Olive Graduates/Happy Thanksgiving Olive

Sunday, November 22, was the last class for “Family Dog 1”, the introductory class at “Tails U Win” training center. Yes, there was a graduation ceremony of sorts.

The last class was a bit different from the previous six. We began with a contest of sorts where we humans were to call our dogs from the far end of the room. The first dog to make it to his/her human and sit down won. When I called Olive she made a beeline for me at top speed. I had a large dog biscuit in my hand and figured we had this race wrapped up. Guess again. She got to me, grabbed the biscuit, and refused to stay or sit. Just about every other dog was sitting while Olive was still dancing around with her biscuit. Oh, well, I couldn’t be mad at her but how embarrassing!

After a bit of time practicing some of the commands and behaviors we had been working on, the staff brought out something new. It was a long wide flexible tube that the dogs were to run through to their humans. The tube could be lengthened and shortened like an accordion. About this time my sister and brother-in-law came by to see Olive “graduate”. That distracted Olive, of course, not that I wasn’t happy to have them around. The first pass through the tube (or tunnel) was with the tube at its shortest to get the dogs used to going through. Olive was a bit hesitant, but when she realized that I was at the other end calling to her she went through. The tube was lengthened to about half its full length and the exercise repeated. Finally the tube was stretched to its full length. All of the dogs did well except for a shy greyhound that just didn’t want to go through. I was glad that Olive came through and seemed to think it was fun!

The last part of the class called upon the humans to demonstrate a trick we had been practicing. I had been trying to concentrate on the useful basic commands like “sit”, “stay”, and “come” rather than cute tricks like “roll over” or “shake hands”, so I was a bit unsure as to what we could do, but I decided to demonstrate “with me” (what some would call “heel”), something I have been emphasizing with Olive and she seemed to be catching on to. Well, there was a lot of noise and distraction in that room; not a bad thing in itself but at this point Olive was not fully concentrating on me. It took a few tries, but she finally did a passable “with me”. How embarrassing!

As in the photo below, Olive did get her diploma. We begin “Family Dog 2” on December 6.

(That was a plastic bag emptied of treats that I have in my right hand.)

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Thanksgiving this year was a small affair compared to previous years. Olive joined us and met my uncle and aunt from Virginia. After dinner I drove down to Norwalk, CT where an aunt lives but left Olive with my sister. I was told that Olive behaved herself reasonably well. A friend of my sister’s came by with her 2½ year old daughter who gave Olive a good run. Olive was exhausted by the time my sister took her back home to my house.

In Norwalk my cousin Nancy is fostering a large male rescued Rottweiler named “Trey”. I was told that Trey is not friendly to other dogs, so I decided to leave Olive with my sister. Well, Trey took to me right away, putting his head on my lap and seemed reluctant to leave me. Perhaps he smelled Olive and decided that I was a dog person? Nancy told me that Trey will not be with her very long as someone in Texas wants to adopt him. If Olive smelled Trey on me, she didn’t indicate that she thought anything amiss when I got home.