Life before I-dog

I don't have any educational background in animals. I have been around pets all of my life, usually not my own. My grandparents owned a Black Poodle, a former champion Apricot Poodle sire (he was retired from his breeder to live with my grandparents. He looked perfect but was actually too big to show, but sired winning pups), and the occasional tabby cat. As an adult, a roommate and I rescued a Black Lab (Lady) off the streets but we couldn't keep her in our apartment. I went down to the Dallas Animal Shelter and was waiting in line. A guy came in looking for a dog that would be good in a backyard and good with kids. We both avoided the beauracracy and my price was that he give her a good home. In 1988, I got a kitten (Misty) off the street at about 5 months. She was with me until 2-17-05, when I had her PTS for drastic kidney failure. We got Shadow Labor Day Weekend 2004. I knew something about Labs but I had no structured approach to dog training other than what I picked up from my grandparents. When it became apparent to me that Shadow was more Husky than Lab, regardless of coat length or color, I began reading what I could about raising Huskies. I learned a lot, spending hours online. When I used the approach of how to care for a Husky and more importantly, what to expect, my reactions changed, making him a happier dog. I used to go to Sled Dog Central. But we didn't fit in because we don't have a pedigree and we aren't in competitive sled racing.
 
I got an email from dog.com about the forum and here we are. I read everything I get my hands on but I try to think logically and examine all angles. I have two different books on dog training and one just on Siberian Huskies. I read all sorts of stuff on line. One Heinlein character likened it to being the Emperor's child, with the world at your feet.
 
So, what am I qualified for? I've been to college a few times, starting with University of Texas at Arlington in 1982, with a EE major (electrical engineering), but I've been studying electricity, physics, and hairy math since I was 10. My step-grandfather started me on calculus when I was 11.
 
About March 1983, I began working for D.K. & Sons Electric. Other than a few other jobs at times when it was difficult to find electrical work, that is mostly what I have done. I round it off at about 20 years, so far. I have a Texas State Master Electrician License, biggest one there is. A little more money and proof of electrical insurance would make me a master/contractor. So, in that regard, I am fairly qualified, though without a diploma from college or a certificate from a trade school. But my license was grandfathered from my pre-existing master license with a city, and that license was earned with over 3 times as many years of experience as necessary and passing results from exams administered by the SBCCI, now known as the ICC. And those exams are the standard for the Texas license. I've been told by others that these tests are tougher than some of the old city tests but I don't know as these are all I've ever taken. My education is a combination of life-long study, school of hard knocks (I can tell the difference between 120 V and 277 V. 277 V hurts more), and rigorous testing. I have done everything from general ditch digger to project superintendent, with a little estimating thrown in, here and there. And I still have more to learn about the business itself. That is, no one can touch me on technical theory and I have done some electrical engineering as a necessity in working with an inferior set of prints but I don't know all the things I need to know to run a successful business. Some of it is politics, not my strong suit. My best form of butt-kissing is to keep my mouth shut so that I don't hurt someone's feelings. But I'm trying to work past that, which usually still involves keeping my mouth shut.
 
In the company I work for, I am not the president. I am the qualifier. The master of record, without which, my boss could not be a qualified contractor. He only has a journeyman license but no one can beat him on butt-kissing. He'll tell you that, up-front. That his job is bs and but-kissing.
 
But coming to idog and having Shadow makes me wish, at times, that I had a job dealing with animals. Some jobs I'm not sure I could do well. Such as animal control officer. It would be tempting to unleash vengeance upon those that would abuse an animal. I'm not saying that my feeling about that is a good thing. I realize it's one of my limitations for now. So, everyone is better off if I donate to the animal shelter once a week, which I do. Either in the counter purchase during a donation drive at Petco, or I stop by their mobile adoption kennel and drop some ones in the mason jar they keep for that purpose. I have also donated food.

I also have no technical background. I grew up on a 350 acre farm that at one time or another had all manner of animal. We always; had dogs and cats. In my first marriage (he is deceased) we had 2 cats and Rufus (plotthound) and Caitlyn, my black lab/brittany mix girl. having always been around animals, I don't really know if that had anything to do with it, but my best buds at college were in the vet tech program. And we have remained very close. We all share about our furkids. Two are cat lovers. two are dog lovers. And some of the others have both!

I now have three dogs and wouldn't have it any other way. I have some knowledge but not near enough......but growing up with animals I do have good instincts. Main thing.... I love them. My husband has the movie
"eight below" on right now and I can't watch it.

Where to start? I was born and raise in Chicago, moved to the north suburbs when I was 13. We always had dogs, GSD primary but some mixes over the years. My mother has a passion for the breed. As a child my parents actually brought an attack trained GSD (at the time this is what it was called) named Cord into our lives, he was fantastic! I loved him from the start until the day came that we needed to say goodbye, but I was hooked.
 
