First Dog Obedience Class

Yesterday we went to our first of six dog obedience classes. The first meeting we did not bring Willow. We were told not to. It was for humans only. The instructor wanted to tell us what she plans to accomplished and what we should buy, etc. She didn’t want any “cat calls” from dog-students that first time.

She knows her stuff. She seems to know the insides working of a dog’s mind well and what buttons to press. I think we will gain a lot by this class.

The instructor emphasized to be on time. In fact, to make sure we were on time she upped the reporting time to 6:45. That way, we will be in our seats at 7:00 when the meeting really starts.

She also told us of different places nearby to park. Naturally, we were there at 6:05 and had our pick of where to park. We picked the first place in her places to park, in the visitors’ parking lot of the Atlanta Humane Society. When we parked a man walked up and asked could he help us. We told him we were there for dog obedience classes and he politely told us we couldn’t park there, we would have to park on down. So, we moved. Sitting by ourselves in a big empty parking lot we read the letter again. It told us we could park the first place we parked, and after it overflowed we could park where we were now sitting. The man didn’t know what he was talking about.

We drove back up to the first parking lot and parked there. The heck with “you can’t park here.”

At the meeting by 7:00 it was going according to the instructor’s plan. It looked like we were all seated. It was mostly husband and wives, a few singles, and one young teenager with his mother. I counted near 25 at one point and more came aftereards. She started.

About 10 minutes into her lecture in barged a lady. The rules didn’t apply to her. Also, she had a comment to say about everything the instructor said and felt the need to comment when someone asked a question. She took off her shoes and propped her feet on the chair in front of her, by a husband and wife team. She had bright shiny red toenails.

I wonder how the lady with the painted red nails would do if she was thrown in a pit with a member of the Bad News Kennels?

One of the things I learned at this class: Dogs, instinctual, believe in a hierarchical social structure. They believe in pecking order. They believe I get to eat before they do. But they also expect me to plot out our course and “bring home the bacon”, so to speak. They need a boss to keep them organized and tell them what to do.

I break out into a sweat just thinking of such a responsibility. Willow is looking at me for guidance? Shit! I wonder if I can fake it?

I think our instructor had some acting experience. At times she took on the role of a dog and thought out loud (for our benefit) and had a huge invisible master she was heeding to – she played the role good. Most of the people laughed. I felt like standing up and clapping.

Here are some conflicting statistics with no conclusion, just an observation: The dog classes are held just about in the heart of Atlanta, probably less than 1.5 miles to the center of pulse of Atlanta. Atlanta is over well 50% Afro-American. What percent of Afro-Americans came to the dog obedience class? 0%.