Christopher Nemitz
How was my life affected through social media while working
in rural Georgia over the last 4 months?
Let’s start from the beginning for those that have just
tuned in and are about to follow along. On January 1st 2015 I
started my journey that would take me all over the state of Georgia and even
around all of north Florida and all the way down to Lake Okeechobee. I was
working as an assistant trainer/bird technician for a large retriever hunt test
and field trial training kennel that is located out of Monticello Minnesota.
My journey actually began in November of 2013 when I saw an
ad on RetrieverTraining.net when Hidden Acres Retrievers was looking to add an
assistant trainer to their program. I responded to the ad and was offered a job
training young dogs in obedience and beginner retriever work. When the time
came to travel down to Georgia for the first winter trip I was gung-ho and set
out on the open road ready to train some dogs. However, this ambition was short
lived. When I arrived in Georgia I didn’t pull into a typical plantation style
setting with peach trees and pecan orchards all over the place. Instead I
pulled in to southwest Georgia and all there was, was picked cotton fields as
far as you could see. The first week started off horribly. It rained, and
rained, and rained some more. The weather was cold, we didn’t get much training
done, and I was living out of a cheap motel. Quite the culture shock for
someone who had only been south of the Mason Dixon Line once before in his life
and that was to go to Disney World. Needless to say, I didn’t last long. After
two weeks I pulled up camp and went back home. That was my first go ‘round at
training dogs.
Let’s fast forward to June of 2014. I was working as a
groundskeeper at the local golf course when I got that all so familiar text
message from the head trainer at Hidden Acres. It read “Yo”. I just had to
shake my head and laugh, thinking to myself “what the hell does this guy want?”
So I asked Marc what was going on and he said they were looking for some more
help for the summer and was wondering if I wanted to give the dog thing another
shot. Of course I couldn’t refuse an
offer of getting to go play with dogs every day.
So I gave my two weeks’ notice, packed up my dog and my
belongings and headed to Monticello to train dogs. The summer started off
great, I was getting to train dogs, spend my days outside in the sun and having
a great time. Sure, days were long, and there was the typical grunt work that
had to be done around the kennel to keep it looking nice and keep the training
grounds usable but overall it was a good time. I got to do a lot of training,
and my dog was advanced very quickly in his training and we were able to start
running senior hunter hunt tests. I love the feeling of showing up on weekends
full of that confidence that were are here to take down some tests and collect
ribbons. I loved showing off Kirby’s “swag” and being one of the best dogs week
in and week out. I got to go all around Minnesota running tests and meeting new
people and getting to experience what the dog life was all about. I had no idea
it was as involved as it is before I really got serious into training and found
out about hunt tests and field trials.
As the summer came and went fall rolled around. I was asked
to go on the winter trip starting at the end of October, but with a busy fall
semester and of course hunting season, I pushed back my trip to January 1st.
So I spent my fall doing school work, and hunting… And I mean hunting A LOT! I
hunted probably four days a week. The only thing that would have made my season
better was if I had had Kirby there with me picking up all my ducks and geese I
shot.
Shoot, I almost forgot. I got my new puppy River the last
week of October and was very excited to get started training her! She was a
little pud when I brought her home and was such a ball of fire. She was going
to be my real field trial dog. Her daddy won the 2014 National Amateur
Retriever Championship and hopefully someday she can follow in his footsteps.
As the season changed from fall to winter I was getting the
itch to head south. January couldn’t come soon enough! Finally the time had
arrived! I packed my truck and headed to Monticello to pick up a couple puppies
and supplies from the kennel and I was on my way out of the cold and snowy
weather of the Midwest.
My journey was mostly uneventful, except for a couple days
while traveling through the St. Louis area. I had to pick up a client dog just
on the west side of St. Louis and was then going to get a hotel in the area to
crash for the night before I finished the second leg of my trip the next day.
Upon recommendation from a very nice police officer I was advised I probably
shouldn’t stay overnight in that area of town. He recommended heading downtown
St. Louis where there is a casino and quite a few hotels. The activity keeps it
a pretty safe area of the city. He did warn me not to cross the river though to
the east. That is when you start running into towns such as Ferguson where all
the Michael Brown uproar took place. So, we stopped downtown and I aired dogs
and got them all fed and watered. Finally I got done with them around midnight
and headed up to bed. The next morning I was outside by 6:00 taking care of my
dogs again when all of a sudden animal control arrived and wanted to seize
custody of the four dogs I had with me. Apparently there is a city ordinance
that prohibits leaving a dog inside and unattended vehicle. Now, it wasn’t 90
degrees outside, nor was it below freezing. It was about 50 degrees overnight
and all the dogs were fine. They were left alone for 6 hours at most. I sweet
talked my way out of any tickets or getting the dogs taken from me and was on
my way again.
When I arrived in Georgia, rural, southwest Georgia, it was
dark and very very muddy since they just had a lot of rain. My GPS took me down
a wrong turn and took me in to some back field road that was flooded out and I
almost buried my truck in a swampy area. Luckily I was able to back myself out
and get back to the black top. A little more driving around down dirt roads and
I finally arrived to winter camp in Georgia! Finally!!
