Oh, Darn

I took Llewellyn to dog class for the first time this evening, and he got kicked out.

Yes, he did.

Not that I wasn't expecting it. I've never been able to walk him on a leash since I adopted him from the Humane Society a year ago. It was bad enough, the way he'd pull when he was merely excited and unruly. But when he'd see another dog-- Katy, bar the door!

But Katy couldn't bar the door. Katy could barely keep her 45-pound mutt from crushing her hand in the loop of the leash. Katy could foresee shoulder and back trouble that would handsomely fund her chiropractor's retirement.

So home we would go. And Llewellyn would instead assert his canine manhood (regardless of the vet's knife!) standing at the front window, hackles raised, every muscle at attention, baying forth with every startling decibel of his Beagle heritage, driving away all turf invaders from the top of the next block up to the bottom of the next block down.

The Lady Across the Street tends to object to this behavior. She objected to it all last summer. Heck, I object to it! So when the time rolled around, I enrolled Llewellyn in dog training class. The class meets in a nearby county park, I'd have him out in the fresh air, he could meet other mutts, he could get socialized, we'd get over the silly turf-defending attitudes, I could finally take him for nice walks around the neighborhood, and all would be well.

Not!

We were half hour late-- traffic and tire trouble-- but it was just as well. When we drove in and he saw the other dogs, Llewellyn lifted up his voice and began to protest at the offense of it all. I left him in the car till Rachel the instructor said I might bring him out to meet the other pupils. My beast immediately went for the nearest, jumping, growling and snapping at a Golden Retriever, who was ready to give as good as he got. The Golden's master pulled him away before any blood was drawn, and my boy nearly dragged me across the grass on my knees trying to chase his rival away.

"Take him around over there and walk him," said Rachel, thinking maybe Llewellyn just needed some time to settle down. So I retreated to the far side of the picnic shelter, where he frantically put a few more kinks in my shoulder. But the other dogs were safe-- until a Chocolate Lab, heedlessly towing a mite of a child about six years old, broke ranks from the class and lollupped over to investigate.

It didn't need the instructor's directive to tell me it was time to put my mutt in the car. Where he continued to lunge and bark and spray foam all over the interior, until class was over with the other canines safely in their vehicles and driven away.

No, my boy ain't getting socialized in this class! Not with that kind of attitude.

Rachel was very nice. She calls Llewellyn a "reactive" dog. Sounds so much nicer than "aggressive," doesn't it? And considering how amiable he is with people and cats, I suppose "reactive" is the word.

But it still means going to Plan B. The expensive option, of course! The five remaining weeks' worth of group training fee will go towards an hour of private instruction. We'll meet again in a week or so and she'll bring her very docile secondhand Greyhound and we'll see how Llewellyn gets on.

Meanwhile, I've bought him a Halti training collar and have begun to get him used to it. Lots and lots of smoked sausage treats! He's a smart dog-- I think he'll decide it's a good thing very soon.

On the other hand, the "silent" dog whistle I also bought tonight at the PetsMart, the one I was planning to blow whenever he explodes me out of a sound sleep with his confounded barking, the one that would keep him from hearing my voice and thinking he was getting any attention-- that does not seem to be a success. In three words, it's not silent.