Kindergarten Pup

Last night H and I took Jax to a puppy kindergarten obedience class. Jax is a little on the aged side for the class, but we just squeezed in.

We arrived at the Kennel Club having forgotten to bring the check for the tuition. They let us take part anyway, thank goodness. there were 10-15 puppies ranging from gargantuan (~50 lbs at only 18 weeks) to the teeny-tiny (maybe 1 lbs). Jax falls right on the median at about 25 lbs. The first thing that surprised me was that most of these puppies were calm. I swear there must be a an unwritten rule of giving the dogs sedatives before puppy class that we didn't know about. We had the only hyperactive "ohmagosh let me meet that one, ohmagosh ohmagosh let me meet that one, oh here's a person ohmagosh ohmagosh..." puppy in the class. In fact, I don't think Jax stopped pulling at his leash for the full hour. H has the blistered hands to prove it.

When we did the socialization exercise (where a line of people sit on the floor with treats and each puppy works down the line getting praise for approaching the strange people) half the dogs were afraid at least initially. Jax, well, let's just say you haven't seen a crowd worked like that since Bill Clinton was campaigning for his first term in the presidency. Jax's only problem was the fact that he had to wait for three timid pups to go ahead of him.

And yes, he did sort of embarrass us. It's tough to see a dog that knows how to sit, down, stay, and heel (sometimes) at home go completely bonkers in a group setting. Of course, we sort of expected as much. That's one of the big hopes for the class, to get Jax to improve his behavior in public. He's just too darn friendly.

Anyway, we're off to sit in a public place as part of our socialization homework. I'll work on research while Jax learns to behave himself. We'll see if this is even remotely productive.