Buffy's First Puppy Class

Buffy is a smart dog. She’s observant, a great problem solver and has an uncanny ability to sense how people feel about dogs. She knows instantly if someone who walks by likes dogs and is interested in interacting with her. Her potty training is going fantastic. At three months of age she has a strong aversion to going in her crate or her pen and does a great job of letting Diana and I know when she wants to go.



She knows her name pretty well. Even though she often gets distracted, Buffy can go on a half an hour walk and heel without too much difficulty. She knows how to fetch (doesn’t really get the part that she needs to let go of whatever she fetches), sit, down, dance (jump up), roll over (well, this one is a work in progress), paw and is pretty good at speak. Considering that in dogs year Buffy is only three years old, she’s doing quite well.



When we enrolled Buffy into puppy class my wife and I joked that she would be at the top of her class. Diana and I both went to Northwestern University so of course our dog would excel in her class. After our first puppy, Buffy wasn’t at the head of the class and I was a little disappointed.

Was Buffy’s performance in class really all that bad? Not really, she was nervous being in a new place which is normal for Buffy. Once other dogs were in the room though, she calmed down and did a fantastic job socializing with the other dogs. She gave us a solid 40 minutes of great focus but for the last 20 minutes she was pretty much done. She was distracted by the adjacent room and was just getting tired. As I saw the other dogs doing the heeling exercise that Buffy just wasn’t interested in doing, I caught myself getting frustrated with her.

The thing is that I want Buffy to succeed and for some reasons I felt that it was important that she be able to show off to the other dogs. The thing is that Buffy doesn’t really care. All she wants to do is play with the other dogs and most of all please Diana and I. Is it really fair to compare Buffy to other dogs? No, they are all different breeds, different ages with different owners.

Being in a class setting I revert back to this need to be the best and succeed at a high level and it’s easy to forget that success has nothing to do with being better than others and getting a high grade. Success is about how we feel about ourselves and the progress we make as learners. If Buffy only learns one thing in each class out of the numerous exercises, that can be success for her. It really isn't fair to project my own feelings of academic success on my puppy.

Puppy training class is more about training the owners to train the dogs and there is an immediacy and importance that Diana and I master these training techniques in this short course. Really, Buffy simply isn’t going to master everything that is introduced in class during the course of the class and that’s ok. We have plenty of time to train Buffy.

My feelings of disappointments have dissolved into feelings of pride after my wife reminded me how amazing Buffy performed even if there was twenty minutes in class she wasn’t focused. The whole getting frustrated thing, well, that happened again a couple days later.

One afternoon, I was trying to lure Buffy out from under our coffee table and I was loosing my patience.

When I finally got her out from under the table and had her in my arms, she looked up at me, licked my cheek as if to ask me what was wrong. Instead of putting her in her crate as I had planned, I laid down on the couch with Buffy next to me and to my surprise after not wanting to come to me from under the coffee table she crawled up on my chest curled up into a a ball of fluff and went to sleep.

Buffy knew exactly what to do to remind me that even though we didn’t always understand each other, the bottom line is that I make her feel loved and at home. The amazing thing is that Buffy makes me feel the exactly same way. In that moment my frustration melted into contentment and as I exhaled, I thanked Buffy for being part of my life.

I told you my dog was smart.