Small detour from the chickens here. Sorry, but I had a “happening” that I have to get out of my system. I keep replaying the evening over and over in my mind and it just doesn’t get any better. Sometimes it helps me to “write it out” so here goes….
I have a precious miniature poodle named Sallie. Sallie has been my friend on days when I honestly didn’t deserve to have a friend. She has seen me through dark days and happy days, never wavering. Needless to say, I love her limitlessly.
Our family recently added a new member, Miss Rosie. Rosie is a beautiful black lab with tons of affection and energy. But with the addition of another pet, we decided to get some obedience training for Miss Sallie. She’s a great dog, we just never got around to doing it. Our thought was that keeping her from jumping on guests (in addition to curbing other doggie behaviors) would assist when we train Rosie, who will be massive in size, to not jump on people and maul them.
We asked a trainer to come evaluate her, since she’s four years old, so we would be clear on where to place her in class.
Sallie was brilliant in the evaluation. She could sit, ring a bell, take a bow….very cute. Based on this evaluation, the trainer placed her in a “tricks” class, for more advanced doggie learning. Sounded like a great plan. Until the class….
Sallie was a maniac. We got the pleasure of sitting next to a lady who had a tiny dog, that came into the dog training center in a cute picnic basket that matched her owner’s outfit….and the dog’s. Wowza. That dog could do everything but cook me a fried chicken dinner, which it could probably do if someone took the time to train it. Unfortunately, all Sallie wanted to do was eat that dog. Not so good.
Based on this performance, I made the call to move Sallie to a more basic obedience class for older dogs. I figured we could use the attention training, and thought it best that we not damage the sweet little picnic basket dog. So we went to our first class last Thursday.
As we walked in, the first thing they did was place us in a separate room from the other dogs, which was a brilliant idea, since Sallie was a little excited. They then placed a girl in the room with us to assist me with training Sallie.
Unfortunately, I think that girl, who was very sweet, has trained about as many dogs as I have, and that number is zero. Someone kept having to come in the room to tell her what to tell me to tell Sallie to do…lots of middle men here. We spent much of our time waiting for the person to come back in and tell us what to do next. I should probably state here that I have little tolerance for inefficiency. Oh, I’m not particularly efficient myself, but I’m great at judging others. I have a breaking point and we had almost reached it. Then the thunderstorm started.
I knew it had been cloudy outside, and we were expected to get some showers. However, I was not prepared for people running out of rooms and yelling, “These dogs are just shutting down!!!” I’m sorry, what!?! What the heck does that mean!?! Sallie was not shutting down. Well, anyway, I don’t think she was.
The lead trainer suddenly instructs us all to bring our dogs to the main room so we can learn about dogs and thunderstorms. Alrighty, we were fine with that. Apparently, some dogs can get freaked out by storms. It makes sense. Especially since my young daughter, who is with me, is also TOTALLY FREAKED OUT by storms.
I’m so happy that at this point we are all sitting around, discussing storms like the end of the world is about to occur. One guy yells, “I think I see a wall cloud!” At this point, my daughter turns WHITE! She is terrified. Forget the dogs, my kid needs a thunder shirt! And seriously, if you see a wall cloud, maybe we shouldn’t be here with our dogs, waiting to get blown away.
The lead trainer points to a dog, a beautiful yellow lab, and says, “See…look at that dog! He’s completely SHUT DOWN!” I look over and he appears to be sleeping peacefully. Hmmmm….now I’m struggling a little with the whole “shutting down” thing.
She then instructs us to rub our dog down with fabric softener at home when a storms approaches to calm it. I’m thinking, “If I rub Rosie or Sallie down with fabric softener sheets, I am fairly certain Rosie will try to eat them, and then we’ll be at the emergency vet clinic all night.” (Rosie has an appetite for dryer sheets….not sure why, but she really, really wants to eat them.)
I’m sure there’s merit to the recommendation. It just hit my daughter and I as hilarious. And it’s never good to get the giggles in the middle of what other people perceive as a crisis. Not good at all.
After the thunderstorm lecture, we are asked to get our dogs going again and try to get them to follow the “sit” command. That kind of cracks me up as, after all the stress, the yelling and my daughter having an anxiety attack, Sallie is not very relaxed and cannot focus at all. We try and try and try again. Nope, not gonna sit.
All of a sudden, the trainer blurts out a question to me, “Is your dog fat or is she just bloated and gassy?” I’m sorry…what?!? Did you seriously just call my best friend “fat” in front of everyone? And that’s when I went right over that little edge.
I did contain myself until class ended. I took my sweet Sallie up to the front desk and asked the trainer, “Did you call my dog fat?”
“Yes,” she said, “I think she might be carrying some extra weight. I think that’s why she won’t listen to you. She’s not hungry enough.” She then feels her tummy. “Oh, never mind,” she says then, “She just looks bigger than she actually is. How often do you feed her?”
I reply, “I feed her twice a day. She eats a special food as we’ve had a horrible time with her digestive system. I’ve worked with my vet, who I trust completely, for years to try and get it right. In fact, Sallie doesn’t eat much more than half a can of food a day.”
“Well,” she replies, “You need to cut her food in half. She won’t obey you if she’s not hungry.”
Ummm….I think I’ll stick with feeding her.
She asks me where I got Sallie. I make the mistake of saying we got her at PetLand, before we all knew the terrible things that place did to puppies. I then get a lecture on how those dogs were bred for looks, not personality, and therefore, Sweet Sallie is just from bad stock. She diagnoses her with generalized anxiety disorder. Now I’m getting anxiety.
“Are you a nervous person?” she asks, “You know dogs sometimes act like their owners.”
I look at my daughters. “Am I a nervous person, girls?” I ask.
“Not at all, Mom,” they reply faithfully and in unison, although the eye rolling doesn’t totally escape me.
“DO I SEEM LIKE A NERVOUS PERSON?!?” I screech at the trainer, in a voice so high-pitched I’m pretty sure only the dogs heard it. It’s at this point that my daughters start pulling me toward the door. Yes, probably a good time to head home.
Needless to say, Sallie won’t be jumping out of any picnic baskets soon and we still don’t have our matching outfits. Actually, I think I’ll just order us matching thunder shirts and call it a day….
Hugs and blessings always,
LITTLE JEN in the BIG WOODS
LOVE it!! 🙂
I wish I could have been there to watch this.
That was just too funny. I would love to have been a tiny mouse in the corner observing. lol
Oh great! I was wanting to take my puppy to a training class . . . hopefully it will be a better experience. . . YIKES!!
Soooo funny!! Loved it!!
Poor Sallie, I hope she was not tooo traumatized by the “trainer”(who seems to need some training of her own!!)!!!!
This post is really interesting. I have bookmarked
it. Do you allow guest post on your site ? I can write
high quality articles for you. Let me know.