Arrivederci Harry

Some eleven months ago, Harry arrived in our lives as a fully formed squidgy bundle of puppiness. One look at those devil dog eyes, however, should have warned us not to be taken in by his seeming adorableness and to gird our not inconsiderable loins - and if you think that is rude, check this:

So, almost a year on and where are we? Well, thanks to the wonderful ladies of Pendlebairn Dog Training and the weekly Tuesday night sessions with Carolyn, Jen and Suzanne at Irewell Methodist Church, what could have been a totally wilful, single-minded and completely undisciplined dog is a semi-wilful, occasionally single-minded and partially undisciplined dog. We count this a success.

It was with sadness, then, that last night Harry attended his final session. As always, he spent the whole time wagging his tail and taking a snoop at everything that was going on, with only the sporadic bid for freedom to put another pup it its place. To his, and our, surprise we ended with a party, where Harry was allowed to join the team of big dogs (Alsations, mastiffs...) in a series of obstacle races that began with two simple jumps before incrementally adding hoops to sit in, dog bowls to eat from (sausage) and some not to eat from (corned beef). I am afraid that Harry's team was at a particular disadvantage as not only has he apparently decided that sitting is a waste of time unless there is some food in the offing, preferring either to stand or lie down, but the other dogs on his side were too big to fit into the hoop.

In the spirit of the perenniel British runner up (even if Harry's team was supposed to be representing Italy) we had great fun witnessing the struggle to control several stones of exuberant puppy that was straining to get at the corned beef while missing the hoops and crashing into the jumps. Still, plenty of sausage was eaten by the various dogs as well as a very fine chocolate cake (thank you, Carolyn) by the humans - you knew

the cake was going to be toothsome as it had those curled chocolate decorations on top that you see in recipes, the making of which just delays getting your chops round the cake.

Any future progress in turning Harry into a model of canine compliance and attentiveness now lies in our hands. Be afraid, be very afraid.