Nikki's 2nd Training Class

The photo to the left was taken last Monday. I'm sure she's even bigger now. She's 19 weeks old.

Nikki had her 2nd puppy training class at PetsMart on Saturday. There were only two puppies this time; Nikki and the other Golden, Dakota. Nikki and Dakota were delighted to see each other and wanted to play right away. But first, we had class. Nikki was SO excitable, that it was hard to get her to calm down. What finally worked, might you ask? Hey, if you saw the video of her in her last training class, you already know the answer! Give her a treat and she'll do almost anything. So we worked on Sit, Down, Stay, walking on a leash around the store. Very interesting! It's a lot for me to remember ... palm up when luring her to Sit, palm down when luring her to Down .... We have lots of homework!

The puppies got to play. We kept the leashes on this time, but pretty soon couldn't hold on to them. Nikki was having a wonderful time and played like an old pro! She would leap over the much smaller puppy and pretty much had the upper hand. Suddenly, for a short period of time, it reversed, and Dakota chased her around like he did last week. But that didn't last long. I brought the camera again but didn't use it.

I found out that this PetsMart in HB on Edinger is the only one that has an enclosed area for training. So we're lucky that way!

After class, while I was trying to juggle her, the equipment I haul to class and the treats that I was buying, people were coming up to her, making a fuss over her and petting her. She loved it, of course! A couple came up to me and cooed over her, telling me that they had an 11 month old Golden - or was it 13? Anyway, they asked me, "Aren't they just the best dogs?" And I of course said, "Yes." They turned to each other and said, "Isn't she cute? Do you remember when our dog was this small?"

I wanted to laugh - or was that cry? Nikki is a pretty big dog already. It was interesting to hear her referred to as small! I guess it's all relative. :-)