First Day at School

What an exciting day I've had. Wendy took me for a short walk this morning then at lunchtime Wendy & Richard put me in the car and took me to the vets. I'm still not very good at travelling and was sick in my dog bag again.

Anyway, when we got to the vets, instead of going in we went to the field behind. There were lots of other dogs and I discovered I was going to 'Owner School'. Wendy and I were put into the middle of 3 classes. The first thing I did was teach Wendy to say 'sit', when she said that I sat down and trained her to feed me a treat.

Then I trained her to say 'heel' while I walked very close to her left hand side. The trainer made Wendy stop every now and then and I had to sit every time she stopped without her saying anything.

We did some weaving in and out of other owners and dogs. Some of those dogs got sooooo excited but I'm used to other dogs so walked without taking any notice.

Then we did some 'stay' - basically this involved me sitting down and training my owner to walk round a big circle of other owners and dogs and come back to me. Wendy was quite good at this but a bit slow so while I sat at the beginning, I got a bit bored and went to meet her a few times.

Finally we did some recall. That involved me sitting (again) while Wendy walked away having told me to 'wait'. I was very good and stayed put. Wendy then called me with a treat in her hand and I started to run to her but then there was a really interesting smell in the grass so I got a bit sidetracked. I think I probably failed that test and need to do a bit more work.

Wendy and I have homework to do before next week. We need to concentrate on 'down' and 'heel'.

We were so good that we're being moved into the top class of the 12.45 group next week. Once we're good at that we can move to a different time.

After class we went down to the river and I had a good walk and run. Very tired now so will have my tea and then a long nap.