Chapter 2 – I Paid For These Classes, We Are Going!

I am posting the second chapter of the Luka Chronicles as I had a 36-48 hour bug that knocked me on my ass, literally. I was so dizzy I was bouncing off the walls like a pinball on my way to the bathroom . Fortunately I slept through most of it. 'Nough said. Here is chapter 2.

Acting on the suggestion of several people in my dog obedience class when we chatted across the nylon fence, I took Luka to the dog park for "socialization" on Sunday. Once again the sight of other DOGS put her into a frenzy of baking and straining at the leash. Luka is a smallish (50 pound) Shepherd/Lab/something-odd mix, but she is a
powerful and strong for her size. When she saw a dozen or so dogs behind the fence, she gave a mighty lunge as if pulling a sled out of a quagmire and yanked me off my feet on and dragged me for about 15 feet on my back on the ice to the great entertainment of the entire park. Once we got through the fence and the people stopped laughing, I let Luka off leash and she had a fine time running with the packs of dogs. When I finally called her & snapped on the leash, my white dog was mostly brown. The field was slightly snow-covered, but mostly churned up mud. I did find out something interesting about Luka’s coat. She has doggie Scotch-guard. At home I vigorously toweled her off before letting her in the house. She was only partly clean, but I wanted to go inside. About an hour later I looked at her and she was completely white again. Hmmmmm. Perhaps I could patent this and make up the cost of collars, classes and incidental chewing accidents.

After this fun day I swore I would get her a pinch collar. I did and we walked several times this past week with the pinch collar (on Luka) with reasonable success.

Last night Luka had her second obedience class that I really was not looking forward to. I put on my leather gloves and after dragging me through the store, we were able to actually enter the ring with the rest of the class. I just dragged her out when she started to bark, but she was a million times better. However, she still could not pay any attention to me with all those other DOGS to sniff and jump on. After about 15 minutes, the teacher asked me if I wanted to try a Gentle Leader collar. That is one that has two loops, one goes around the neck and another goes around the muzzle of the dog. I had noticed that several other dogs in class had them, but they just looked like quite dogs with silly collars. Boy was I wrong! The trainer put the collar on Luka, she jumped up twice, pawed at her nose once and then walked perfectly at the trainer’s side. My mouth fell open. She handed the leash to me and said if she paws at it, give her a treat and say, “lets go.” It was like she handed me a different dog. Luka did not pull and paid attention to me (pretty much for the first time in her life) the whole rest of the class. I would not have believed it if someone told me. At the end of the class she asked me if I wanted to purchase the harness. Well duh.

I can't wait for lesson 3!!!

Patty & Luka, the perfect dog