Puppy School, week 2


It rained off and on yesterday just to mock me. It finally made up its mind to stop, and after a rain out last week, we proceeded.

We had a new puppy in class. A pit bull mix. Emphasis on the pit bull part. A real little hellion. I mean people can say what they will about Dogger – at least she doesn’t bite to draw blood and if she does bite it isn’t just because I asked her to sit and the only person she has really put her teeth on is me. The Pitts’ carrying on did get the other dogs attention. The Shepard was all You know, if you want me to, I’ll go tear out that impudent curs throat, I will, two hits, I hit it and it hits the ground. Over. Give me the word and Cujo is part of the pavement, Dogger thought Cujo was having a really good time, Ooo! Can I play! That doggy is dancing the Dance of The Crossing of The Intersection! What moves she has! Lets go play!!! snarling? barking? wait. I can go step on him, okay? the other puppy was just hoping the big dogs didn’t take him out as a warm up.

Today Dogger showed that while she can and will do what she is supposed to, she prefers to not do it for an audience. For the trainer she would sit, but it was sloppy and with bad posture. I didn’t even know she had bad posture. I go tug, tug, tug on the leash and she sits down. I come to a halt, she sits down. For the trainer? Phhht. She did do it, and well, but not in the neat and tidy way she does it for me. My dog at least didn’t bite anyone.

I was again impressed by the Shepard. You can tell that the dog knows that in whatever group of dogs she may be in, that she is the dominate dog. She just is. The other dogs all kind of messed around and play fought with each other, as much as they could on leashes, but they didn’t mess with her. They knew. I’ve really enjoyed getting to pet her and visit. The German Shepard’s I’ve ever been around have all been either police dogs or hardcore guard dogs and neither of those two populations are really all about having people pet their noses and talk baby talk to them. This dog is all ready far and away the star pupil of the class. Dogger is still teachers pet though. Not as smart, but twice as much of a brown noser.

Last time class met we worked on the tug, tug sit thing. This week we did that and added heeling. This is going to be tough for me, I’m going to have to pay attention. He did say we should just be doing it in our drive ways this week, Dogger and I can do that we can do right turns. A lot of right turns. I’ve gotten really lazy with our walks. Both in the taking and the training. She’s been a bitch about the leash climbing too, so we’ve switched back to her short leash. It sucks to walk her with it. I can’t believe that I did for so long. The 6 foot leash rocks.

Heeling is also not the command that I thought it was. I’ve used “heel” with her, not that it works. It’s just yanking on her leash and having her briefly, pull less. She’s a lot better then she used to be with that, “pulling” when she was younger was more “tearing my arm out of socket” and “dislocating my shoulder”. The pinch collar was a God send. But now, ha, ha, but now, she is really used to being pinched. She doesn’t care. So what should be a behavior modifying experience is just pinches her instead of modifying her. Heeling is really getting her to walk beside me on a lose leash and doing it all the time. All. The. Time. We’re going to have to work on that.

Damned if I do, Damaged if I don’t.