PROUD of my Puppy

At puppy class this week, we had a little obedience contest. Everybody got 3 cards and the rest of the dogs had to do what was on the other cards. Got it? No? I didn't think so. Let me try again. Our trainer gave each dog owner 3 cards with things written on them. I had one that said, "15 second stay." I read that card to the class and all the other dogs had to do a 15-second stay. If they were successful, they got a point. If they were not, I could challenge and then if Howie did the 15-second stay, I could steal their point. The 15-second stay is actually important because it happened to be the last card read and since it was mine, the only way I could get a point was to steal one. Luckily for us, the dog that was in the lead had trouble with it and I challenged and Howie did it no problem and we won!! We're the smartest dog-gy. Nyah nyah nyah nyah NYAAH-NYAAH. We won some chewy treat things and a bunch of little milk bone things and some coupons and a treat pouch, which I'd been wanting but hadn't been able to justify the expense, even when Husbandguy had a job.

So next week is graduation, and the trainer told us what would be on our final exam and I'm pretty sure we'll pass. I was a little concerned about the stay part of the test, though, because we have to either walk away from or around our dog while he stays, and we've only ever done that (around the dog) once and that was at puppy class this week. We did it, but I think I had to put him back in the stay 3 times before it stuck (because we'd never done it before). So on our way out of the store, I took Howie up by the front door and I put him in a down-stay and tried walking around him. He got up twice, but the third time he was so good he didn't even get up when I released him (we need to work on the release, I think). I was bursting, I was so proud! And we left on that high note. He's awesome!

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