Graduation Day

I think every kid knows something is up when they’re told they have to take a bath. Even fuzzy kids like me.

Oops, did I just compare myself to a human kid? Hrmph.

You may recall that had my first and only bath about a month ago (read about that here) so doing it again seems really excessive. Who needs two baths? I’m very festidious and make sure I roll in something that smells nice at least weekly, which should be good enough for all but the top-most levels of society. But it happened anyway.

This time I learned about a big thing hidden in a little room at home called “the tub.” Dad and I were playing one afternoon, and suddenly he picked me up and carried me over to the tub and plopped me in. I was about to protest when I noticed treats sitting on the floor in there, and also on little shelves around the walls. Cool! I was so busy snarfing them down that I almost didn’t realize my feet were getting wet.

A bunch of scrubbing and sudsing and rinsing followed. I was mostly ok with all of it except for spraying under my tail nub. That was too weird.

After all of my good smells were gone, dad wrapped me in a towel and dried me off. He also has a thing called a “hair dryer” that he used on Raven. I have a sneaking feeling that he may use that on me someday, so I barked at it a few times to be sure it knows who’s boss when the time comes.

After I was all dry I took a little “me time” in my special under-desk spot in the kitchen with my biggest fan. Dad says I’m going to out grow that spot before long!

A couple of days later I found out why I needed to be all clean and fluffy — Graduation Day!

That’s right, it was the last night of my puppy school class!

I should mention, I’m not talking about the stupid school where they said I was the fun police — that school was worthless. Highly not recommended.

This is a new school was with the Greater Kansas City Dog Training Club (a club for dogs!) and it was great. Classes were sequential, we actually learned things and worked on things and had homework and lots of stuff. And best of all, when we had playtime it was at the end of class and it wasn’t a feeding free-for-all where I got sick afterward.

This club has been around for 70 years! They know their stuff.

Anyway, this past Wednesday was graduation night, and not only was mom there to cheer me on, we got to play with a bunch of fun new things. Like I got to jump through a hula-hoop, and run through a tunnel, and stand on a wobbly board that wiggled (ok wobbled) every which-way. I guess these were things I might play more with in the future and they wanted to see how I’d react.

Ha! Well, I raced through the tunnel without a moment’s hesitation, even when it was curved and snakey-like. Dad was supposed to go to the other end and call to me so I could see him through the tunnel, but by the time he got there I was already mid-way through! I also jumped through the hoop easily (mostly because dad had already been teaching me to jump a bar at home), and I found a balance point on the wobble board and was able to sit and down and sit again while it wiggled. It was so much fun!

At the end of class I received a certificate which I think is worth a lot of money on the black market or something. I actually thought it was a big check made out to me. You can see in my face how excited I was! (Dad eventually told me that’s not what checks look like. Rats.)

I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a band playing, or a news crew or anything when we came home, but I guess it was too dark.

Looking toward the future already… we’re already signed up for the “Puppy Grad” class that starts next month. I’m told that we’re going to build on stuff I already learned, and maybe go for something called a “CGC” certificate, which means “Canine Good Citizen”. How cool would that be? I bet I can get my own TV talk show or something once I have that!

Stay tuned!