Hobbit Goes to His First Puppy Class

We’re coming out of one of those strange April weekends, weatherwise that is. Saturday was very wet and muddy and Sunday was one of those almost summer like days.

We took Hobbit to his first puppy class on Saturday. I went in with my expectations set too high I’m afraid. Since the puppy meeting part of it is outside, it is dependent upon the weather, by the end of the class/meeting there were several muddy puppies. The first session was more of a get acquainted session, so that they had a chance to socialize with some other puppies. I figured that that there would be the usual introduction stuff in this session, but I was also hoping to come away with some answers to some of the problems that we’re currently facing. There were several periods where the puppies went leashless, and after the last time there were several muddy puppies (as would be expected).

There were probably 12 or 14 puppies there. Hobbit has a sister that is in this class and there is another Beardie from another litter there as well. It didn’t seem to me that he recognized his sister; he was probably too excited about playing with all the other puppies. The other Beardie is a brown and white one. While all the puppies weren’t all the same size and age but it did seem that many were similar in size to Hobbit. There was a small little black dog (I’m not sure of the breed) that was so much smaller than all the other puppies, its owner was trying very hard to make sure that it didn’t get run over or hurt by the other puppies (I’m sure that puppy’s owner was glad to get his puppy home safely and might have been wondering if such a class is a good thing or not). I’m sure that the socialization will be good for Hobbit, but I’m glad the package that we bought also includes some theory classes, and a couple of individual lessons in addition to the puppy meetings.

Driving home, Sarah expressed concern that we took the wrong dog home. I have to admit that he looked a lot different than when we brought him there. Because there were several black and with dogs (especially Hobbit’s sister) it was possible that we did grab the wrong one. Christine explained to Sarah that we were familiar with his markings. As one of those throw away comments that we sometime make, Christine said that we could always check to see if he was really a “he”. Sarah wanted us to check immediately! It wasn’t long after we got home that Sarah wanted to check. Sarah was relieved after hearing Christine confirm that he really was a “he”.

At the moment I’m a little frustrated with our potty training efforts. We have walked Hobbit an awful lot and he has spent a lot of time in our back yard, but still had a lot of accidents. We took Hobbit on a walk to pick the girls up from church yesterday, and while he did manage to pee by the church, he still had an accident as soon as he got inside the house. We haven’t been able to get him to take care of business on any or our walks yet. Since we live by several nice trails that we can walk him on, we would really rather walk him than for him to use the back yard to take care of business. In addition, we need to get the biting under control. I know that it is a phase, but I don’t want to see the girls get hurt when he is in one of his wild moments.

Sunday was nice enough that I was able to fire up the grill for the first time this year. We had a nice dinner on our patio. It was a day like much of our April was last year, which was a welcome change after the rain of Saturday. It was really hard to believe that it could rain like it did on Saturday and then be so nice on Sunday.

The Oma will be coming on Monday and staying with us for a couple of days. This will be her fist time to meet Hobbit. She has become very excited with us as time went by about getting our puppy. About a year ago when we first gave serious thought to getting a puppy, she had thought that it wasn’t a good idea, but not too long ago she had even offered to puppy sit for us, so that we could take a week’s vacation. She told the girls yesterday on the phone that she had some little gifts for them and Hobbit. So, you can see that she has come around to the idea of us having Hobbit. I think that now, it is even like having another grandkid. I’m sure that it will be fun.

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