School Daze

July 7, 2009 -

After a recent bout of destruction in our house, I made the decision to sign Bruno up for training at PetSmart. When I first got him, about a dozen people asked if I’d be taking him through training, and I would kind of nod and smile, while thinking in my head that I was wayyy too lazy to give up my precious free time.

However, as Bruno has grown, so has his energy level. Exponentially. He is a wonderful pup but absolutely insane with energy. I don’t want to curb that puppy personality; I simply want him to learn that I am the boss, and that my shoes are not made of rawhide.

I keep reminding myself that it’s only an hour a week, and in reality, my minimum expectation is just to teach him to come when called. He’ll sit, stay, shake, lie down and speak on command, but even with treat in-hand, I guess I’m more fun to play tag with then to obediently approach.

We had our first class last weekend, and although Bruno was the only one of six students to cry throughout the entire hour, I enjoyed myself. The instructor was animated and bless her heart; she didn’t scorn my puppy for his incessant whining and yipping.

We learned how to get our dogs to focus on us with the hand signal and words “watch me,” which Bruno picked up immediately. I’ve been working with him at home and it seems to have stuck. Success!

I’ll try to keep updating on our paw-gress and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed about our odds of graduating. Does anyone else have entertaining stories from training classes?