My family recently staged a gentle intervention and told me that my year-old boxer-esque, bulldog-y mix, Karma, could really use some training.

And since I need my family to petsit in a pinch, I signed her right up, and we’ve been attending weekly classes in Edgecomb. I was a little nervous going in; I’d never done dog training classes before. I was worried I might be judged for my cluelessness, or Karma’s naughtiness, or that I’d end up with a trainer who thought you should establish domination over your dog or whatever.

I’m happy to report that none of my worries came to pass. I’d recommend my trainer to anyone. Her training style is about establishing communication, not control, and she understands that dogs aren’t just automatons; they’re goofy, sentient beings with their own thoughts, motivations and quirks. Oh, Lord, the quirks. We’ve been working on “leave it” as a command, and when I put a treat on the ground and tell Karma to “leave it,” she flops over on her side. The trainer said that was a fine response to the command if it was helping Karma to cope.

It’s going to sound weird, but the one thing I was hoping for, going into class, was that Karma wouldn’t be the worst behaved. And she wasn’t. (She was the second worst.) She peed in submission – which I did not know was a thing – after the instructor gave her a command. I was about to pass out with embarrassment (she’s consistently housebroken!) until another dog did the same thing twice.

The first class featured a lot of excited barking, as a lot of large, excited puppies desperately tried to make new friends. The trick to getting them to calm down and become accustomed to the presence of other dogs is to throw food on the ground. This sounds counterintuitive, but it works. They can’t get excited and bark if they’re busy eating food off the ground. Sure enough, next class, everyone was a little bit calmer. A surprising amount of dog training actually involves throwing food on the ground.

I was struggling to get Karma to stop jumping on people to greet them. There are a lot of different methods that people use to get dogs to stop jumping (one of the hardest behaviors to stop). Throwing the food on the ground works for that, too, but the technique I learned in class that has been getting results with Karma is to freeze, cross my arms against my chest (I think of this as the “Wakanda Forever” pose), look away from her and don’t react. Which is hard, because she’s almost 50 pounds and almost as tall as me when she’s on her hind legs. But what she wants is attention, and she gets bored pretty fast with my complete lack of response. Then when she has at least three feet on the ground (she’s young, so I’m giving her a little wiggle room), she gets affection and attention.

I’m not very consistent with the training or very thorough with the at-home follow-up, I admit that. Part of that is the presence of my first dog, Janey, who doesn’t need the training, on account of being pretty naturally well behaved (if she hears me say “sit” then she sits and expects a treat. I go through treats twice as fast when Janey’s involved, and those Milk-Bones are getting expensive).

I don’t keep cheese around the house because I’m lactose intolerant. Last week in class, the dog trainer gave Karma a piece of cheese as a reward, and I swear a light flipped on behind her eyes for the first time. In that moment, she’d have taken a bullet for the trainer. She would have let all the dogs in class devour me alive, like Scar at the end of “The Lion King,” if it meant getting one more piece of that squishy gold.

When we’re in a calm, controlled environment – like class or my house – Karma can nail a sit-down-stay-sit with no problem. But in a new, exciting environment like the beach, a place full of people and dogs and fun smells and mouthfuls of delicious sand? It took her literally five solid minutes to calm down and refocus on me.

Just like me when I was in elementary school, she’s fairly bright but lacks focus. I suspect part of that comes down to age – she turned 1 on Valentine’s Day. Still a baby! But in the month that we’ve been in class together, she’s mastered “sit,” “down” and is well on her way to “leave it.”

Of course, she stole my sandwich off the counter this morning. So she’s maybe not going to be the class valedictorian.

Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial

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