Puppy School Begins

Charlie started puppy classes Saturday at the Petsmart in Greenbelt. For $99 for an 8-week session, he's set to learn a number of commands, to "loose leash" walk and hopefully learn some other stuff that'll help him ultimately become a really great dog.

Of course this class is also for me, since I'll be the one training him to do these things.

Going into the class I was pretty confident.

In the last two weeks, I've taught Charlie to sit, lay down, come and shake my hand. He's also gotten much better with house training and I think is starting to understand it's not a good thing to pee inside.

Well, within five minutes of being in the class, Charlie peed on the floor.

Then he started overwhelming his classmate, a 10-week-old female Rottweiler named Chloe, when he wanted to play with her and started chasing her around.

He spent the rest of the class on a leash and sitting next to me whining because he wanted to play and I wouldn't let him.

However, when the trainer began the clicker training, Charlie responded well since he is very food motivated.

The clicker is a device that makes a click sound when you press it. To use it, you click and treat when your dog exudes good behavior.

He's now learned the command watch me, which means he sits and literally looks at me without moving for a few seconds and then I give him a treat.

So my homework this week is to continue this clicker training and next week we'll start on leash walking.

Charlie's gotten the hang of it pretty much but likes to pick up everything on the ground and pull on his leash.

The more I learn about this dog, the more I realize how smart he actually is. So far he's already used a warning bark, when mysterious characters have approached us late at night when I take him out. He also warned when something was melting in the dishwasher and the smell of burning rubber overwhelmed him.

In the weeks to come I look forward to seeing him learn more and mature.