Edgar's Obedience Class, Part 1

Edgar and I started his obedience classes last night. Getting to class proved difficult...

If anyone has driven through Atlanta when it rains, they know their travel time increases exponentially. It had rained some mid-afternoon, and I was hoping that would be all. But I wasn't that lucky...just as I left work to hurry home to get Edgar, it began raining again. So my commute home took forever. Over an hour, and normally its about 25 minutes. Argh! First off, it was an accident on the bridge over I-85. Why can't people just drive by? Why do they have to gawk, and slow everything down so much so those of us on a time line have problems? And of course, to compound the problem, I felt like I got stuck behind everyone determined to drive under the speed limit due to the rain...for which my wipers were on the lowest intermittant setting. Sigh.

Fortunately, at home I had prepped a little by leaving my shoes and change of shirt in the kitchen. I raced in, changed my shirt there in the kitchen, and grabbed Edgar for a quick potty run. He was very energetic, and I was in slippery, wet flip-flops trying not to slide out of my shoes or twist my ankle. Mission partially accomplished, I stuffed him in the car (first time in the back seat) and headed off for a fast food run at BK. He barked a couple of times at the drive through lady, and was very interested in my burger and fries. Oh, and get this...my kid's meal came with a Furby. Yep, a furby. I didn't know they even made those anymore.

Onto 85, and we managed, thank goodness, to avoid any major traffic snarls. We arrived just as play time was ending. Poor Edgar! I had really wanted him to have this play time with the other dogs in class. All he ever wants to do when he sees another dog is introduce himself and play. And unfortunately for him, his most constant doggie companion, our friend's dog DaVinci, doesn't want to play. Hopefully traffic will work out next week and we can do play time.

I had my little container of smushy cheese bits for training treats, and off we went. We worked some on sit, which Edgar does pretty well (not prefectly), even when distracted. And when you pull out the cheese bits, then he does excellent. His focus is right on. When I pop the lid on the container he must smell them, 'cause his head whips right around. We even got complimented on his focus. If only he was more focused on walks and less on every interesting thing that crosses his path...Our homework for this coming week is stay. He has to stay put for one minute, in a distrationless place and with me standing right next to him.

Next week we work on walking and heeling...what we really need help on. With the training collar I bought for him at the end of class. I am not allowed to use it yet, not until our instructor shows us the proper technique. He does pull some, but mostly when he sees another dog as stated above...he just wants to say hello, so he pulls and pulls...sometimes ending up on his hind feet almost standing to get over there. Don't get me wrong, he hasn't been aggressive to the other dogs at all. And its funny, that once he greets them, when we meet again, he is less anxious to be re-acquainted.

He's napping now, so this is the best part of the day...I can get some things done.