The Training Begins

Last night I spent the evening covered in dog saliva and ham.

Apparently, this is what happens at puppy training school.

I was utterly petrified. My SP had briefed me fully, and all the information was precariously balancing itself, one tip ontop of the other, resting on the unstable, volatile matter of my brain. As each tip was dealt, I felt the other sinking further into some unreachable crevice, and eventually had to get my extremely patient SP to repeat them all over again, in a vain attempt to create some sort of vague understanding through parrot fashion repetition (a revision method that has always failed dismally with me).

At puppy training school, the outside world does not exist. As soon as you enter the room, the dust slowly settling from the previous class, and you pay your £2, you're sold to a world of high-pitched wailing (me), and an entire vocal array of noises I'd never been introduced to before (the dog; me) and where it seems quickly normal to be covered in dog spittle, hair, dust and theremnantss of a titbit of ham.

My worries were eased prior to the class as I quickly found that, unlike her, on greeting a dog (cocker spaniel; German shepherd; muzzled-big-black-scary-dog) he will sniff them excitedly then collapsee on the floor and rollover into contented submission. But on entering the class, terror flooded back swiftly through my bloodstream and I was left rigid and petrified.

She'd mentioned it prior to the class. That we'd have to take turns on our own in front of the class. But there were supposed to be around 15 dog handlers there. And there were substantially more than 15.

I stared at the other dog owners as, one by one, they took their dogs up and made them wait as they crossed the room (you think that's easy? yeah, so would I have done, back in the ignorance of my puppiless existence, in The Time Before). I watched, in awe, in terror. The teacher scolded the owners as if they themselves were the dogs, and I tried to control outwardly expressing The Fear. He was sat excitedly at my feet and I looked at him intensely, trying to deduce whether his intentions were honourable or whether he was just going to belt across the room and start trying to hump the muzzled-big-black-scary-dog.

I tried to learn from their mistakes but the thoughts evaporated before I had time to pin them down and I was left with just thoughts of how I was supposed to tear ham, situated in a plastic bag in my pocket, at the enviable lightening speed of my fellow dog handlers.

So it was my SP's turn. And, even with The Devil Child, she did remarkably well. Then it was me.

He was a dream. He was perfection. While, had the teacher not been holding him he'd have probably never stayed, as being male he is clearly driven by a love of sheer volume of food (he waded through the majority of a food bag yesterday when my SP accidentally left the cupboard door open), he bounded over to me en queue and even sat whilst I thanked him, a neediness in my voice that was quite unsettling, and fed him yet another piece of ham.

We attempted various other commands and, sensing my fear, he aided me where possible (although one or two looks from him indicated that he thought I was either insane or stupid), although his weakness as a canine hoover made one or two tricks a little difficult, as his mouth shuffled contently along the ground and I ran around him exhaustedly screetching 'come on, come on' with forced excitement and enthusiasm.

As we walked home, shattered and salivered, I felt extremely proud. I had learnt new commands, mastered the beginnings of ham-tearing, found how to alter my voice from commanding-authoritativebaritonee to banshee-esque wailing in seconds.

And then I realised, it wasn't the dog that was now well trained.

It was me.