Dog of the Week

Pickles won her first blue ribbon last night at obedience class. Yay Pickles! We were practicing things that require the dogs to keep their attention on their owners, no matter what was going on around them. And that is the main reason I signed her up for the class in the first place. She's always been a good dog. She was extremely easy to housetrain and the only things she's ever chewed were pencils and pens that we left laying around. But she gets so excited when she meets new people that she just jumps up and down and runs around in circles and won't calm down. It's embarrassing to take her out in public. So anyway, last night at class we practiced Sit/Stay (she did okay but kept laying down instead of continuing to Sit), Down/Stay (great because she really wanted to lay down anyway), Heel (getting better but did wander off once and jumped up for the treat a few times), and Watch Me. Watch Me is where she really excelled. We did 3 Watch Me exercises. In the first one, the dogs had to keep their attention on their owner while another dog walked right past them. Then, we did an exercise where the trainer came up to each owner and shook their hand, while the dog sat quietly with its attention on the owner. Lastly, two owners with their dogs walked up to each other, shook hands, and kept walking, all while the dogs kept their attentions on their owners. Pickles did PERFECTLY at all three. Didn't even take her eyes off me. What a good girl! She totally deserved that award. Next week is the last class. They mentioned something about bobbing for hot dogs. Should be fun.