Obedience Class Week 2 - First night with Dogs

Well, Chester’s first Obedience class went well all things considered. He immediately started freaking out and barking when we walked in. This got us a few dirty looks from the other pet parents. Uhhh… this is Obedience 1 right?!? The instructor was nice though and sprayed him with a water bottle and said “enough.” This would work for a few seconds, and then he would start up again. He figured out that if he hid behind me and barked he wouldn’t get sprayed. Oh Chester.

Once class started, Adam was the handler while I sat on the sidelines. Everyone was in a nice big circle. Chester of course wouldn’t cooperate, instead trying to bark at all the other dogs. I think he was scared of all the large dogs. There were a few other “troublemakers” barking so of course that got him all riled up too. I could tell Adam was getting frustrated because Chester wouldn’t do any of the things we had worked on at home. Like looking at our eyes when we said his name, or sitting right next to our left knee. Then it was time to work on loose leash walking in a circle. Of course Chester was lunging and diving all over the place while barking frantically. I offered to take over and Adam was quite fine with that.

Since a few of the dogs were having problems with the presence of all the other dogs, she had groups of four sit in the middle of the circle while the other dogs walked around them. Guess who was in the first “problem” group. Us! It actually worked really well and seemed to calm Chester down for the most part. Throughout the class we had to sit off to the side a few different times because he would start limping during the loose leash walking. We still don’t know what’s going on with his back right leg. I feel so bad for the little guy. The vet last week said it was fine to take him to class though.

Once he had calmed down a bit, he did really well with sit, and down. We started working on stay and he actually did really well with that as well. He’s usually pretty bad at it at home – he’s always like “but I just want to be by you!”

So, minus a few melt downs, Obedience went pretty well. Hopefully he’ll continue to improve on being comfortable around big dogs and being able to focus with so many people and dogs around.

Collar Follow-up:

We had a collar on him, but ended up using his harness because it just wasn’t going to stay on him with all his lunging attempts. His neck is basically the width of his head, so no matter how tight it is, it comes off. He looks pretty silly in it too because all his fur sticks out strangely. The instructor never said anything about it either.

We’ve had a busy week- I was at work late Monday night for a Focus Group, Tuesday we had a digital SLR camera class, and tonight we had Obedience. I guess I just need to get used to being busy again with summer coming up!