Buddy... sit... good boy!

Since my life is so boring and all I ever do is sit around, watch TV, and sleep, I decided that what I really needed was a dog obedience class to keep me busy on Thursday nights. Just kidding, but Beth wanted to take one and I thought it would be something fun to do and good for the dogs to have a refresher course. So, I drew mental straws and Buddy won. I figured, piece of cake, he knows all this stuff already, he can just practice it in front of all the puppies as distractions....

Beth was a little worried that her lab puppy Diego was going to be the unruly one in the class and she would be kicked out... or something like that. So, I worked for 2 weeks on training Buddy to get super excited when he saw the other dogs in the class and how to rip my arm out of the socket trying to get to them whine and pull to go play. That way if Diego did act out, no one would notice because Buddy is so much bigger and louder. Just kidding, but man was I shocked and embarrassed the first class. Looking back I think he probably saw all the grass and dogs and thought "dog park, lets play!" but still, no excuse.

Also, I think that the excitment to go see the other dogs is what Jerad experienced when he said that Buddy wanted to eat them at the vet. Because the whining turned into barking/grumbling which could have been perceived as growling. He did calm down... sort of... and I guess its a good thing we did enroll in the class so he can be reminded of his manners in front of other pups. Here are some pics from the first class:











He already knows the commands... now we just have to reinforce him obeying them in front of all the other dogs and owners. After everyone left, he calmed down and turned back into his normal, obedient self. I think he just didn't get the memo about "training" and thought it was more of a "meet and greet."

The second class went much better. Our class was so large that they split it in half, so way less stimulating. Also the dogs finally got to start socializing so hopefully that took some of the pressure off. I had Addy with me and she took a turn giving him the commands as well. There was no more trying to pull my arm out of the socket, but there was still some whimpering. Probably the dog equivalent to pulling on my sleeve and repeatedly asking "mom, can I play?' mom, can I play?" Still, a definite improvement.

After class Beth and Tyson had a date with the Walmart so they dropped Diego off at our house. I was kind of unsure how he would get along with Bailey because he is sort of dominant and hyper and she doesn't have the best tolerance for that type of thing. I let him play with Buddy for awhile and he was just a ball of jumping puppy energy. Finally I let Bailey out who seemed fine until he tried to jump on her. She barked and growled and he ran away like a little girl which was super funny because he probably outweighs her by like 15 pounds at least. After that they were great friends unless Diego tried to jump on ANYONE, me, Bailey, Buddy, Bailey would bark and bark and sound all scary and Diego would go back to being the perfect gentleman and I think he liked Bailey even more than Buddy... she is a bit closer to his energy level.

They ran around our yard and played in the kiddie pool for a long long time and much cuteness was had by all.






They were so fast it was really hard to get a clear shot...




Our back lawn looks a bit worse for wear and tear after a year of having the dogs run laps on it. I keep waiting for them to settle down before we fix it but I doubt that will happen any time soon. I guess we could lock them in the side yard on our house which is big enough for them to run back and forth but it seems so mean. I'd rather have a crappy back yard and happy mutts:)