Summer School

My Parson Russell terrier, Wimsey, had his first of six group "clicker" lessons last night. An experienced clicker dog, but a puppy class dropout, he was surprisingly good. And I was surprisingly muddy by the end.

Having gained an aggressive streak after I moved last year, he's been prone to coming slightly unglued when seeing other dogs. I expected him to be a bit aggressive at the beginning, but he wasn’t. And when the dogs ran around at the beginning and end of class, they were a canine pack of clowns. (I had one tired, happy terrier on the way home, which is always a good thing.)

One of the dogs in the group of six, was a 120-pound, beautiful golden retriever named Blitz. His human is a very nice grandmother who’s really, really afraid that her dog may attack another dog and hurt it. Apparently he pounced on a Boston terrier many moons ago, and she’s been worried ever since. During the lesson, though, he was a polite gentleman.

When Wimsey and he met off-leash during playtime, they did the usual doggie circle and sniff — but then went their separate ways. Neither was too impressed with the other.