Biscuit and I are on our second go-round with Puppy School. Our first attempt was in West L.A. on Saturday mornings. The trainer taught with a large hat and sunglasses on. I have NO IDEA what she looked like. Puppy school seems to fall into one of several broad approaches:
Pet store puppy school. It costs a little more and is marked by a inevitable certificate.
People based puppy school. My friend Naomi did this one. Mostly they listened to lectures about dogs and dog behavior.
Obedience based puppy school. These are taught by AKC obedience clubs and are geared toward both good dog behavior and toward getting the smarter, more able purebreds into competition.
Both of my puppy school attempts with Biscuit have been of the obedience school variety. Big hat teacher was ok for a while. Then she had us "groom" our dogs. Since Biscuit thinks having her ears cleaned is tantamount to canicide, I went to get some toilet paper and proceeded to try and clean her ears. She began, as usual to go berserk. (Honey describes the ear cleaning process as like watching me "wrestle a wild mustang.") After several exhausting minutes wherein Big Hat went around and praised people for having calm dogs, she finally made her way over to me and said, "get her under control." I asked how to do so. And she said, "just get her on the ground." I had a couple of more classes coming and even tried to go on thanksgiving Saturday (when no one was there).
Since I live in the Valley, I thought I'd give it another shot with the Valley club. They seemed more flexible and were a lot closer. One of the notable things about the valley version is that one of the trainers was featured on Showdog Moms and Dads on Bravo last year. Sometimes I see her practicing with her dogs. They're impeccably trained Australian shepherds who walk next to her, off leash, within inches of her leg and stare at her face the whole time.
Biscuit, thanks to these twelve+ weeks of training can sit and lie down. Sometimes she heels. Usually that's because I have a piece of cheese between her face and mine. Mostly she pulls.
I asked the trainer last week what to do after our appointed six visits were up. Take the class again, he said. And he tried to up the ante on me by having Biscuit sit more. My cheese bills are bound to go up.
As for how well this translates into good home behavior, she's started eating anything she can dog out of the litter box. She's actually a clever dog. She grabbed and started shredding a napkin last night. Once I extracted it from her, she shot across the room and licked the pop tart I had been eating. It seemed very calculated, truth be told.
She's a sweet dog, but I sometimes worry if the puppy school affect (negligible) is at all similar to the affect of my efforts in IHE. At least I never wore a big hat while teaching.
9 comments:
Perhaps if you had worn a big hat, though, all of your incorrigible students would have re-upped. Either that, or you would have successfully trained them to train each other to fetch your slippers. As far as Biscuit goes, I don't know what to tellya. She's clearly been scorned at some point, because she's a fury.
At least you know you've really tried. We have no excuse for our pup's behavior. No excuse. Though sometimes blaming my mom is convenient.
Ah, but if you haven't tried, you can console yourself with the idea that your dog might've been good if you had. Or something. I think we should blame Sporks' mom; she's never met Biscuit, but still…
S & S: I'm totally up for blaming either my mom or either of yours for Biscuit.
Bry: Just days ago you were all sensitivie when I merely suggested that I didn't want squirrels to deny birds food. Now you're going all mythological on my dog? Double standard? Yes, yes I think so.
Hey, I'm not saying Biscuit's a bad dog at all; I was simply referring to her amount of energy. Simply a statement of observation, no judgement involved! She is a very active pup, you know . . . Of course, squirrels are all nice and furry tailed and cute, though . . .
B--She's nuts, no question. But if'n I were to keep a squirrel as a pet, things wouldn't be a bit calmer around chezhon
True enough! I'm thinking the litter box would be raid-safe, though . . .
I think what they failed to teach you was that you don't own/aren't "companion to" the dog; the dog owns you. At least that's how it is around here with Bunny Boo-Bear aka the off-White Rabbit. He knows a good gig when he has one.
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