Meet Frieda. We adopted Frieda in the mid 1970s, when I was in Junior High School. Her name means "Peace" in German. Some friends of ours adopted her brother, and named him Pax ("Peace" in Latin) .
Padre and I attended free dog training classes that same year, and we really did try to be consistent. Unfortunately, other things in the house started falling apart. Everyone in the family had troubles. Padre would lose his job in a couple of years; I was going through typical teen-age hormone stuff. Part of which was complicated by discovering my step-mother after she had attempted suicide, a story I have told in more detail before.
Plus, I was going through my teen-age rebellion, and my step-mother was the unfortunate focus of that rebellion.
The family was relatively neurotic, in other words, and Frieda picked up the neurosis. She was rather wild.
This picture was taken the summer before I went to college. I was working the graveyard shift at U-Totem, and had little to do with my afternoons. So, I decided to earnestly work with our wild child, applying what I could recall of the dog training I had attended a few years before.
She took to it like a charm. We would walk about half a mile every day, to a local park. I eventually trained her to heal, sit, and stay. Above, we see her in a very proper sit.
I've always thought Shepherds were attractive dogs. I'd like to believe I could train one today, and have been tempted to add a German Shepherd to the family.
Two things prevent me: my inner miser, and DJ's likely jealousy.If you miss the obsessive weekly picture of Ms Julian, fear not. Images will be posted in Flickr later today.
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