Lets remember to be nice...

This past weekend, I had one of the best times I've had in a long time.

It was sunny and I had the opportunity to attend several dog-related activites and venues with my pack of wooly mammoths. We went for a walks, did a succesful rally run-thru, visited the vet's office for a wellness checkup, had a silly time at the freestyle practice, went to Dresslers and just relaxed together.

One thing that did bother me though was a comment that another dog owner made to me.

I was with two of the mammoths: Quincy and Zane. And, Zane being 8 months and rather distractable was having difficulty keeping a "sit" for anything beyond a few seconds. So, I had to repeatedly remind him of what he was doing albeit quietly.

After I had to remind him for the fourth time what a sit was, a lady near me leaned over and said "You know. The breed is not known for being bright."

It took a couple of seconds for me to register what she was saying and I said "What?"

She said, "You do know that the breed you have there is not known for being intelligent. They're rather dense."

I won't say where I because I really don't want to start a tiff, but if the words were said to someone new to a dog activity, sport or venue, it seriously could upset someone enough not to come back.

Of course, me being me, I acted like my dogs and ignored the woman. We continued on, participated and I was proud of the mammoths.

The point of sharing this interaction?

Remember if you're going to say something to a fellow dog person say something positive or helpful. Everyone was new once and if your words are not going to be positive or helpful in some fashion then you could seriously be impacting the activity or sport you're participating in.

With the downturn of the economy and more legislation constraining our abilities to have dogs, we don't have loads of people flocking to participate in things like agility or dog shows or even taking classes. Many areas are losing opportunities of that nature because those activities are considered luxuries and in some instances even owning a dog is a luxury.

So...consider what you're saying. You're not just being hurtful to someone you don't know, you're being hurtful to yourself and your dog.