crysania4 | Obedience class: Week 8 (aka, Dahlia the graduate!)

Tonight was graduation for our class! I wish we could graduate with the dogs we went through most of it with, but ah well.

We did some basic things tonight...same sort of stuff as before. While working in the aisle, we met a woman who owned Siberian huskies who thought Dahlia was just amazingly gorgeous. She just kept going on and on about her...it was cute!

Colleen is very impressed with our girl and thought she would be good for competitive obedience and might even enjoy agility (even if she never competes at it). She suggested trying to skirt around the whole "dogs must be AKC purebred to participate in XYZ) by getting a certification that Dahlia is a flat-coated retriever (even though she's NOT). You apparently fill out a form and submit pictures of her and they judge her based on if she looks that breed or not. Funny that she should suggest. It's worth a thought!

For graduation, we tried to get her into a corner, against the wall, and wearing a graduation cap. Amazingly, the cap was NOT a problem. It didn't even faze her (thus prompting Colleen to say "ooo Halloween is coming up Dahlia!"). Colleen thought she would make a great kids' dog, because she'd let them dress her up and it wouldn't bother her. I love how relaxed she is.

We managed to get a few decent shots of her in the hat before passing it onto someone else. And we got a basic obedience certificate. We definitely want to work toward the Canine Good Citizen test (and are, in fact, good at most of this except the long distance stay and her reactions to other dogs). She'll do well eventually I think!

And so here's the graduate: