It’s been slim pickin’s for blogging time around here lately. I’ve still been reading everyone’s blogs, but just haven’t had time to comment.
Good thing our Crazymomlady's been teaching us to relax, 'cause she keeps going and playing games with OTHER dogs!"
It’s for good reason though. I got a job. A real job, like with a real boss and co-workers and a time clock to punch. For thirteen years I’ve been self employed with a good husband who generously did most of the work, but now I’ve joined the working ranks again.
Doesn’t sound too exciting yet does it?
But it is, because I’m now an official dog trainer! Well, an assistant dog trainer with aspirations to be a real dog trainer when I grow up. It was actually kind of crazy ’cause I’d just started looking for work when one of the trainers we’ve taken classes from at Calling All Dogs called me and asked me to come in for an interview. I was flattered and excited!
All the other jobs I’d thought about could not even compare to doing what I love and getting paid for it! If I have to work, this is pretty much the perfect job for me. I get to assist in the classes and work in the boutique. It’s all the awesome dog stuff we all love and now I get to play with it and sale it. It’s pretty cool.
My favorite part is the training. So far the owners have mentioned I can assist and then perhaps co-train the classes and hopefully I’ll be able to teach my own classes eventually. How cool is that? It’s a bit intimidating of course, but really it’s just such a great opportunity to work with people that I share their training philosophy and learn from them at the same time.
It’s really inspired me to work with my own dogs too. The first class I assisted in the trainer asked me my opinion on which trick to teach, shake or roll over. Well, you all know I’ve never successfully taught a dog to roll over. (Meeka doesn’t count ’cause she pretty much taught her self everything in spite of me.) Don’t ask me why, I just never put that much effort into it, but at that moment I was thinking, “Umm. . . how ’bout not roll over since I stink at at that.” That night I came home and taught Magnus to roll over. Not rocket science I know, but if I’m going to teach other people I really need my own dogs to be able to do the things I recommend.
It’s pretty cool to be in the classes too since it reminds me of little tricks to use at home that I’ve forgotten since we took the classes. On Wednesday night we started week one of a puppy class and a Wonder Pups class. Wonder pups is the obedience class for puppies older than 18 weeks. One of the things we teach in puppy class is timeouts. Again, not rocket science, but it was fresh on my mind so when we had an episode of cat chasing here the other day, both the dogs got a time out. It took two 30 second timeouts, but we haven’t had cat chasing here again so far.
Of course a new schedule means the dogs are adjusting to a new routine too. It’s not too many hours, but change is change and you know Maizey and I don’t always adjust too quick. It means I’m walking early in the mornings, which I actually like better, but it’s already getting cold. It also means I’ve slacked on RP this last week, so wether you want to or not you’re going to get flooded with RP posts again since I’ll be getting back on track with that. Other than that I don’t know how much time I’ll have to post and comment, but we’re still here, learning as many 4legged lessons as possible!
