I’m Tired of Saying “Yes”

When we brought Skeeter home in August, TW read about 50 dog training books. And she surfed the web looking for dog training tips, techniques and videos. She has tried on all sorts of methods and I’m never sure whether she thinks The Dog Whisperer is an idiot or a God. Or whether she prefers some other dog training method over another. Skeeter is probably unsure, too. I don’t know, she seems to take it all in stride.

It will come as no surprise to you to learn that TW signed us up for a beginning dog training class. It also won’t surprise you to hear that I have made fun of her for this, whined about it, been snarky and sarcastic about it and came close to not going to the first class — which was last night.

Dog training class. Not. My. Idea. Of. Fun. (Even if I hadn’t had a long day, if it didn’t require us to leave during rush hour, and if TW wasn’t on Prednisone.)

We were supposed to arrive “early” for class, which didn’t happen because see above traffic issue. When we arrived, there were already a whole lot of dogs in the waiting area with a whole lot more people. There was one dog who barked constantly (this comes up again later) and a bunch of puppies who were very busy sniffing each other and a lot of people who were very busy trying to keep their dogs from sniffing each other. And it was mayhem and I was not having fun.

Skeeter, on the other hand, was very happy. Dogs to sniff. People to sniff. A man with treats and he didn’t even make her sit for them. Dogs to sniff some more which caused pretty much every dog there to growl at her because Skeeter does not understand the doggy cues that should tell her that other dogs are done with the sniffing. (We have a kid who had trouble learning this, too. Hopefully it won’t take Skeeter quite so long to learn these cues as it took that child.)

When we finally were led back to the training room, I thought things were going to be fine. We sat down on the wall, away from other dogs and people and then the room began to fill up and dogs began to snip at each other and there was much panting and the barking dog from the lobby just kept on barking.

The trainer came in. He stood in the center of the room. He talked. He introduced a couple of his people. He talked some more. He asked everyone to introduce themselves and their dogs. One person managed the intro before he took control of the barking dog, who still barked but barked less often because he was getting walked, tugs on the leash, and attention from the trainer. So it did get a little quieter, which was nice.

By the time about half of the folks had introduced themselves/their dogs, he was pretty done with that and stopped asking owner’s names and just asked about dogs. I didn’t blame him, really. Everyone was restless and we all had name tags on (unless our dogs had eaten them off, ahem.)

A little boy was there by himself, with a young golden retriever mix and the puppy was annoying the other two dogs around him so they got moved to a corner by the door. Which didn’t help much so they got moved out of the room with another trainer. While we all had to sit there listening to the guy talk about training methods. And we all had to try and keep our very antsy dogs still, which was not fun. For any of us, really.

About a half hour into this, a gorilla came in with a bunch of balloons (not kidding) which was confusing and distracting and would have been a lot more interesting than listening to the trainer. Unfortunately, the gorilla gram wasn’t for us and we had to keep sitting there with an antsy dog listening to the trainer.

At some point, the golden retriever was returned to the room and another trainer took over keeping him busy. With treats. Skeeter did not think this was fair at all. She was forced to sit still, she was yelled at for jumping on the little old man sitting next to me, she was not getting treats. She wasn’t even getting walked and corrected like that dumb barking dog.

No fun. No fun at all.

So she chewed through her leash. Not kidding about this either.

What did we learn at the first class? We learned to say “Yes”. As in to wander around the damn house saying “Yes” to the dog and handing her treats. (You can see a good video explaining this technique here: The Power of Yes (sorry I can’t embed, WebMD is stupid, even if they do have good dog videos.)

The dog lays down on her bed. We say “Yes” and hand her a treat. She follows us into the kitchen, we say “Yes” and hand her a treat. I’m peeing and TW is in the bedroom and I hear muffled talking and say “What did you say, I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you.” and TW says, “I was just saying “Yes” to the dog.” I’m on a conference call and in the background, I hear TW luring the dog away from the prairie dog cage and then hear her say “Yes” as the treats go all over the floor (that’s a lot of yes… and err it might have been me who spilled the treats, whatever. I’m trying to paint a picture here.)

“Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.”

Elly thinks this is stupid. Why should we give the dog treats and say “Yes.” when all the dog is doing is sitting on the seat in the car. What the hell else is she going to do — roll down the window and jump out? (Elly may or may not have said “hell”… I’ll leave it to you to decide.)

Oh, it’s also important to say “Yes.” before you present the treat. Not after. Not while. BEFORE. So we’ve explained this to everyone in the house and we’ve asked each other if we are saying it “BEFORE” and OMG how many times can two women say “YES.” in one 24 hour period? I’m already going a little nuts and wondering why we didn’t decide to say “Si.” instead. TW wonders why we didn’t decide that our “Yes.” word would be something more fun like, I dunno what would be more fun when you have to say it 500 times a day, every day, for the rest of our lives. Or what seems like it might be the rest of our lives.

I did kind of break the rules and watch another video that talks about the closed hand training so we’re kind of doing that along with the “Yes” training. Don’t tell the trainer guy. He probably won’t like it but at least it’s a little more interesting than just wandering around the house saying “Yes. Yes. Yes.” all the damn time while sprinkling a trail of kibble behind us.

I sure hope she catches onto this “Yes.” thing in a week, like the training people say she should. Right now, she’s all for it — until something more interesting or troubling catches her attention. Then she’s all fuck the treats, I’ll have those later, lemme freak out because you’re going to leave me in the car for three minutes while you get your coffee. Or who needs a handful of kibble when we’re about to go into the damn PetSmart and I can shoplift some treats.

I’m screwed, aren’t I?

I’m going to have to walk around with a pocketful of treats and greasy hands saying “YES.” for the rest of my life, aren’t I?