A Very Emotional Puppy Class

Yesterday was Emma's 4th puppy class. It was a horrible class and I was too emotionally overwhelmed to write about it last night. So, what happened...? Read on...

Emma, herself was a bit hyper and barking a little excessively. I think some of this was because of obvious excitment to see the other dogs, ("Play with me! Play with me!") but I also think some of it was because she had a traumatic week with being spayed and not having the same amount of exercise and activity that she is used to, as well as not having enough sleep as of late.

However, the real problem came because one dog owner brought two trouble-making teenagers with him. I am guessing them to be around 18, 19 yrs old. From the moment they walked in "gangsta"-style, I felt like they would be trouble. However, being that I hate to judge a person by their looks, I let that feeling go a bit.

Well, several times these boys taunted the dogs, and they seemed to mostly taunt Emma because she was closest to them and she was assigned "playtime" with the dog they were with. Now that dog is a BIG dog even though he is a very timid dog. Emma had a bit of a scared look about her and she jumps up and waves her arms as if she's trying to say "Look at me! I'm bigger than you! You can't hurt me!" and when she did this those boys started trying to encourage their dog to fight her.

Thankfully, the trainer noticed this. She yelled at these boys and kicked them out as well as the dog owner and his partner. As they were leaving, the boys apparently uttered threats at her (I didn't hear it but my husband either heard or heard about it) and she called the cops.

Consequently, our 45 min. class ended up being only about 25-30 min. of actual training time. I was so upset that this happened and I could not stop the tears from coming. It was a very uncomfortable class, needless to say.

There are only a couple more classes left of the puppy level, and I hope they will go smoothly. I am considering to look into private lessons because some of Emma's problem areas at home (chewing our feet, wanting attention when we're unable to give it to her, etc) are not displayed in the classroom with the other dogs monopolizing her attention. But I do want her to continue to be socialized with other dogs as well, so maybe we need both.