This book
collects my daily journal entries chronicling
my training sessions with Shadow, a human aggressive
Border Collie. My book starts with Shadow’s
less than wonderful homecoming and ends with Shadow
being confident, trusting and calm enough to attain
his Canine Good Citizen title.
How It All Started
There is no doubt in my mind that I am crazy. Who
else but a crazy person would look at a Border Collie
rescue site on the internet, email the contact person
back and forth for weeks, ask all sorts of questions
about one of the dogs, while telling herself the whole
time she wasn’t really interested in the dog?
Who else but a crazy dog person would make a firm
decision not to take the dog, then drive four hours
each way just to “go look at him,” all
the while wondering, “Just what am I doing?
I don’t want another dog!” So, here I
am now, a crazy person with an equally crazy dog.
I am Pam Dennison, a dog trainer, and Shadow is my
sixth rescue dog. I assumed, with a history of five
dogs to my credit—all successfully rescued and
rehabilitated—that I could quickly and easily
turn this dog into the competitive obedience, agility
and sheepherding dog that I wanted him to be.
Unbeknownst to me, I had a human-aggressive dog on
my hands. I did not truly realize or comprehend the
magnitude of the work, total dedication and commitment
required to help him. I had been humbled by a forty-pound
Border Collie.
This journal chronicles our struggles together, from
recognition of the aggressive behavior to the painstaking
efforts to turn Shadow into my dream dog: confident,
calm, focused, and friendly. It is the story of taking
him from a human-aggressive dog to passing his Canine
Good Citizen test. I have included my actual journal
entries as well as training concepts and comments
on what I learned in hindsight as I went through this
experience. You will see that I made quite a few mistakes,
especially in the beginning of the retraining process.
I could have, quite easily, edited out all of them
to make myself look better, but that is not what this
book is all about. The purpose of this book was not
only to show the mistakes, but also to highlight them
so that you might learn from my errors. Part of my
intent is to demonstrate to you what does not work
as well as what does when retraining an aggressive
dog. I understand firsthand the denial, frustration
and anguish that comes with living with an aggressive
dog. I want you to know that I feel your pain, but
there can be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Working with Shadow quite literally changed my entire
life for the better. I started out my dog training
career focusing on pet classes and competition obedience.
The addition of Shadow has enriched my life, and my
attention now includes working with aggressive dogs.
There are days when I get so many calls for help with
aggressive behaviors that it scares me and yet I am
grateful that I am now able to help these people.
It has made me a better trainer and a better person
and I now hold aggressive dog classes and camps based
on my work with Shadow.
Every night, I thank him for coming into my life.
If just one person learns from my successes, I will
be pleased. If just one person learns from my mistakes,
I will be overjoyed. And thus began the greatest adventure
of my life. This is Shadow’s story...
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