Wednesday 26 March 2008

Just To Tell You Once Again Who's Bad

Last night was week 2 of puppy school. Stella is now officially the worst dog in the class. Whenever the teacher wants to demonstrate how to react to bad behaviour, she uses Stella as an example. Except that Stella doesn't respond to her methods. Let me paint you a picture of our humiliation:

Teacher wants to show us what to do if your puppy jumps up on you. She brings Stella to the front of the class. Stella immediately starts jumping on her to get at the treats in her hand. Teacher does her "eh eh eh" noise. Stella keeps jumping. Teacher says "off!" in a firm voice. Stella jumps. Teacher yanks on Stella's leash. Stella sits... and then jumps. Teacher stands on Stella's leash. Stella continues to jump even though the leash is constraining her. She's making it half an inch off the ground but still - she jumps. At this point, Teacher tells the class that their dogs would be behaving by now and that Stella is just "being a puggle." Apparently Teacher is biased against puggles because they're known for being difficult. Whatever. Stella's not difficult, she's spirited. She's got character. There's never a dull moment with Stella around.

Which brings me to our next moment of shame. Last night there was a new dog in class, Sophie, an 11-week old Maltese. Sophie is about the size of a guinea pig. She probably weighs 3 lbs and is pretty much a big ball of white fluff. During class, Stella was really interested in Sophie. We thought it was because Sophie was new. It was actually because Stella wanted to eat her. At the end of class we played "pass the puppy." We passed the puppies around the circle, giving each puppy the chance to be petted by someone new. Teacher wants us to have 2000 people touch our puppies by the time they're 2 years old. I have no idea how she expects us to keep track. (Did I mention that Teacher is a bit of a tool? Stella is so disdainful of her. It's pretty funny.) Anyway, we're passing the puppies around, which gives them a bit more freedom. Stella sees this as her opportunity and pounces on Sophie. I really wish I was exaggerating this for comedic effect but I'm not. We had to drag Stella off this poor, traumatized puppy (though what an 11-week old puppy is doing in puppy school is beyond me.) It was mortifying. S thinks that Stella thought Sophie was a chewtoy. She's got a stuffed bunny that's about twice the size of Sophie, so he might be on to something. All I know is that we are going to work Stella's ass off this week with the puppy school homework and next week she is going to be the puppy school star. *feverishly knocking on wood*

9 comments:

  1. 1) I could never be trusted in a pass-the-puppy scenario as I would make off with everyone's pets.

    2) Calvin thinks smaller dogs are hilarious. Exhibit A (skip ahead to 1min):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXJryPXV-64

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  2. I know what you mean - there's a labradoodle in the class that I really want to steal.

    That video is hilarious. Calvin is so badass.

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  3. That was the funniest post ever! I wish I could meet Stella. She sounds like my cat Fado, cute but a bit of a trouble maker. I wish you had a video of her pouncing on the fluff ball. I laughed so hard that I almost spit my drink out on my computer!

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  4. "Did I mention that Teacher is a bit of a tool? Stella is so disdainful of her. It's pretty funny."

    you didn't have to point that out so, uh, pointedly.

    i got it.

    LMAO. you SLAY me.

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  5. Thanks for the giggles. Stella sounds all sorts of awesome :)

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  6. Teacher sounds . . . not likeable?

    To teach how (now passed) dog to keep from jumping (no puppy school in the boondocks) was to step on his back feet which became exposed when he jumped. It didn't take too many times before he stopped and never jumped again.
    I'm sure this is frowned upon, but it worked.

    Oh, BTW, I nominated your blog E for Excellent. (for more info, check out my blog)

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  7. Yea, my dog has an issue with trying to eat dogs too.

    Except it's not smaller fluffy dogs. It's much larger rotweillers.

    I generally don't discourage that, I mean, having a stealth guard dog has it's advantages.

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  8. Donna: I've taken to kneeing her (gently) in the ribs whenever she jumps up on me. It doesn't faze her one bit. I will definitely try stepping on her toes.

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