Sit !!

On Monday evening (ie yesterday), we went to our first puppy training class.

I was prepared for an hour of humiliation, and it must be said that apart from another Labrador puppy that was slightly older than Coco she was the most confident and boisterous dog there, but actually it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought and I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself.

There were ten puppies there of varying ages between eight weeks and four months, so Coco was about middling. She was also middling size-wise, somewhere between the spaniels and one enormous Weimeramer (not sure if that is how you spell it, but anyway some bloody enormous Scandi hunting dog) that was only ten weeks old but already the size of a small pony.

There were three spaniels (two Cocker Spaniels and one King Charles), a Beagle, two Terriers, a Dalmatian, two Labs, this enormous thing and a few dogs which were either cross breed or something so pedigree I’d never heard of it, including one that looked like a teddy bear.

We learned ‘sit’, ‘down’ and had an attempt at ‘heel’. By and large, Coco didn’t do too badly although did get bored after a few attempts and when she discovered that once she got the hang of it all she was expected to do it without any meaty treats lost all interest and just rushed round the floor hoovering up the dropped bits of chicken breast that the other puppies had discarded.

The Hubby came along too, and if anything was a bit slower than the dog at learning, constantly forgetting all the verbal commands and being inconsistent with hand signals (he’s a bit like that when he’s driving the car, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised!). I think it was all a bit of a culture shock for him; after years of not having any animals at all and then in the last few acquiring a few cats through association with me, he suddenly has an energetic and strong minded, intelligent dog to deal with and has discovered a whole new world of things to do and buy.

All in all though, things went OK and at least Coco didn’t disgrace herself by peeing on the floor like a couple of the other, considerably more nervous puppies did. Considering she had never met another dog apart from her brothers and sisters (whom she has probably forgotten by now anyway) she was pretty well behaved and didn’t try to bite any other animal or person.

The lady running these classes has been recommended by the vets, and she is apparently an animal behaviourist as well as a puppy trainer. When she demonstrated the techniques on these infants, it all looked so easy but of course once the whole doggy class gets up and has a go there are so many distractions it makes it very difficult for the puppy to concentrate. So, we have homework! The exercises have to be repeated several times daily, firstly with treats then without. We have to take her out to meet other animals and get used to their presence so she is less easily distracted.

So there will be lots more trips out, which means, unfortunately for her, lots more trips in the car. Coco already dislikes the car and hates being shut behind her dog guard in the back and not able to join in with her human companions. It’s amazing how piercing a dog’s whine can be when you are enclosed with her inside four cubic metres of metal, but she has to get used to it because the car is a necessary evil of life today and what’s more, can take you to lots of good doggie places like the park. So somehow, she will have to at least learn to tolerate it, if not to like it.

We have plans to take her to the big agricultural show held locally over the August bank holiday weekend, so hopefully she will have learned to be in the car and to obey some basic commands by then. Otherwise it will be an interesting couple of days!