A note of appreciation from Tessa and Abby
I am a firm fan of Wiemaraners. Abby, who is my second Weimie, got her name from the Hebrew name, Abigail – meaning source of deep joy.) We started training at eight weeks and had a lot of fun with Breggie Lewis doing Clicker Training culminating in the Kusa Canine Good Citizen when she was about one year old.
Breggie relocated to the coast and left an enormous gap. It was difficult to find the “right” school! We tried a few and settled for one where Abby loved the social life – but we both stagnated a little. Then I saw an advert for the German Shepherd Dog Club, contacted Tania and we were placed in Mariaan’s class. It felt right from the very first day! Here was a club where we could both improve our skill and learn new achievements – at the half about turn/left/right turn, send away and even the dumbbell, which Mariaan is extremely confident that Abby will ultimately take to!
I have always loved the following quote from an unknown source:
“He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog.
You are his life, his love, his leader.
He will be yours, faithful and true,
To the last beat of his heart.
You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.”
My experience of Mariaan’s class is that she engenders the feelings expressed above with her unique combination of firmness and kindness. She runs a well structured class and has an endearing humility which leaves her wise to the ways of dogs and open to suggestions. Her love and enjoyment of dogs is very evident in her encouragement and affirmation as well as her consistent reminder (which comes like clockwork) at the end of an exercise to “Praise your dog!”
I would like to take this opportunity to praise Mariaan and say “Thank you” from both Abby and myself!
Tessa and Abby