Puppy Kindergarten is exhausting

Last night I took Zeldie to puppy kindgergarten. She was so tired out afterwards, she feel asleep as soon as we got home. The video above is how she feel asleep in her crate. David had swim practice so our friend Tifanni met me there. Tiffani is a very experienced puppy mommy and had both Zeldie, and me, all under control. Zeldie was one of the smallest dogs there. I let her off the leash for some play time at the beginning of the class and she started making friends. with one of the three golden doodles in the class, whose name, by the way, was Paisley.

Some of you may remember, that when we first started talking about getting a dog, Paisley was my first choice for her name. I was very glad we had decided against it. There was also a black lab named Scout. Some of you may also remember that Scout was on our list too. After being in the class with another Scout, which also was a boy dog, I was glad we had decided against that as well.

During the training, Zeldie did not grasp the concept of "voluntary attention". Unlike the Golden Doodles, Golden Retrievers and Labs whose sole purpose in life is to please their owners, Zeldie was as the instructor put it diplomatically to the entire class "highly distracted in this environment". I was the only owner who had to get on the floor to work with my dog. The rest could sit politely in the plastic chairs. When the rest of the class moved on, we got some remediation in "volunatry attention". Zeldie is a smart dog, she was able to figure it out quickly. She is just a twice exceptional dog. So, she has a few special learning needs too.

And oddly enough, I now understand what David has been trying to tell me all this time. You may know that I have for a long time said that David makes me feel like my biggest flaws are my greatest strengths. What I call stubborness, he calls persistence. What I call a hot temper he calls passion. Watching Zeldie last night, as she strained at her leash trying to make friends with the Golden Doodles who were adoringly volunteering their attention to their owners, while the instructor discussed proper handling technique and I knelt futilely on the floor, I fell in even more deeply in puppy love with our little girl thinking that she was lot more interesting because of it.