Archive for January 13th, 2004
Daily Archive
Tuesday, January 13th, 2004
The MackAttack Goes to Class
Mackie started his puppy class last night, and it may
be the first time he has been slightly tired since he
left his brother. Rafe tries, but he can’t take it
for long enough.
The class should be very good for him. We are
lucky—Mark’s breeder called the idiot training
director last week and offered to teach a second
section of the puppy class, just because she wanted to
teach a class for Mackie. Thus we are in the class
with the “overflow” from the one originally scheduled.
A good thing—I saw some of the dogs leaving the
first class, and they are not puppies in my
categories—they looked about eight months old. also
overheard the instructor from the first class, and
somehow they were talking about heeling and
about-turns the first night. I have no idea how they
can be doing that with puppies who can’t even walk on
leash. Our class is not that advanced.
We have six, a good number for Mackie. I think he
will be by far the biggest dog in the group, and he is
already the loudest. He spent most of class trying to
get to the end of the leash to play with other dogs,
being indignant because they were having a turn at
working and he had already done his, standing on his
back feet to explain to the instructor that he was
there, etc. the important thing is that we have all
nice dogs and nice people in this group—the owners
were all worrying about the right things, asking about
dealing with problems that were just starting or
hadn’t even come up yet, and genuinely interested in
making their puppies into civilized participants.
Whether Mackie wants to be civilized is another
question, but he is not going to have too much choice.
So far he knows “sit” better than most of the others,
but he does not remain in position for long. He also
did better on beginning the “come” command, but he did
give me more opportunities to have to use it. Other
dogs tended to stay closer to their owners—he was out
there looking for excitement.
You would all have loved one of the puppies—a little
Frenchie/pug cross who fortunately got the Frenchie
ears and really does look like a little Fledermaus.
The others have lovely personalities and were lucky to
get good owners: some idiot here is deliberately
breeding beagle/rat terrier crosses. Another of the
many humans who should be sent to Mozambique
immediately.
More reports later. Some of you have heard about the
drinking contest Rafe and Mackie had yesterday. The
rest of you really don’t want to know.
Cheers!