I soon came to realize this winter trip would be nothing
close to what working at the main kennel was like in the summer. We worked sun
up, to sun down. Every single day. I was outside every morning by 6:45 by
myself, starting puppy chores. I fed, and cleaned up after puppies alone every
morning. Surprisingly just as I finished up with that the other two trainers
happened to be walking out the door with a hot cup of coffee in each of their
hand. No time for me to head back in for a short break as now it was time to
take care of the big dogs. They aired for about half hour then I was on poop
duty and had to go pick up dog crap for the next 15 minutes. Now it was time to
go have a quick breakfast. Usually consisting of a bagel or some granola.
Around 9:00 the training started. I went and worked 12
puppies, doing obedience training and starting collar conditioning and getting
them to retrieve. It was fun, for about the first 3 or 4 puppies, then it got
to be annoying having puppies with muddy paws jumping all over and scratching
and just being puppies. I couldn’t get mad because they didn’t know any better,
they were, after all, just puppies. Around noon we would finish up our drill
work and head out to the field to run marks with the big dogs. My main job was
to sit out in a chair and throw birds for 26 dogs every single day. No big
deal, I got a good tan, and got to spend a lot of time on my phone texting my
family and trying to keep up with what was happening back home.
After a couple months my phone usage went down and I seemed
to disconnect with reality more and more. I was getting burnt out and all I
wanted to do was go back to bed. It got to the point where I began to just go
through the motions and I quit giving a crap about my job, my dogs, and even my
friends and family back home. I needed a pick me up. So I took a week off and
flew back to Minnesota to see everyone and it was a very much needed break. When
I was home I realized I had no clue what was going on in society. Working
outside, all day, every single day really disconnects someone from reality and
I couldn’t keep up with the news at all. I felt refreshed and was ready for a strong
push to finish off the winter trip.
I got back to Georgia and that feeling of refreshment went
away after the first week. It was go time and training was getting grueling. We
were in the field by 8:00 every morning now throwing marks and really hammering
home concepts on these trial dogs as we were about to run the gauntlet of 6
weeks of trials every single weekend. No breaks, no days off. It was tough. We
started off with three weeks of trials around our winter camp and then packed
up and started the push home.
This is where the fun really started….. NOT. Going through
the mountains in Tennessee and Kentucky with an overloaded F-150 was not a good
idea. I had a large dog topper on my truck and was pulling an 8 hole dog
trailer. The toll of winding roads, steep inclines and declines finally made my
truck crack. As we were going 90 miles per hour down the interstate my front
end started walking and throwing us back and forth on the highway. Luckily we
were able to get stopped on time without a major wreck on our hands. A call to
a tow truck and being lucky enough to find a mobile mechanic that could fix my
truck that same night yet was a God send. The bearings in my front right hub
were shot and the tire was about to fall off my truck. My CV joint busted and
snapped my axel, my ABS sensor burnt up and locked all the brakes up on my
vehicle and they all needed to be replaced. Needless to say, $1,500 in parts
and labor later, we were able to get back on the road. On the bright side, I
guess I now have a whole new front end on my truck. Always have to look at the
good in things, or you’ll never survive. That’s one thing I am taking away from
this whole experience.
The next day we made it to Paducah Kentucky to train. We ran
a nice set up and the dogs did fairly well on it. In our rush to leave I had to
turn around with my truck and this heavy trailer on some wet ground… Yep you
guessed it. Buried. By this point in the trip I wanted to say F it all and drop
the trailer and drive home. However, I stuck it out, we got the truck and
trailer pulled out, and were able to finish off the rest of our trip to
Sedalia, Missouri. From the start of this trip I had not hardly been on my
phone, or did any sorts of accessing the internet or keeping up with any news
or social media. I was pretty much oblivious to the outside world.
We stayed in Sedalia (about an hour east of Kansas City) for
8 days. Ran a trial on the weekend we arrived then stayed to train on some
property all week before heading to Nebraska for the last trial of our winter
trip. About this time the whole Baltimore riots began to heat up and here I
was, sitting in rural Missouri and Nebraska, no idea what was going on.
When I arrived home that’s all I saw on TV and in the
newspapers and all I heard about when people would talk. This is when I
realized how much I had missed while not being active through social media, or
being able to read a newspaper or watch more than a couple minutes of TV every
few days. It was a real shock to me. And in all actuality. I loved it. I loved
not having to hear about how shitty it seems our country is becoming. I loved
not having to see the way human beings were acting like animals with no regards
to anyone’s wellbeing or anything other than their own selfish actions.
While social media kept me in the loop in the beginning of
my trip, I disconnected about halfway through and I’m glad I did. I realize now
that I don’t need all this technology to survive. Or to function in this world.
I liked the simplicity of the lifestyle I got to experience.
I guess I didn’t completely disconnect from all social
media. I did use my phone to take a lot of pictures and those I will share.
Most of them are all dog training related but being able to experience parts of
the southeast that I would have never even thought of going to see was a really
cool experience and probably one only I can say I did.
