Tonight Mister Fusspot and Esme had their first lesson of Puppy Training Class (six week course). So far, it's more about training us to train the dogs - which is fine, that's where it has to start after all. The little ones did great on loose-leash walking and pretty good with the other commands but they're just so excited; they want to play with the other puppy in class more than they want to listen to us. Still, they very much like getting treats when they succeed at a command.

I wish I'd been able to do something like that with Sprocket when he was a little fellow, but the PetCo where we're taking the class didn't even exist when I got him; that whole strip center was woods and swampy areas. I don't know that he'd enjoy it now even if I enrolled him in a class for grown-up dogs; he's eleven and pretty set in his ways. His ways = play treats nap snack drink play nap widdle treats nap snack play, lather rinse repeat.

This is everyone's new favorite treat-of-the-moment; link is to beef flavour but it comes in lamb too, maybe others, in a plastic tube/roll like breakfast sausage. It's good because one can cut it into pieces of appropriate size to suit the dog - much smaller for ours, big wedges for a Bull Mastiff. Angeline, our dog trainer, was telling us that dogs think in terms of quantity, not size - so they react more favorably to one Beggin' Strip torn into 8 pieces than one huge Beggin' Strip, even though it's an equal amount of treat. Alan brought a plastic baggie to Puppy Class with a bunch of cut chunks of the Natural Balance meaty treats and cut-up Snausages which are usually in great demand at our house. At one point I gave Mister Fusspot a piece of Snausage. He spit it out on the floor and looked at me like, "Give with the good treats, woman!" Which of course I did - somehow I don't see the training negating the spoiling for this lot.


"Dis my, 'Dude...wait, what?' face."