Roman And His Obedience Class!

Today was a much better day for us in terms of mileage – we managed 15 miles today and I have also played football this evening in the 6 a side league in Chester – we won 2-0 if you’re interested! I got up nice and early – about 8am – despite not managing to get my early night (I didn’t go to bed until 2am!) I left the house just after 9am and managed to get 8 miles in before I got to the dog obedience training place. I go to a place called FIDO for anyone in Chester who is interested.

I decided to take a t shirt with me this morning after yesterday – I don’t want to put myself out of commission! Also, not sure whether the dog obedience class would appreciate me walking around topless with them! I was careful to make sure I wore my t shirt when the sun was on my back but took it off when it was on my front – the front always catches the sun slower!

Training went really well this week – we have only been to 2 sessions so far but I have been really happy with Roman so far. The problems I have with him are the result of other dogs – either strays running loose or idiot owners that can’t control their dogs. I like to think I am pretty responsible with Roman and I always put myself in the middle and make him sit behind me whenever dogs approach aggressively which, believe it or not, is actually quite often where I live!

The first class I went to was an indoor class and that was interesting. There were 5 dogs at that class but one was a recent rescue dog who was very worked up. As a result it just wouldn’t stop barking! Naturally the other dogs therefore got worked up but the rescue dog left after about 10 minutes – they do one on one sessions too – and all of the remaining dogs calmed down considerably! Roman was still very excitable and this can be quite difficult behaviour to handle when your dog is 9 stone of muscle!

This week we all took a walk into town – there were 3 dogs this week and one was a 6 month old Rottweiler bitch called Amber (Roman and Amber seemed to get on well!) – and stop off at a café for a coffee. I had never really thought about doing something like this but it was very beneficial. Roman surprised me – the nature of the other dogs seemed to rub off on him as he behaved really well. He walked really well on the lead and left the other dogs alone!

Once we got to the café the dogs just lay by our feet and, again, Roman behaved really well. The idea behind this is that it is teaching your dog to be able to deal with everyday distractions such as other people walking by and general conversations between us. I think the fact that the owners were in a relaxed state talking probably rubbed off on the dogs too.

I have really enjoyed myself this weekend and feel I have made good progress so far in publicising my plans. I never really thought about how much work goes into publicising this kind of stuff but I certainly have an idea now! I am enjoying every minute of it so far although it can be frustrating at times. My group on Facebook now has 159 members and a further 900 invitations outstanding. I have members from all over the world already – Greece, India, Argentina and many more. I have found the Social Me app on Facebook to be very handy for this so far! I am hoping that as the numbers rise the rate will start to proliferate.

Well, back to work tomorrow (unfortunately!) but at least I now have some groundwork done with this and I can see the end in sight! Thanks for reading.