Puppy Training Class Lesson 2: You will fail.

Yesterday it was a month since my boyfriend left for New Zealand.

Whether that was a contributing factor, or my complete lack of sleep over the last few nights had destroyed any hint of self preservation and self control, or having not practiced any of the commands since my previous lesson, I don't know.

All I know is that the class didn't go, how do I put this, as well as I'd have liked.

I had the Devil Child this week, to give my SP a break. And (pre-class) I liked the challenge. No, I liked the idea of the challenge.

I dreamed of achieving the role of being the one teacher that could get through to their unruly pupil, that could grasp onto their ability and intelligence and energy and harness it. And, as that teacher, I would develop a bond beyond penetration by any other, I would receive praise for my natural ability and adept skills, I would help said pupil conquer their fears or anger or resentment and craft them into a glorification of their former selves.

But I seemed to have forgotten somewhere along the way that I was dealing with the Devil Child and, at the end of the day, she was going to do what she damn well wanted, and not a bit more.

I admit, I wasn't on form. Bouts of hysterics and the final opening of the floodgates, that I'd kept tightly under lock and key since my boyfriend's departure, earlier in the day (with only a brief buckling in the bleach-phone incident that has, sadly, still not been resolved and I am back to my old Nokia once again, with the piercingly cheerful Indiana-Jones-goes-midi-theme-tune) had left me exhausted, fragile and slightly unhinged.

I'd lost the plot a long time previous to this watery outburst if I'm honest. My emotions had been pounding on the damn wall (in retrospect, the sleepless nights were not only caused by this, but also broke the banks), just waiting for one small crack to appear, just wide enough so they could actually release themselves and stop making me be so bloody uptight.

But even this scenario had given me reason to think the session was going to be fine-and-dandy as the puppies, trying to silence the abominable racket that their dog-sitter was making, came over to lick my face, so I was unable to tell what was hound saliva and WebStress tears (yes, I did wash my face after). I thought: they know, they understand. There's no way they'd possibly want to humiliate and upset me, not after sensing my vulnerability.

Yep, that is of course exactly what they weren't thinking.

So, we set off, ham in pockets, dogs yanking enthusiastically on leads, glass of wine still in the wine box (yes we have reached the height of coupledom through the purchase of a large box of cheap Californian white) and a class to face.

There are mostly big dogs in our class. 'Our' two pups are accompanied in size by only one other cocker spaniel. The rest are mainly Alsatians, with a few collies and one big-black-scary dog. But, instead of attempting to scratch their eyes and bark at them offensively as she does to most mutts encountered on walks, the Devil Child greeted them all with a bit of a sniff and mild indifference (he however was on his back, displaying his belly in proud submission as usual).

I had no recollection of any commands, but I wasn't too concerned. In the previous class, we'd watched each group in turn perform the commands. Easy: I'd watch, learn and, fingers crossed, remember.

But, no.

This week, for a change because we were outside, we were all going to do the first lot of commands in one group. Because, of course, that was going to be a much better idea.

I didn't have time to panic: we were up and commands were being hurled. The Devil Child stared intently at me trying desperately to interpret what her owner was whittering on about. I battled my way through a series of commands (stay, sit-stay, wait, down-stay) that she did, bless her, exactly the same thing for every time. Because I had no idea what the bloody hell I was doing.

There was no remembrance flooding back, this was not like riding a bike. This was out of my comfort zone and into a fire, being yelled at by a poker-hot instructor and attempting to command a dog who really didn't know what I was getting at.

At the end of the final opening exercise, where the Devil Child had finally given up trying to interpret my vague and panic-ridden commands and was more interested in swallowing large clumps of grass instead of doing her 'down-stay' (which, ironically, up until this week she'd done in favour of every other exercise, regardless of command), the instructor bellowed 'that was rubbish'. And stared, long and hard. At me.

Now I am not wholly experienced with dealing with terrifying, commanding characters such as our instructor. She communicates with the dog owners with much the same and, occasionally, less regard than the dogs. On the whole, I am used to the nicely-nicely approach. If she'd have illustrated her phrases with 'maybes' and 'slight improvements' and 'just a bit of practices' then I'd have happily accepted her criticism. But she wasn't going to waste her breath trying to cushion the bruised ego of her tutee. She wasn't there to be nice. She was there to train dogs.

So, with my voice somewhere between shakey and hysterical, I continued the exercises, my eyes pleading with a dog who, by this point, had figured out that her 'owner' was collapsing into self-doubt and nursing her wounded pride, and was therefore not going to dream of being commanded by such a weak leader and someone who clearly had no idea what they were doing.

My SP, gently, tried to advise me of how to regain control of the Devil Child (and my dignity). Self-control and pride in tatters (and covered in ham/saliva) I snapped, to my great regret (I was rapidly shedding friends in the class, the instructor and the Devil Child already realising that I had very little backbone and needed to toughen the hell up), and she recoiled. But, after a quick and thorough review of my unbecoming character, I managed to continue through the class, even producing some wonderful praise-worthy results in the 'fetch' exercise (not that I had anything to do with it, she just acts naturally as a very effective boomerang).

We escaped finally back to several glasses of wine and I shared my self-criticism with my SP. She suggested that perhaps if I wasn't comfortable I didn't have to go next week. But the stubbornness within me, the aspiration to be the teacher I failed so spectacularly to be, the wondering of how close I was, the refusal to be beaten has developed and un-negotiable drive that I really don't have any choice to surpress means that I'll be back there, same time, same place, for round 3.

So, I have 6 days in which to become Dog Trainer extraordinaire. Or at least manage a down-stay.