The Sewing Mom

My daughter and I took Plinko to her second puppy class today at PetSmart. My daughter missed last week because she was in California, so she was a little nervous about it today. Plinko on the other hand was so excited, she loves to socialize which she began doing from the moment she set foot inside the store! She wins over the heart of every single person she sees and just approaches anybody. She’s very friendly to say the least.

We got to the store a little bit early so we could purchase a few supplies, including a new collar since she’s all ready just about grown out of the first one we bought her. My daughter also made Plinko her first dog tag, a gold bone,  out of a machine where you type in the information and the machine engraves it right before your eyes. The kids all love this and think it’s fascinating! After making our purchases, we headed off to class.

Plinko was again the biggest dog there, mind you, she weighs a whopping 10 lbs! There were 3 other dogs there today, a 10 week old Beagle named Lacy, a chiwawa named Spike and an Italian greyhound, I didn’t catch it’s name (her owner wasn’t too friendly). All these other dogs are very cute and they’re fun to watch. First we reviewed our lessons from last week, getting the dog to “watch me” or look into your eyes. This is done with bribery of course as are all the lessons in class! Next we went on to teach the “sit” command. I was so happy that my daughter had taken it upon herself yesterday to teach this to Plinko, it made them both look very smart indeed! Finally, we started on loose leash walking. This I know is going to be our challenge, almost as hard as potty training! Plinko wears her leash all day long so we can quickly get outside when we need to, but she doesn’t really like walking with us holding on to the other end and directing where she goes. She likes to choose her own path. Our final instruction today were that by next Saturday, we and our dog should be excellent loose leash walkers. Hmmmm, I see a tough week ahead!

Same as last week, by the time we got home Plinko was bone tired. She’s been asleep for almost 2 hours! All that socializing and learning just wears her out, I wish we could do it every day!!

So, what do you think, would it be better to practice our leash walking in our big back yard or should we take to the road?