Journey
Notwithstanding my first day at puppy class, I went on to graduate with honors and was named the most improved dog in the class. Duh! Did anyone start out with a greater deficit?
I excelled in the puppy socialization class – an hour long free for all of puppies learning to play nicely together. Initially there was a mix of dogs, primarily herding breeds like me, three or four retrievers, and the occasional Doodle and Irish Wolfhound. The latter had no clue how to play with normal dogs and usually dropped out after a few sessions.
The herding dogs instinctively understood the rules of the game. Bump and run, jump over obstacles and each other, make impossibly tight turns to avoid crashing into people. The retrievers were stubborn and boring. Grab a sock, have a scrum, push and pull. Absolutely no originality to their games.
After a few months the people with herding dogs voted the retrievers off the island or at least out of the class. Once the class consisted entirely of herding dogs, life in the playfield was glorious. We played catch me if you can, don’t look just jump, and chicken – which is just what it sounds like. The winner of chicken is the dog who runs straight at a fixed object and turns just before impact.
Puppy play class was fun for everyone. The people stood around and talked. Some nice friendships were formed and the puppies went home exhausted and slept for a few hours giving their owners a brief period of peace and quiet.
The other classes were more rigorous, but never really a challenge except for the boredom factor. Sit and stay, come when called, pay attention, walk nicely on a leash. I mastered them all quickly with just one slight problem – I really wasn’t interested in the subject matter.
There was one subject I really enjoyed – find your person. I liked it because it involved movement. I loved it when Mom hid from me and I was supposed to run to her when she called. Of course I could hear her voice and knew exactly where she was. But instead of running to the sound of her voice, I put my nose to the ground and traced her steps.
The first time I did this I heard the trainer say, “Journey just tracked her owner step by step.”
What surprised me is that he thought this was a big deal. Really, people. It’s what dogs do and I have one heck of a sniffer. More about that later, but suffice it to say I was the star when it came to hide and seek.
After mastering the basic subject matter I was ready to call it quits. Nope! Apparently Mom had other plans, which in the end went awry but not before we had a lot of fun together. I’ll tell more soon about the rigorous advanced training I had to endure and how in the end I got my way.
Journey