Second Day of School

I had planned on getting to class early to give Parker a chance to sniff and chill. I hadn’t counted on making every single light, so we were half an hour early instead of fifteen minutes. That was way too much. He did well and was happy, but he started to shut down about fifteen minutes before class was over. Of course, that was when the ‘down’ was started, so there might have been some cause and effect going on.

We started out on the mats, just walking around and around. I had a little bag of smelly treats fastened to my belt which brought his nose right up to where I wanted it and kept him from forging ahead. Mike’s daily walks are paying off, as well, as Parker is now used to a loose leash.

Once everyone got there (minus the two Standard Poodles and with the addition of a young black Labrador who seems well trained already -- her owner was doing off leash recalls while the rest of the class was gathering), we reviewed the ‘sit,’ which mostly everyone seemed to have down. Once again, the teacher wanted us to place the dog into a sit, with hands on, but I happily ignored that. Parker sits without it. Then we started real heel work. With the dog sitting properly, take off on the left foot. As often happens in classes -- not sure why -- most folks do this at a snail’s pace. So Parker and I either went on the outside of the ring of dogs, or the inside. Problem with that was it brought Parker in proximity to the other dogs, which distracted him from me. But mostly, with a smelly treat right in front of his nose, he kept close to me. Only real problem was when we stopped. He steps back with his sit, and sits really, really, crooked. So we’ll some hallway heeling this week where there’s less room for that kind of thing.

We did a minimum of ‘stay’ -- hand in front of the dog, outside leg around to the front, short count, back to the dog’s side. I learned to use my left hand to signal the stay -- the instructor said to use the right. So I got kind of confused.

All of this went well. The third of the three teachers was there today and she asked me, while we were heeling, if I had other dogs at home because I ‘really seemed to know what I was doing.’ Naturally, it was at this point that I dropped the treats I was holding and Parker put the brakes on to vacuum them up.

And then we started the down. We were first supposed to lure from the sit. Parker did one down. One. Then we were supposed to lure from the stand. Parker sat. And sat, and sat, and sat. And turned his head around to ignore me. So we did some sits to make him happy again and heeled in tight little circles while everyone else did what they were supposed to do.

Sigh.