Tuckers 1st Obedience Class

Monday night was Tuckers first class (the picture was taken as we left for the class), and as much as he loves to play, I figured he'd get dubbed "Class Clown" right away and not pay attention at all.

He did go nuts every time a new dog came in and wanted to play with them so badly, but they didn't allow much interaction time & I was a little disappointed in that. Tucker, at just turning 2, was the oldest dog in the class. To me that's like asking a group of preschoolers to come into a room and sit down and be quiet without letting them get a few minutes to get the wiggles and initial playtime out of the way so they can sit still. Just my opinion.

The lady running the class, Lorna, is knowledgeable, but ...ummm...odd, and not very friendly at all. She didn't greet (or even acknowledge) the people or dogs when they came in other than to ask the dogs name so she could take attendance. She thinks she's pretty important for running a class like this, you can just tell by the way she looked down her glasses at us and strutted around. I kept wondering if this was puppy obedience or boot camp. And she talks so loud and authoritative that Tucker and one other dog were a little afraid of her....and so was I! Plus, she scolded me!

Lorna said that if your dog won't behave, this is what she does...she takes ahold of their jowls, gets almost nose to nose with her dog, and then she gave this semi-loud lion roar (more like saying "raw") and the roar lasted a good 5-10 seconds. Her poor dogs eyes were the size of grapefruits!

I stood there thinking "You have GOT to be kidding me!" This other lady Sandra & I looked at each other like "there is no way I'm doing that". Sandra asked "So what do you do when you're out in public...you know, around other people who will think you've lost your mind?" I snickered. Lorna turned and gave me a "look". Lorna said "I don't care if people think that. I'm teaching my dog to behave."

oookkkkk.....but I'm not roaring in my dogs face. Especially since my mouth is almost bigger than Tuckers head, and knowing him he'd lean forward and stick his head IN my mouth anyway to see if there was any food or treats in there.

Lorna told us to pull out our treats. I felt my pockets....panic set in. "CRAP. Um, excuse me. I seem to have forgotten my treats at home. I'm really sorry." She let out a big sigh and said "People we MUST remember our treats each week. My fridge isn't a vending machine." I was like "omg I feel like I need to be sent to the corner!" Sandra giggled and shook her finger at me.

Linda brought me a piece of string cheese to use, which Tucker has never had, and wasn't too thrilled with, but it worked.

On the upside, Tucker did awesome! Yes, he got distracted by some of the chaos, but anytime I'd say "Tucker, watch me" he'd look up at me and sit down. He did great picking up the different things we worked on, like sit & stay (for a 5 count). He did great on it all except for "heel" and that's becaues there was a Golden Retriever pup following us and Tucker really wanted to stop, let him catch up and then play with him. LOL

We have to miss next week because my son has a school concert (Linda gave me another sigh when I told her that LOL). I have the information on what they will be working on and she showed me them quickly, so I'll start teaching those to Tucker when the class would have covered those.

The downside to it all was I think the excitement, newness, and the cheese got to Tucker, because we barely went a few blocks into our drive home and puked in the car. He looked up at me as if to say he was sorry. I looked at him and said "Go ahead Lorna, let's see you roar in his face now."