You must be kidding...
There I was enjoying my life and running my new home as the alpha when mom got the brilliant idea to enroll me in puppy school. Are you serious, me in puppy school? Well, she was dead serious and off we went to the first class.
To my surprise, puppy school was looking like more fun than I thought. There was no enclosed room or concrete floor, no we met on the dike in Vollerwiek – right outside where the sheep would be grazing in a few short weeks and we could sniff the salty sea air. I suppose there were about 12 dogs in my class and one teacher. Before class began we were all off leash and playing as puppies do. There we 2 larger dog breeds and a couple of those pocket size dogs but most were average size. Of course, in the middle of all our fun we had to stop and get leashed up to start learning.
We started working on simple things like sit, down, all stuff I could already do, and then we worked on come. I am a smart breed and I am smart myself, so I got what we were doing right off the bat. I did the sit and stay and then mom said come from about 10 ft away so I went to her – basic stuff. Most of those other dogs were meandering around, paying no attention, going the wrong direction or not doing the sit and stay, what was wrong with them. All in all the first class was fun, not challenging but fun.
The following week we were back at class. The other owners were all fawning over me and how cute I was and wanted to know all about me. Sometimes it just gets tiring being so interesting! We had play time and then class. Once again it was all basic stuff and I seemed to be the only dog that got it every time. Even the teacher remarked that I was doing so well. I was top of the class but then we got home and mom could call all day long and if I was busy I did not care. I had an “on switch” for listening at school and showing off but an “off switch” in the comfort of my own home. The first level of school was 8 weeks, after 4 the teacher promoted me to level 2 because I needed to be challenged. My ego just blew up a bit more!
My new dog class was much the same, a wide mix of dogs but it was now held in a farm yard. We had to walk through a barn with horses, cows, sheep and free running chickens to get to the field. Katie came with us to these classes because they had a separate area where dogs could play and many people brought a second dog just to play. I am sure you won’t be surprised to hear that I aced my first class at the new level as well. The teacher said that it was good that I was so smart because it would be hard to discipline such a cute puppy. This class focused more on mom pointing me in a direction to get something and then I was supposed to come back to her, visual commands. Simple as could be for me, but most of the other dogs were all over the map not getting it at all. I really felt like Einstein and mom was so proud as everyone wanted their dog to be like me. After we got home, it was the same old story, my selective hearing kicked in and I was no longer a star but mom knew I had it in me.
I attended several more classes and then we decided to quit school as it was not helping me at all. Some of the next classes were things like going on a train or a bus or elevators and shopping but I had already done all that on my own. Many people went partly to socialize there puppy but I was around all kinds of dogs on a daily basis at the beach so I did not really need that either. The final reason we quit going was that after the last class we were all going out through the barn and Katie all of the sudden grabbed a chicken. Oh my! This caused quite a stir but mom managed to get her to drop it and it did not appear to be injured. It really was embarrassing for mom and I but since we weren’t going back we got over it and Katie got in a lot of trouble for trying to kill a chicken!
Moral of the story here – GBGV’s are smart but they are also independent thinkers. We know what is being asked of us, the question is…do we feel like doing it or when will we feel like doing it???
