This Precious Girl

...started puppy training classes today.

I was so nervous.

I was afraid we'd have the bad kid in class.

You know the one.

The kid who makes too much noise.

The kid who doesn't pay attention to the teacher.

We took her to the dog park this afternoon to let off some steam.

...So she'd be good during class.

She barked.

And barked.

And barked.

And barked at another dog there.

She freaked out.

But I pushed aside my worries, because dogs can sense that, you know.

And I gathered my supplies for class:

Shot records

Treat pouch

Treats

Harness

Leash

Payment receipt

Husband (Oh, no way am I doing this alone!)

And away we went to Petsmart.

To fetch a good dog.

Off to Petsmart we went.

When we got there, Sacha started barking.

Loudly.

Loudly enough that the whole store turned to see what that bad dog was doing.

I thought for sure we would be evicted from the store.

But we weren't.

We met our trainer. He introduced us to a gentle leader, which went over Sacha's nose.

She resisted at first.

She hated it.

But it did help.

Tremendously.

We got her to sort of calm down.

We got her to focus on us, rather than the other dogs and people in the room.

Most of the time.

She learned two commands:

Watch me

and

Calm down.

We have a long road ahead of us.

But we're going to tough it out.

Whatever it takes to make this girl a wonderful dog, we'll do.

Because I know she's got it in her.

I can see it in her eyes.