Obedience Class #2
Tonight was Midas’s first obedience class…that we actually made it to. It was the second class for everyone else. It went WAY better than I had expected. The trainer confided that it had gone a lot better than she had expected too. He was still whining unfortunately. But, it was A LOT quieter than the banshee screaming he does at dock jumping events. A LOT. This was so quiet that when we first went in and someone asked if he always did that, I didn’t even know what they were talking about. I was so used to trying to ignore the full-throated screaming that I didn’t even hear the tiny little whimpers he was emitting. He did really well in all the tests. His sit/lay down are grudging and slow, even with treats so we need to practice that, he used to have a strong sit and a really strong lay down. Since he became so preoccupied with every other dog in the vicinity, he has been ignoring people for the most part. This worked for us in several of the exercises where he was expected to stay in a sit without jumping up and also to walk through a crowd without nosing people. But, we need to do some serious work on where he is allowed to pee and where he isn’t. He peed when left with the trainer. I’ve been working on that, it is a lot better, but still not great. He fails the CGC test if he eliminates during it. So the to do list after Class #2: work on no whining, no peeing, sit, come, lay down and focusing on me. Sounds like a lot, but he’s quite a bit more mellow than some of the other dogs there so at least I don’t have to beat that too.
We also checked out a soft-sided kennel for the boys. I’ve been really wanting to get one so that it is easier to haul, pack and unpack at dock jumping events and when we go camping. Unfortunately, all the ones I found were quite expensive with a lot of bells and whistles that my boys don’t need. I finally stumbled across one I thought would be ideal on Ebay. When I did a quick search I found out I could get it cheaper at Clean Run. Eric was leery because the price was so cheap so we went to Wal-Mart to see what it was like (they only had the one that is 2 sizes smaller than what we want). I think it is going to work great for our boys. It is easy to pop up, clean and haul (we have to work on the folding it back into a circle thing 
). But, the best part is that I ordered two of them, they’re being shipped to my house and it was cheaper than the cost of only ONE of the other soft-sided kennels we’ve been looking at. It is not for chewers or dogs not used to the kennel but both the dogs are kennel trained and don’t chew in their kennels. Also, this is not going to be an every day kennel, it will only be used on trips and we’ll be present so they should both work great. I am so excited to get them! According to the website they should be here on Saturday.