Persephonie Scrolls III
This month, I thought I would share what my favorite rescue Rottie has been up to lately. As you'll see, Sephie has been busy the past few months.
Sephie Good Citizen
Sephie and I had been taking obedience classes with a local kennel club since last fall. And while she is an incredibly quick learner, her shyness was still really quite the stumbling block. Oh, she was more than happy to take a treat from anyone and everyone, actually letting someone pet her was a bit too much for her. After a lot of work and a lot of help from other people in the club, she finally started letting people touch her, but only if they were petting with her one hand and stuffing treats in her mouth with the other.
A couple of months ago, the club announced that they would be holding a Canine Good Citizen event. The CGC test is a temperament test given by the AKC to test how well a dog knows how to behave in public. Since part of the exam involved a friendly stranger petting the dog, I was really skeptical about Sephie's chances at passing the test. So were her instructors for that matter. However, they both agreed that it would be good for her if I at least brought her to the event for some socialization, even if I didn't actually enter her. Since I usually don't need much of an invitation to hang out in a room full of dogs, I decided to follow their advice.
The next week, Sephie and I showed up at the testing site and found a spot near the signup table. We sat quietly for about an hour, watching other dogs run through the course.
At some point while we were sitting there, aliens abducted my shy dog and replaced her with a look-a-like. At least, that is one possible theory as to what happened next.
Suddenly, Sephie the Chicken, became a social butterfly. She started hamming up to the ladies working at the sign up table, as well as anyone else within reach. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Before long, the ladies at the table were encouraging me to give the test a shot. I decided to go for it and shelled out the money for the test.
So Sephie the Social Butterfly and I entered the ring. I was a nervous wreck, but she did great. She was a bit shy toward the friendly stranger. But it turned out that our friendly stranger was a fellow Rottie owner who was very understanding about Sephie's past. With a little encouragement, Sephie allowed the woman to pet her, brush her, and check her feet. Test passed.
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