March 28, 2013
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The Intermediate Dog
Annie is exhausted. It is barely 11 am.
She is lying on the end of the Conservatory couch, under the light, about two feet from Nancy (at her computer) and about eight feet from me (at mine.) Ilah is in her room. Riley is outside, soaking up sun.
The Thing in the Back Yard has been barked into submission.
No one is gallivanting off to parts unknown.
If the noisy water machine in the food room would be quiet, life would be perfect.
We are in an interesting phase of our training with Annie. We (Nancy and I) are learning that ‘leave it’ actually works, that ‘sit’ is a useful command most of the time, that even when Annie goes ballistic because The Thing in the Back Yard is braying, BOTH chows have escaped from their house at one end of the lawn and Jetta the Weimaraner is hysterically barking at the other end, if we say, firmly, “Annie, come,” she…may not actually ‘come’…but she will eventually veer her mad dashing through the door door and back into the house. Or, in other words, we don’t have to corner her, grab her by the collar and haul her bodily into the house.
We have made progress, in spite of ourselves.
Today we worked out the kinks and figured out a way the two of us could attend our intermediate dog training class together (with our dog.) We need this dog to learn obedience. And she can: I believe I’ve admitted before, the hardest part of training Annie is training me.
What do you want me to do, Cheryl?
You’re not paying any attention–we could be eaten alive by this danger coming toward us and you’d never know: I’d better step in, here…
Riley–our starter dog–trusts me to handle situations, even if he has to dance and lean against me and bark to get my attention. Annie has limited faith in my abilities. Nice human, she appears to think, but a little dumb about the world.
Oh, you noticed that, did you? Okay, I’ll follow your stupid command
I have learned humility with my intermediate dog. I no longer lecture my sister about taking her dog to the dog park. Now that I have a dog that is aggressive toward other dogs, I can suddenly hear. (This has always been one of my most charming traits: teach me about of two elements on the periodic table and I am suddenly an ‘expert’ on elements. I’ll tell you anything I think you need to know about elements, regardless of your own level of expertise. I just learned it, it’s obviously new information no one else has ever heard before. Teach me about five of the elements on the periodic table and I might eventually realize just how many elements there are. Go bury in my head in the sand and groan. Girl, you did it again… I never learn. I was, for about a year, an expert on dog training because I had a genial lab mix who would occasionally sit when I told him to. I’m sorry, WeeOne. Thank you for your patience. And Jim. I’ve never even SEEN his dog, yet I felt completely confident telling him how to train him…)
It appears that a contingency of the family Peck is en route to Alabama today. Have a wonderful weekend.
Say ‘hi’ to Ella for me.
