He was pretty popular with the ladies too. Which leaves me with the only down-side of today, it is difficult to walk away from utter in- and outside beauty, just because it is against a general definition.

Embarrassment is not an option



Training class seems to be a gathering of people that all have embarrassing dogs.

Dogs that smell the opportunity to embarrass their owners and do so with every chance they get. Kenzo fits right in there, and does his out-most to make sure I get my weekly fix of embarrassment.

Our class mates discuss how embarrassing I must feel after the latest failure, and try to decide who has the most embarrassing dog. It is a harmless discussion fueled by a lot of humor, yet it shows the roots of a wrong mindset. Not everybody takes it well, some get embarrassed and never return. That is a waste.

Some dogs, like Viva, take it a lot further and embarrass us in daily life too. They lunge and bark, don't come on a recall, chase cyclists, and more. Do whatever needed to add further to the embarrassment. People send nasty looks, call each other names. Whisper among each other. The embarrassment can be overwhelming.

Embarrassment is just an emotional state we humans have imposed onto ourselves. It is not necessarily a bad thing. But when we overdo it, it prevents us to grow and learn. It blocks us from achieving things we might think could embarrass us. Embarrassment gets in between us and our dog's. Anticipating an embarrassing moment coming up will remove our focus from our dog to the moment itself. We are about to miss that valuable clue which is coming up. We send our feelings down the leash, making it difficult for our dog to judge a situation correctly. It prevents us from enjoying dog walks, or maybe even makes us drop walks as a whole. Embarrassment can put us in a vicious circle.

But I refuse to feel embarrassed. Dwelling in those kind of thoughts makes me miss out on what really transpired. Therefore I embrace them as little moments with valuable pieces of information. My dogs just showed me something I didn't anticipated. Something I didn't know about them. I just have got to know them a little better. Step by step. That makes me happy. Not embarrassed. As with many things, it is changing one's own perception of a situation which is the key.

If you are with me on this one, spread the word also in the real world. Getting rid of embarrassment is also not imposing it on others. Like the other day when a dog lunged at Viva. I send the owner a smile and said, "It could just as well have been my dog". Judging the expression on her face, it was not what she had expected me to say. Welcome to the club.

The small fearful dog therapist

Kenzo doesn't cease to amaze me when we encounter small fearful dogs. He likes to interact with them in what seems to be an attempt to comfort and protect them.

When we were out with our tracking class the other day on one of our tracking locations, Kenzo did it again. Along this particular tracking location, there is a small fenced-in area where dogs are allowed off leash. After tracking we go there to let the dogs play a little. After a little while, a couple came in with a small dachshund. The dachshund definitely thought that it was not a good idea to walk in an area with 9 large dogs and protested. I usually leave when I see other people approach as I am weary of meetings in dog parks, but knowing Kenzo's reputation with smaller dogs I decided to stay.

Capable of empathy?

The owners walked towards us dragging the dachshund behind them on a leash in obvious discomfort. Kenzo positioned himself between the group and the dachshund. Cautiously, in a calm and relaxed way, he moved up to the dachshund. Not imposing a greet, but inviting nonetheless. As the dachshund was sizing Kenzo up, she finally became relaxed enough to take a little sniff up in the air. And a few moments later both her and Kenzo exchanged a little sniff. After that Kenzo kept a small distance, but remained all the time between the dachshund and the group.

I was just awed. What did I just witnessed? That Kenzo is nice with smaller fearful dogs I know. But what puzzles me is that none of the other dogs approached. They probably all have seen that this was a fearful dog, but I would have expect them to join after Kenzo's greet. But somehow they didn't. Maybe he didn't let them? Could Kenzo be able of empathy? Some research show dogs can indeed be capable of empathy. My twitter pal @dancingdogblog, an animal welfare advocate and author of the Dancing Dog Blog, mentioned she has experienced this behavior before with puppy mill dogs. Where dogs would gather around a fearful individual, trying to protect, and comfort the fearful dog.

The therapist

One of our dog trainers picked up on this special capability of Kenzo already in his adolescence. She had one small dog in her class that was fearful of larger dogs. It had been attacked by a larger dog and sustained severe injuries. He allowed no larger dog to approach him.

When she noticed to what lengths Kenzo sometimes went to comfort a small dog when greeting, even laying down to make himself smaller and not a threat, she asked us if we would like to help her with the fearful dog. We did some setups in which we let them meet, first on a distance, and closer by when the little dog showed interest. After a couple of sessions, they were able to meet and the little fellow was not afraid of Kenzo anymore. I hope it helped him in getting over his fear.

What could have shaped this?

Kenzo's special relationship with smaller dogs already started very young.

During puppy hood we let him meet small dogs just like we would with any other dog. Already as a pup he was larger then most small breeds, and we made sure he didn't attempt to bully them. When I try to rewind the movie of his puppy hood and adolescence to find a clue what could have influenced him with smaller dogs, I cannot come up with anything out of the ordinary except one thing.

On our evening walk we once walked by a garden surrounded by a thick, high hedge. Behind the hedge a fierce watch dog was ready to protect his property and we didn't noticed him until we were only a couple of feet away. When the dog started to bark we got a scare at first, surprised by the bark that suddenly was coming from close by. My second reaction was one of relief and made me laugh. Judging the volume this wasn't your typical watch dog. When we continued along the hedge, the watch dog followed, barking on the other side. I could see there was a fence at the corner of the garden. As I was curious what kind of dog it was I took a quick peek in the garden through the fence and looked into the face of one very angry Yorkshire terrier. There is something about these brave small creatures that touches me, and I threw in a treat and called him "good boy!". Also Kenzo got a treat so he wouldn't be jealous.

When we went on our evening walk the next day, I thought it would be fun to see if the yorkie would still be there and we took the same route again. And he was there again. From then on, we made it a tradition to walk by our new buddy. The whole scenario would repeat itself. And both the yorkie and Kenzo got a treat when we reached the fence at the corner. After a while his bark and anxiety changed into a greet, and he ran to the fence to meet us, tail wagging and ready for his treat.

At the time I thought it just was a fun thing to do, but could Kenzo have learned something from this. Could this explain his special relationship with small fearful dogs? Could he have understood that they are not to fear and behind all the barking there could be a new friend? I think it did.