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July 24, 2007
Canine Kindergarten a.k.a. Puppy School
Today was the first day of school for Trixie, my puppy. Currently she is passed out on the floor, exhausted. She had a busy first day... Lots of new puppy friends, people, sights, and scents.
I enrolled her in the puppy training class at Petsmart because what dog couldn't use a little training? Trixie needs her fair share since 1) she's a puppy and 2) she was abandoned at only a few weeks of age and therefore has some psychological aversions to overcome. I've helped to train the family dogs before, so I know a little of what I'm doing, but Trixie is a different case altogether. When I was working with her on my own I realized that certain words or movements I made scared her, made her stress-pee, or made her run and hide. That's when I knew I needed to get help to train her... because I refuse to have a dog that is scared of me or just won't listen.
If there's a chatterbox in the class, it's Trixie. She barks at other dogs, especially if she wants to play with them. Since there were at least eight other dogs in the class and countless others roaming the store as their owners shopped, Trixie was fairly exceedingly excited. She squirmed when I held her, wouldn't sit still, and had a tough time paying attention to me at all. I imagine this is what it's like taking a child to kindergarten on the first day (except that I didn't actually leave, which would've invited the pant-leg tugging tearfest that's synonymous with kindergarten).
There were a variety of puppies in the class--Trixie was about in the middle of the size range, which was odd since she's on the large side for a puppy. But the outlier that threw off the average size was the Great Dane that showed up. He was 4 months old and ENORMOUS. I never met a Great Dane in real life before, but wow. The biggest dog I've met to this point was a St. Bernard, and that was big... but this was HUGE. The rest of the dogs were either only slightly larger or smaller than Trixie.
The trainer broke the class into two since it was so large, but the new time works better for me anyway. Also, I think this will make life easier since there will be fewer distractions in the class... The things we're learning require the dog to ignore distraction (which Trixie definitely needs help with) but when there are that many other dogs trying to learn the same thing it was a little rough.
I'm really looking forward to what the class will bring. I've already met some cool people. One dog was particularly nice with Trix, so I got to talking with the owners. I asked for their names and the lady said her name was Carissa. At first I think my brain had a cramp because I thought, "How does she know my name?" and in a millisecond I concluded that I never announced my name, that she must share my name, and said, "No way!" (If it wasn't obvious, I am not at all used to meeting people who share my name--this is the second one in my lifetime.) It was awesome, though, because I said my name is with a "K" and she said that she used to spell it that way when she was little because she thought it was prettier... Haha, wow, that was weird.
So far I'm glad Trixie is going to school. I'm going to do my best to make sure she does her homework by practicing commands with her. It's an eight week course, so I'm sure I'll have fun updates to post... Here's hoping we earn a degree. :)
Posted by KarissaKilgore at July 24, 2007 10:10 PM
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