Growing up I spent alot of time with my grandparents, my mothers parents. My gran was my inspiration, she looked life in the eye and I swear she danced through it. They had a 300 acre farm in the north western section of wisconsin, she raised pigs, chickens, horses, geese and other animals. She taught me how to care for them and love them. She also taught me what I think alot of people today think of as ancient traditions. Because of her I can cook, sew, can, garden, crochet, quilt and dance! This woman had raised 5 children on a farm with no indoor plumbing and had such a sense of humor about life. She is gone now, but I think of her everyday.
 
I started out in retail but flirted with the idea of an animal related job, it just never came to be. I worked high end retail until 2002 when life threw some big curves my way. I almost caved, but then I laced up my boots and went to kick life right back. I married and quit my job, my new husband and I picked up stakes and with no job in the works, moved 500 miles from the life I had known. To this day I will say it was my saving grace.
 
We chose Louisville because it was our way station during our first years together, he was from West Virgina and we had met online, yes sounds weird but it's true. We met in 1998 and have been married now for almost 5 years. When we moved here we only had each other, my cat and my family dog who we brought with us due to my mother's illness. It was very very hard at first, but we made new friends and devoted ourselves to our pets.
 
I now work as an office manager for 2 pshychologist's, a big change from retail! But I love it.
 
Dawn
 
 

I'm only 23, so I don't have much life to talk about. Always been big on animals, most especially wild animals. I got my dog Penny when I was 13 after about a year of begging, tearful grovelling and earnest promises.

I moved interstate to go to university and did a degree in science majoring in ecology and evolution, read, animal behaviour. I flourished in the academic environment and although I was quiet and never did all the volunteer work or butt kissing they tell you to do, doors opened for me nonetheless just through being a good student and a good writer. The science world is sadly low on good writers. I guess they all do science journalism. Anyway, I scored a special topics unit, which is a one-on-one deal with a lecturer that they normally only give to the best students. I wasn't the best, but I got through with sheer begging. That got me sent up north into the Australian tropics for a couple of months to do field work on fiddler crabs and coucals. That opened more doors and got me a job with a lecturer until I started my honours project mid-year. Honours is kind of like a masters, but shorter. I did my honours project on cuckoos and got a very nice paper published out of it. I did another season of field work for my honours supervisor on birds and was just getting ready to move in with my boyfriend back in Sydney when he got shipped overseas for 12 months. My PhD plans also fell through, so I went over to join my boyfriend in the US and while I was there, I did some field work for a guy at UCLA on Mexican jays, later coming back to LA and helping him out in the lab.

Which brings me to now. Still not getting anywhere landing a PhD scholarship, but I've decided I don't want to do it right now anyway. I'm very tired of being poor and the sad thing about research is that there's not a lot of money in it until you get a lectureship. And I don't want to lecture. At least, there's not a lot of money in animal behaviour. I've decided that if I do a PhD it will be on applied animal behaviour involving domestic/captive animals so that I can get work outside of academia. For now, I'm trying to get work as a consultant or lab technician. Everyone pray for that environmental consulting job I'm going for!

Everyone pray for that environmental consulting job I'm going for!

 
Good luck. And I swear to anything you deem holy, when I was reading your post, it was with your accent. That is, I read to myself, silently, in my head, and it sounded Australian. Somehow, it seeped through the net.

removing  threads about my deceased granddaughter due to a pm I received.

Life? What is that? I have never heard of this 'life' you talk about.
Ok, I'm only 17. I am in my senior year in highschool. Maggie is my first dog except for a foster we had for a week. I had a cat from the time I was 1 to 8. When I turned 10 I got a tortoise, which I still have. I have always loved animals, but my parents arn't to crazy about them. I take horseback riding, and I want to have horses when I am older.
Thats about it for me.

My Father always had a dog with us in the family when we were kids and instilled in(2 of us at least)respect for animals.We would get into trouble if we pulled a tail,or an ear,though our pups were always very understanding of us little humans.

  I honestly do not think that there has been more than a 2 or 3 year period in my life where i did not have a dog companion.

  As a teenager,who lost his Father early(he was 52)to cancer,i devoted alot of time to training my dog,and alot of the training was off the cuff stuff that I came up with on my own.As a kid,i realized the more time i sdpent with my dogs,the closer the bond between us.I used to get comments from neighbors and my brothers and sisters friends how my dogs would stick by me and always seemd to follow me around..lol

  When i made it into my 20's I started reading various dog books about my breed(Golden Retriever)and training methods.These particular Retreivers were so easily trained that i needed new challenges for all 3 of us,and that is when i trained them for duck hunting.I had a marshy stream area out back,and could access it about 3 miles down the road with our canoe..These are some of my fondest memories of these guys.

