Prince Goes To Obedience School - Part 2

The first thing that the instructor did was to select a well-mannered Golden Retriever out of the pupils in the class to do a demonstration with.  This was supposed to consist of his having the dog follow him, stop, sit and accept the snack, while he explained to us exactly what he was doing.  Unfortunately, nobody could hear a word that he was saying because Prince was barking excitedly the entire time.  The only time he stopped was when he tried to take off to meet a Labrador puppy in its owner's arms, dragging me and my chair behind him as if he were a sled dog pulling a sleigh.

"Now, now," the instructor finally said, and interrupted his lesson to come over and pet Prince, in an obvious effort to appease him.  This only resulted in more hysterical barking when the instructor walked away.

"Everybody, try to do the same thing with your dogs," the female instructor ordered, with a faintly miffed look in our direction.  As we started forward, the helpers gave each of us several dog cookies, which most of the dogs snatched up with gusto.  Prince spit his out and took off after the Gordon Setters again.

"Let's try something different," the lucky helper assigned to me said, and handed me some canned meat.  I gave Prince his instructions and tried to give him a small portion of the meat, whereupon he rushed through the exercise one time, snatched the rest of the meat out of my hand and took off after the spaniel on our other side.

"Please don't allow your dog to socialize with other dogs unless the owner gives his approval," the male instructor said.  With a heroic effort, I managed to haul Prince away.

The rest of the night continued in an agonizingly similar manner, with the movement of each dog (and the instructor) causing Prince to burst out in a fresh spate of barking.  I felt like the parent of the worst performing student in the class.  And German Shepherds are supposed to be one of the smartest breeds, I thought.

"Prince really needs more socialization," the male instructor told me, as kindly as possible,when the class finally ended.  "He's a really nice guy, but he needs to be around other dogs more."

I had to agree...and thus I decided that Prince was going to have be socialized more in a wholly different way, outside of the traditional classroom.

I just had to figure out how.