A picture is worth a thousand words...

and then I get my two cents worth (no Wordless Wednesday around here).

Sunday was Rowina's first Puppy Kindergarten class at PetSmart. We were looking forward to it because frankly, she needs a little training (and so do we).

She came to the backdoor Saturday afternoon and this is what we saw...



Rowina has become, for the most part, an outside dog. It is not extremely cold here in the South (now that the cold snap has... snapped) and she has a dog house with a snuggly bed. Saturday there was a light rain, so she had to stay inside of our home a bit more. When she went out to potty, she took a moment to dig in the dirt under our deck. I guess you can tell what color that dirt is by the pictures.



Diva Daughter and I gave her a bath to get her ready for school the next day. I was worried that the red would stain her fur and that I would have the dirty puppy in class (sort of like taking your kid to school the first day with a red Kool-aid stain around her mouth). Surprisingly, most of the stain came out of her fur and she smelled much better.

Sunday arrived and the family took her to class (ALL five of us). It did not go well. Based on her trip to the Vet and this class, we've come to realize that Rowina does not like people. She growled at anyone who came near her and was not social.

After listening to the instructions from the trainer, class members were told to take their puppy into the store to practice. We were given a "clicker" and encouraged to make the sound and use treats to train our dogs to "LOOK".

Let me remind you that I have an eight year old enthusiastic son. I have a possessive 12 year old daughter. And I have a bored non-animal loving 13 year old daughter (if we were training Rowina to play the sax she might be more interested).

We found an aisle to begin working with Rowina. It went like this: the youngest and the middle two had to argue about who goes first, how to hold the clicker, when to click the clicker, "YOU AREN'T DOING IT RIGHT", "MO-OM! TELL HIM TO STOP IT'S MY TURN!", "Oh my gosh y'all! Would you just give me that? She said to do it this way"... Pure. Chaos. I just stood there playing referee, and Bryan wound up walking out of the store.

No wonder Rowina doesn't like people.

If you are up for a little situational comedy, come and watch our next training class. Then again, we will have discussed appropriate behavior for the humans in the class before next Sunday, making this a learning experience for ALL who are involved.