Obedience Training

The cool morning air helped awaken Nate, Dawn, and me as we unloaded Hardy from the car and began walking towards our first obedience training class.

“This is going to be fun,” Nate exclaimed. He had been eagerly awaiting this morning from the day I had come home and discussed the veterinarian visit, and my selecting obedience classes instead of invisible fencing. Dawn had been equally excited about observing the classes and promised to tag along. So began a family ritual each Saturday morning, as we learned how to teach Hardy to do all of the polite things a purebred Miniature Schnauzer should know. For me, that meant to behave for the children too.

There were about eight other dogs that were enrolled in Hardy’s classes. They ranged in size from Great Dane to Chihuahua, and their handlers were young and old. They all had one thing in common; their dogs were poorly behaved. It was a good thing that the store hadn’t opened its doors for business before our class was over, because when we were there it was nothing but chaos - barking, chasing, and “marking” going on everywhere.

The salesman who had talked me into signing up was present, helping us clean up after our pets. Our official dog trainer, Larry, accompanied him. Larry said it was okay for the dogs to behave that way at first. It was important for us to socialize them; by socializing we would diminish these objectionable instinctive behaviors. 

Larry was a slightly large fellow, who’s personality reminded me a little of Santa Claus because he smiled and chuckled a lot. He was especially kind and patient with kids and dogs, and he gave away a lot of treats. He carried around candy for the kids and meaty tidbits for the dogs, and he dispensed them generously. He was filled with hope and joy, and when the class was over, he would disappear.

I could not believe how much we learned after that first class. I thought it remarkable that Larry believed a dog’s vocabulary could reach to over 50 words. He told us to be confident and firm towards our dogs, so they would learn who was boss. He assured us that our dogs would be well behaved on “graduation day,” when they would most definitely obey us if we told them to sit, down, stay, come, walk politely on a leash, or leave it. He also told us we would learn how to brush their teeth and trim their nails properly. On that day, it seemed like a tall order to all of us. To say that the first class was chaotic would be an understatement, but we put our trust in Larry and over the weeks that followed we learned that he was right.

Our mornings at the pet store over time became more and more valuable as each successive training class built on the last. When we shared our frightening chase incident with Larry, he suggested that we stop chasing our dog through the neighborhood. He said that we needed to stop the reinforcement for running away, which was the act of chasing after him.

It was life changing watching my son week after week, as he helped Hardy evolve from an unpredictable and misbehaving stray into a proud, obedient Miniature Schnauzer. I have no way of knowing, but it even seemed as if Hardy enjoyed the trainings, seemingly showing off during the graduation in front of his dog friends. True to Larry’s predictions Hardy learned all of the commands he mentioned on that first day, and we came away with the skills to teach Hardy even more.