SCENES FROM A CLASS

I had a puppy class the other night. In that class there is a four month old Chocolate Lab named "Teddy". He's in that stage of dog life where he is extremely clumsy, hyper-active, and seems to have more skin than body, it kind rolls loosely on his frame. His owner is a sixteen year old girl. She usually comes alone but brought her sixteen year old boyfriend last week.

The dog has a jumping up problem. Well not really a problem for him:) So as they do he was repeatedly jumping on the sixteen year old boyfriend. Everytime he did the boyfriend would thwack him on the head with the nylon leash and tell the dog he was going to "kick his ass". Now I'm sure this really didn't hurt the dog... but still.

So I watched this about three times and when I couldn't take it anymore..I pulled the kid down an aisle away from the class. I said "if there is going to be any ass kicking in this class it's going to be me kicking yours if you don't stop hitting that dog". He turned bright red, pulled himself up to his full 5'3" and said "Oh yeah?" (brilliant aren't they at that age?) I got right back in his face and said "Yeah" and turned back to my class.

About five minutes later I noticed his girlfriend was there but he was gone. She said he suddenly realized he "had something to do". I don't think he told her what happened. Sigh, I may get fired someday for something like this but I can't help it. What I really wanted to do was tell the girl to get rid of him. She seems nice and nothing says "white trash" to me like hitting your animals. Oh well she'll learn....hopefully I would hate to think of her being on the end of that leash someday.