Puppy class: two down, two to go

When we walked into puppy class last night, about half of the people in the room chimed out, "Hi, Rosie!" Ah, my notorious pup.

She actually did pretty well, though she ran out of gas about 50 minutes into the 60-minute class. Sixty minutes is a long time for a ten-week-old pup to concentrate. But first she did very well at the name-recall exercise, and at the "watch me" exercise, and she had a great time playing with the other dogs during their two authorized play periods. (And she tried to initiate a third, unauthorized, play time.)

Last week's passion for the Corgi was forgotten; this time she turned her attention to an intense same-sex relationship with a Boston terrier named Stella. During playtime they couldn't get enough of each other, though they had to be separated repeatedly because Stella kept biting Rosie on the face.

Rosie did not mind.

She did a little better during the "soothing exercise," but she never achieved the coma-like calm of all the other dogs. She squealed loudly. She was calmer when Doug held her than when I held her, but she was never terribly calm.

By the end of class, she was completely exhausted.  She exhibits this the way some small children do--she gets wild, out of control, doesn't listen, gets frenetic and almost frightening in her Cujo-like intensity. We tried doing name-recall again in the last five minutes, which was completely counterproductive; all she wanted to do was roll Stella.

She did not, however, pee or poop in class, though several other dogs did. (Including the Corgi, when I was playing with him, lucky me.)

When we got home, we tried to keep her awake until at least 9 p.m. in hopes she would sleep later into the night, but it was impossible. She was soooo tired. (In the interests of journalistic integrity, it must be noted that the bottom picture was taken on Monday night, not Tuesday night, and is used here for illustrative purposes only.)

This morning, Doug woke me up by plopping Rosie in bed with me at about 5:15 a.m.  She was awake. Oh, Lord, she was wide, wide, wide awake.