May 2006

I've been taking Schatzi to obedience classes at Acoma Training Center, a dog training facility run by a woman named Trish Spradley.  Next Monday will be the last class of an eight-week "novice" course.  In our case, we were both novices, since the only things I knew about training a dog were from a pamphlet I paid ten cents for at a thrift store.

I get interesting responses from people when I tell them that I'm taking my dog to obedience classes.  Some people are enthusiastic:  "Good for you!  Everyone should take their dogs to classes!"  Some people are dismissive: "I've never had to take my dogs to obedience classes."  Others regard obedience classes as a very nancy sort of endeavor and can barely find words for their contempt.  (To those people, I say pish-posh!)  Dog training is one of those subjects about which nearly everyone has strong opinions, whether they know anything about it or not.

As far as my own beliefs about Dogs and Their Proper Training goes, I am taking this approach for now:  Whatever Trish says, I believe it.  Trish says that there's no good reason to take your dog to a dog off-leash park.  (What's the point of risking a fight?)  Makes  sense to me.  She says your dog should be able to withstand a baloney rubdown from the neighbor's five-year-old kid without showing any interest in the baloney.  Check.  (When she was a girl, my niece was severely bitten in the face by my aunt's dog at a Mother's Day picnic when the dog decided that it wanted my niece's plate of cake.)  Your dog shouldn't bark at other dogs when you walk her.  Got it.  Your dog shouldn't jump on people.  Self explanatory.  Your dog shouldn't bite people.  (This one is hard for some people.)  And so on.  I don't have any problem believing anything Trish says because I've never seen anyone as good with dogs as Trish.

The classes work like this: About 30 of us stand around the perimiter of a big concrete-floored room with our dogs.  We do heeling and sitting and downing drills for an hour, once a week.  Trish walks around the room, giving advice and encouragement and correction over a wireless headset PA.  "Your dog shouldn't be walking in front of you... Just relax... go ahead and pass each other just like you're at the mall...  Good!... About turn to the right... Don't let blondie over there visit with her neighbor!  No visiting... OK, now sit your dogs... They should be sitting right away... Good!  Very good!  Can you believe how good they are compared to the first day?"

The first class was... I don't quite know what to call it.  "Hell" is a little extreme.  A little.  The dogs were barking and lunging and wandering and whining and basically going nuts.  You could barely hear Trish over the PA as she assured us that by the third class they will have calmed down.  But she was right.  By the third class even the most mental of the dogs was better behaved than most dogs you see at the park.

Some of the dogs are harder cases than others and these are always the ones that Trish uses to demonstrate.  If a dog shows signs of ignoring his owner, Trish takes him to the center of the circle and makes him listen.  How?  I don't know.  Magic of some kind.  Or her tone, a few well-timed tugs on the leash, the right kind of encouragement, a general air of authority.  A few seconds after she takes the leash they are usually looking up at her and listening.  I suppose that if you spent enough time with professional dog people you'd see others who were this good or better with dogs, but I haven't.

Trish wasn't at last night's class so one of her assistants ran things.  She showed us a new method for downing our dogs and plugged the "advanced novice" class by demonstrating some of the hand signals our dogs could learn if we signed up.  The assistants are also great with dogs, but Trish's absence solidified an idea that had been forming in my mind over the last few weeks:  A big part of her success with the dogs in the class is the way she can wrangle people.  She's getting 30 strangers motivated to all walk around in a circle at the same time, stopping and starting and following her commands immediately, without question.  Who is she talking to when she says "Good!  Very good!" over the PA when we sit our dogs the right way?  She's not talking to our dogs.

It seemed to me that at last night's class people were not listening as well as they could have.  We were wandering, clumping together.  One lady almost stepped on Schatzi's head.  I found myself studying the stuff on the walls more than once, noticing for the first time who was sitting in the little gallery where people can watch the classes, looking into the kennels behind the desk where the trainers keep their dogs.   At one point a woman with a little border collie actually dared to argue with the trainer about whether her dog was biting or not, which effectively shut the class down for a few long minutes as the trainer endeavored to show the lady the difference between biting and not biting.  I kept thinking, "Trish would never stand for this!

In any case, it's been money well spent.  Schatzi knows how to sit now, and heel (well, sort of), and lay down and come when I call her.  Most of the time, anyway.