Dog Training

As you may know, Ronin did well in his level one dog training class. He worked hard to please me and made me proud to be on the other end of his leash. Because of my plans to Buddy Run with him, I invested in the level two training class, which started last night.

Ronin was full of enthusiasm when he arrived at class. Unfortunately, he was not as eager to please me as he was to meet and greet his new classmates. The new instructor introduced himself before we had even made it over to the group.

Taking Ronin’s leash from me, he began asking a serious of questions:
How old is he?
How did he do in Level One?
Does he know not to pull on the leash?
Does he know not to stick his nose in people’s zipper areas?
Does he know not to jump?

With each question came a correction as Ronin was reminded of all the things that he *had* known and had conveniently left in the van with his doggie manners. *sigh*

Back in control of Ronin’s leash, and armed with a stronger technique for correcting Ronin’s rediscovered errant ways, the class began. I’d been warned that he is the strictest of all the instructors. I had no idea that we, the trainers/owners, would be robotted into answering in unison each question that was asked.

The first of many Q & A series went something like this:
Instructor: On a Walk On Okay, are your dogs allowed to walk ahead of you?
Class: Yes.
Instructor: Are they allowed to pull?
Class: No.
Instructor: If the metal clasp is not hanging straight down, are they pulling?
Class: Yes.
Instructor: Do you need to correct for that?
Class: Yes.
Instructor: How quickly?
Class: Immediately.
Instructor: Okay, let’s go.

Class proceeded and both Ronin and I were better behaved by the end of it. I went home and had the last of my merlot.