  There was a 2 year period after my goldens passed away,that i didnt have a pup in my life,and didnt do anything dog related.

 Then came Kiara,my husky.As a kid i had had a husky before,and knew the high energy levels they have.I went back into a full time regimant of play,excersize and training and the bonding was almost instant.I have bought some descent books on huskies and training,but that was shortly before i found this place.

 

Ok, here is a bit about me... I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and ever since I can remember I loved animals.  I was especially dog and horse crazy. When I was about 13, my dad got me my first horse.  I showed almost every weekend for a couple of years, it was a blast.  When it came time for me to go to high school, I decided I wanted to go to a school where I could ride all the time.  I ended up migrating to the east coast for boarding school.  I stayed on the east coast for college as well and here I am to this day (much to my parents dismay!)[].   I have no formal animal education, although I did originally want to be a vet, but my college age brain couldn't handle being in a lab for 3 hours a day, I much preferred to partake in a healthy college social life.[]  After college, I got MY first dog (as opposed to family dogs we had through the years).  He was a Dalmatian, Reese.  He was a wonderful dog, but very high energy.  I decided it would be fun to take obedience classes with him, well after taking some classes, I wanted to do more.  My obedience instructor got me in touch with an agility instructor as well as sponsored me into a local AKC all-breed club. That was about 9 years ago.  Reese has since passed away and I have Dasher (JRT), as well as Lille (my BF's dog).  So I guess, while I have loved dogs my whole life, I never really got serious in terms of training until about 9 years ago.   I was fairly addicted to some horse message boards, so one day I decided to find out if there were similar boards for dog people...voila...I found I-dog!!

ORIGINAL: ron2

Good luck. And I swear to anything you deem holy, when I was reading your post, it was with your accent. That is, I read to myself, silently, in my head, and it sounded Australian. Somehow, it seeped through the net.

Thanks Ron! When I got back from America, I could not believe how outlandish Australian accents sound. I was listening to the news thinking, no way do I sound that exotic. [] It was truly bizarre.

Part of it is how you phrase things. I bet you still say "ruggin' up for winter."

Before I-Dog, I was a regular on Acme Pet which was a good 9 years ago. Around the same time, I also discovered I-Dog and have been posting on it for that long. I'm 31 and my experience with animals comes from LOTS of reading. I scared the teachers at my grammar school because I'd rather spend my lunch eating and reading instead of socializing with other kids. My favorite place was the library. I wasn't allowed to have many pets when my parents were married but once they divorced my mom let me get a rabbit. From there it escalated to more rabbits, birds, hamsters, ferrets and to critters I caught such as turtles, frogs, toads and fish. Before I got a pet, I would read up on it and after I got a pet, I'd still read and learn about them. I'm like that to this day. When I was older, I volunteered at local shelters in my area and unfortunately, I had to stop that because I got seriously burned out. That can happen when you hold animals while they're being euth'd due to a lack of homes and a lack of responsibility. I got into owning dogs when we moved into a house and felt a house isn't a home unless there's a dog(or 3 []) in it. We got Shiloh and three years later we got Souffle and five years later I have Shelby. I have done a lot of research, have spoken to a lot of people and now I feel I am ready to acquire a show prospect so I can show and eventually breed as I want to do my part to preserve the breed I have come to love immensely. []

I've loved animals, especially dogs, since I was very young, and decided when I was about 13 or 14 that I wanted to be an animal behaviourist. I worked in a couple of kennels/catteries and started uni in 2001. Because my local university didn't have any specific animal behaviour courses, I ended up doing a BSc., majorring in Zoology/Psychology. I finished my Honours year last year in Psychology (focussing mainly on experimental behaviour analysis and animal behaviour/cognition), and am now in the first year of my PhD.
 
I'm not entirely sure where I want to go from here; at the moment it appears I am being railroaded into academia (the lure of scholarships is hard to resist), but i-dog has definitely reminded me what I am really passionate about!

Resist the academia lure! Until about 4 months ago I was still totally enamoured with academia, but I soon realised that it wasn't going to be very compatible a) with my boyfriend, who's in the film industry and tied to big cities, b) my pets, whom I don't want to uproot, and c) my bank account! My supervisor was rolling in 1.2 million dollars to study fairy-wren behaviour, which was a sweet deal, but I know someone else whose lab was trying to cure human disease and they barely had enough money to keep the research ticking over. It can be very depressing.

However, if you don't mind selling your soul to a university, working loooong days and having no money or research freedom, then by all means, jump on the academia bandwagon. [] But then, maybe it's better over there. There is no money in research over here. Unless you're my supervisor and can secure ridiculous grants with a total wank-fest of a grant proposal (his words, not mine). I guess if I didn't have a boyfriend quite entrenched in his own career, I'd still be heading down the academia path. I didn't care about money or time before. [:'(]

What's your PhD on?