Monday 9 April 2012

The problem with a stick

Interesting fact- the bigger your puppy will be one day the less they must walk when young. Now forgive me for being silly but that is just upside down if you ask me. But it seems that all things puppy are! So we decide to go to puppy training which happens to be a 20 minute walk away. Now don’t laugh at me ok? Promise? How am I meant to get her there and back if she is not allowed to walk that far? I had a bright idea!

 I dig out the baby buggy, dust it off and ‘tah dah’ the perfect puppy transportation device. Not really- she spends the entire trip trying to fling herself over the side to... yes you got it... to walk! Get some funny looks I tell you, but who can blame them? A woman pushing a buggy whilst frantically trying to keep an over excited large puppy inside. I consider strapping her in!

That is just the start of the humiliation of puppy training. It had to be the way didn’t it? Everyone else has small, cute and well behaved pups. We arrive with a giant puppy that has too much energy and a tendency to do the opposite of what has been asked (bit like kids I think). Again, we get a pack of information to read through- no warnings in this pack either. The following week they go around the room asking every owner what tricks their angelic puppies have learnt this week: ‘my puppy has learnt to roll over’ and ‘my puppy has learnt to go to the toilet in the garden’ (makes me cringe as I think of the explosions happening in my house).

Then it is my turn. I am so proud I could burst, ‘My puppy ran after a stick I threw and brought it back. Isn’t she clever?’ The entire room goes quiet, everyone stares at me in disbelief. ‘What? What have I done now?’ I go through events in my mind in a panic trying to work out what I did wrong this time and come up with nothing. ‘Ahem, did you not read the information in the pack you got last week?’ The panic has truly set in now! You are meant to actually read everything in the packs? Nobody said it was compulsory! I have been too busy cleaning up poo and wee to read! I am sleep deprived and haven’t had a proper meal in a week! So I lie, I am ashamed to admit it but it is self preservation that kicks in. ‘Yes, of course I did read the pack. Why?’ I ask innocently. Then the trainer pulls out the article entitled: the dangers of throwing sticks for dogs.

It dawns on me slowly: I am the bad mother in the group and people are feeling sorry for my puppy. Poor girl, hope she makes it to next week’s class without being impaled by a stick or being crushed by the wheels of a buggy!

1 comment:

  1. Can't wait to real the next installment :-)
    your such a bad doggie mama!

    ReplyDelete