Goodbye, Cantor
Cantor vom Wenner Haus at Celhaus PTN, PTA, PTS, PTM, PTE, SI, AE, NC, ATD, THDN, CGC, NAC
3/24/16 – 7/15/24
Sire of the NN & SS litters from GloryToo, the OO & VV litters from Hesed, the PP litter from Spirit, the RR, TT, WW & YY litters from Lovely; and the QQ & UU litters from Mercy. He also sired a litter for Von Blumental German Shepherds in Belgrade, MT.
He is the grandsire of the XX litter from Lovely.
8/25/24: We have been sad these last several weeks. I am just now able to write this. I had to put Cantor down on July 15th. After I got so sick from a mega stomach virus on May 30th, not eating for 8 days, I was left very weak. I didn’t get back to full strength until the end of July. That seemed to trigger Cantor’s old body-slamming habit. Also in July, Lovely got a soft-tissue injury and we put her on Vetprofen. Cantor seemed to be reacting to the pain meds that she, Spirit and I are on (Spirit has been on them for several years for her arthritis, but it never bothered Cantor before). He began attacking their crates when they were in them, to the point that I had to cover both crates and even put an ex-pen around Lovely’s to keep him away.
A lot of my grief is from a sense of failure. Nearly 8 years of training, behavior modification and never giving in when he tested the house rules (which was frequently), didn’t help him break away from the puppy experiences that taught he disrespect for humans and that if he wanted something, he could bowl over the humans until he got it. I can see in his puppies, who are fantastic (especially the ones from Lovely!) what he could have been like had I gotten him as an eight-week-old puppy and he hadn’t learned those bad attitudes. But I’m consoled that now he is running fast and chasing the ball in doggie heaven and has no more issues with getting along with anyone.
I have told his story to every puppy buyer to impress upon them the necessity of setting boundaries from the first day the pup enters their homes. I also developed a series of mailings that go to the owners every 2 weeks until the pup is 3 months old; then every 2 months until the pup is six months old; every three months old until it’s a year old and every 6 months until it’s 2 years old. Each mailing has sections on puppy development – its needs and challenges for that particular age, what problems occur during that time if the owner isn’t doing their homework, commands to teach during that period and an emphasis on the owner’s tasks to mold that puppy during that time into a noble, confident and mannerly German Shepherd. Much of those handouts came from my documenting of everything I did trying to redeem Cantor and encourage him to grow up to be the dog he could be.
If you do not know Cantor’s story, here it is:
When Faith’s hip prelims knocked her out as a breeding prospect, her breeder offered a replacement. Melissa’s next litter was a year away, but she had a male from that year’s litter who had been too busy for his previous home. I had already begun thinking that I’d need to soon start searching for a male who could be bred to my Quasi daughters who were also Chaos granddaughters (Mercy & Lovely). Cantor was out of Faith’s mother, Linea, and sired by the dog who sired of Valentine, a male I had whom I really liked but who had an elbow problem. I surgically fixed the elbows and placed him in a Search & Rescue home and he is still doing fantastic. Valentine (now known as Laser) had showed incredible promise and focus from a puppy in nose work classes, with a natural and intense use of his nose, so it was a heartbreaker to lose him just as it was to lose Faith. I decided to give those genetics one more try, and told Melissa, his breeder (www.vomwennerhaus.com), that I’d take Cantor. Since he was by then too large to fly him here from Minnesota, she offered to drive him out. She and a friend delivered him and then headed to Yellowstone Park, making the trip a vacation and a chance to see the mountains for the first time.
Cantor was 23 weeks old when I got him. He had gone to his first home at 8 weeks, and to a second home at nearly 4 months. In both homes he was just too busy and intense. Sometimes working-line puppies can be real handfuls and prove far too much dog for people who thought they wanted one.
He had been too busy and obnoxious in two homes already; we figured because neither home was prepared for a high-drive working-line dog. He developed bad frustration barking (to relieve stress) from those first two homes. The biggest problem is that, unfortunately, he didn’t develop any impulse control as a baby (learning to not go with any drive that is aroused but to stifle them when inappropriate). Nor did praise make any difference to him – and I chose every possible thing to praise him for, any sign of manners or period of quiet and calm. He was also like a bull in a China closet and body-slammed all of us all the time. He herded the girls around and tried it on me for quite a while before giving up. I didn’t want to give up on him, though, because when he was by himself or when all was quiet in the house, he was fantastic. He learned fast and enjoyed learning once he gave a value to praise. I put him in every class I could. He did very well at shaping class and at nosework classes, and he LOVED agility. He also was super when visiting the nursing homes or hanging out with me when I took him to meetings.
Once he began to understand that he COULD choose to stop barking, I worked hard to reward every attempt. I knew it would take a long time, especially since his hormones had kicked in so he was also going to have normal idiotic (mindless) teenage behavior. Just think of a teenage boy whose parents set no limits and enacted no consequences but allowed him to be a whiny, spoiled, manipulative baby and boy, and you’ll have an idea what I was dealing with. I wished I could take Mark Twain’s advice for a troublesome teenage boy: seal him in a whiskey barrel and not let him out until he was 20.
It’s really too bad that he didn’t go to a working person as the only dog the first time. I had to try to erase the default behaviors, fueled by frustration, that he developed. It was a terrible age, too – once the hormones kick in, the pups test you even if you’ve laid a good foundation – and trying to fix a bad foundation with hormones raging is a real pain.
It was 6 months before Cantor began asking for pets and began snuggling when I sat on the bed, reading, in the evenings. SIX months before he began valuing a relationship with his human!
From that age on, he would have times when he was fantastic to live with, and times he reverted to the obnoxious default behaviors. He never got over his early formation, but we enjoyed his happy times and I enforced the boundaries when he challenged them, and me. It was only during these past few months that his behavior problems escalated to the point that I began fearing he would knock me down and, perhaps, cause me to break a hip or something else, which at my age I just can’t risk. Plus, I refused to have my older girls harassed. They deserve a better life than being assaulted every time Cantor was out. I conferred with his breeder, and we decided, sadly, that we had no other alternative than to put him down.
At least Cantor lives on in his three daughters whom I kept (Hopeful, Varoom! and Pascha), and in his pups who are serving as Search & Rescue dogs, service dogs or therapy dogs; who are personal protection dogs or Schutzhund competitors; who are competing in herding, obedience, agility – and who are faithful companions to their families.
Goodbye, Cantor. I look forward to meeting you in heaven when we can enjoy the relationship we should have been able to have in this world, but couldn’t.