Thursday, August 24, 2006

My Dog the Graduate

After a long and gruelling introductory obedience class Maddie has finally graduated. Of the original 10 or 11 dogs that started the class we had a whopping 4 dogs show up to the last class. Seriously, I'm surprised that that many showed up. This class was like special ed for dogs.

The class started with us doing a 'loose leash' walking course where we had to hold a tennis ball on a spoon and the leash in the same hand. If our dog pulled on the leash the ball would fall off and we'd look like fools, demonstrating how embarrasingly poor we had done in the class. Anyways, we finished the two laps in record time (I assume, there was no stopwatch or times to compare against, but I'm pretty sure it was a world record).

We then moved on to a game of musical chairs. Three chairs were put into the middle and we walked around them to The Call by the Backstreet Boys (or BSB as a superfan like me would refer to them as, ha). When Vanessa (V-Dog, the teacher) turned down the music we were to put our dogs into a sit/stay outside the chalk line and then grab a chair. We couldn't sit until our dogs were staying and if they got up we had to give up our chair and put them back into it.

The first round was easy. Rocky, the white german shepherd, who I thought would be my biggest competition, blew ass and ran all around the place. We were down to three. Hub (or Pug, or some stupid name), the angry stray border collie with the whiter than white trash owners, and Lucy, the miniature rottweiler mix dog. We continued on our merry way and this time it was a bit of a challenge. I had Maddie in her down/stay and sat down, leaving Hub's owner without a chair. Just as we were cinching the deal she got up though. I thought ti would be in poor taste to kick her (JK). Instead I got up to put her back into her stay and that skank stole my chair. However, Lucy, who I actually have to give credit for coming a long way since the start of the course, got up. I took that chair and cruised to the final round. The Lightning Round, lets call it.

Hub and Maddie. He kept turning around and growling and lunging at Maddie, something he had been doing for a while. Maddie was oblivious to him though and was concerned only with finding stray treats on the ground. God love that little garbage disposal. The music stopped, Maddie knew the drill and dropped down into her stay. I ran to the chair and sat down just before she got there. As Vanessa counted down from five the sweat was running like bullets out of me, I was so nervous she'd get up. She didn't though, and we won. Fuck yeah, we're awesome.

After that stellar performance by my dog and I, we listened for a bit to the dog sport options out there. Flyball, Agility, Rally Obedience. Then we did some Rally Obedience and again, guess who kicked ass. Although that violent little border collie can listen well to his skin head owners and did quite well.

We ended off with a little certificate. Yeah, my dog is a graduate. Autographs available on request.

No comments: