Serious Barking and Sleeping

Over the last couple of days Henry has done some serious barking.

It started on Saturday which was very rainy. For some reason he just took to barking at absolutely everything, me, Other Half, Molly (especailly Molly), the cats on the farm, the hares in the field and the dogs on the farm.

The dogs on the farm decided to come up to the front of the house and stand on the track and bark back which was quite funny to start with but then Molly joined in and we had two dogs standing on their back legs at the window barking at two more dogs through the window who were barking back. This could only go on for so long before one of the occupants of the house had a nervous breakdown.

Then the rain wouldn't stop so we were all stuck in the house together, especially as the river burst it's banks and ran over the end of the track so unless we were up for a quick (and it would have been very quick as the water was rushing by) swim there was nowhere to go anyway. Of course the dogs didn't realise this and were trying every trick in the book to get out which for Henry involved even more barking.

Eventually as the day went on the rain slowed and I decided to take the dogs to dog training club as they had the hall for Saturday evening instead of Thursday due to a mix up.

I did mean to go to the first class of the evening but due to everyone barking and jumping up and confusing everything I ended up being half an hour late so I decided to creep into the hall and watch the first hour and then join the second class. As I opened the door a perfect class was going on, no barking (bliss) and every dog was behaving perfectly, and of course because it was so quiet everyone looked as I went in.

Having been noticed I was given the job of going up to each dog to say hello and give them a treat, now I'm a real dog person and I felt all puffed up at being asked to do such an important job so off I went around the hall being all important.

Being a real dog person I didn't worry at all about the dogs, after all they were in dog training club and everyone knows everyone and all the dogs are getting socialised so I wasn't expecting to be snapped at by the first very cute fluffy white dog who was also incedentally rather small so I immediately over-reacted and jumped back half a hall length! This attempt over I moved on to the next dog, a very very lovely lurcher who I'd never seen before, she looked at me with adoring eyes, refused my treat and growled! This really wasn't good so I quickly moved round the rest of the dogs before being told to bring Molly and Henry in to join the class.

As I said, the class was lovely and controlled and quiet, until the three of us crashed through the door. Henry started barking straight away and Molly was very insistant at going up to the lovely lady who runs the classes as she knew she had a pocket full of treats. The peace was shattered for the rest of the evening.

After the first class ended the dogs for the second class started arriving. We normally go to the second class so all the dogs know each other and for 20 minutes or so the hall was full of dogs all going around saying hello to each other and bounding to the door to greet the latest arrival. As one owner said, we could remember when we had a full social lives of our own and Saturday night was the night to get dressed up and go out partying but now it's our dogs who have all the fun! Henry of course was the noisiest, barking and howling at everyone, running around the other dogs and sidling up to the owners as he knows they all have treats in their pockets.

Once everyone had settled down we had a great lesson, both Henry and Molly walked perfectly to heel, sat, stayed, stayed while I walked accross the room, did a recall and then a silent recall and looked completely well trained. Why is it that this happens in the hall with all the other dogs and then on walks at home they are like a couple of hooligans? I'm yet to get Henry to walk to heel on a walk.

Then we all went home after extracting Other Half from the pub and for once in the weekend both dogs laid on their beds and snored away, there is nothing better in life than to look upon dogs who are fast asleep and worn out, it's a sort of blissful thing that should be bottled.