My Obedience Adventure with Zeal
January – February 2026
I enrolled Zeal in an obedience class to see if I can get her calm enough to certify as a therapy dog. That ZZ litter was WILD from birth. I’m hoping, at 2.5 years of age, she has mellowed enough to do obedience.
February 2nd (3rd class): We’ve had 2 classes and so far she has provided the instructor with chuckles over her enthusiasm at doing anything. Today we worked on heeling (walking at my left side on a loose lead while looking at me). She could do that for a few seconds at a time before she’d become mesmerized by the others in the class. Eventually we were able to walk in a pretty straight line for maybe 10 feet before she fell apart – the other dogs were able to heel across the arena, four or five times what Zeal managed. At least she didn’t do her signature bounding leap like she does at home. Once we had tired the dogs out – well, let’s say the other dogs tired out – we worked on sit stays. The other dogs ended up staying while their owners walked to the end of the 6’ leash and then walked around them in a circle. Zeal managed to stay long enough for me to go 1’ away and return. It may be a LONG time (and several series of classes) before Zeal can control herself enough to pass the therapy dog test. She is very affectionate and sweet and LOVES people, so she would be a good therapy dog if I can get her enthusiasm controlled.
February 9th (4th class out of 5): I asked our obedience class instructor, Sue, to take a few photos of Zeal at class Monday night.
Photos 1-5: We practiced getting her to move from in front of me to a sitting position by my left leg. Using a treat as a lure, I could get her into heel position, but she fought having to sit by my side.
Photos 6-9: Here I am trying to get her to wait until I go through the gate and call her to me. It didn’t go well. It took forever to get her to sit before I could try to get her to stay. You can see how she’s ignoring my vocal “stay” command AND hand signal and peering for a way to go around me. It took us about 10 times before she would stay while I walked about three steps away. She much prefers leaping…
February 16, last class: I again asked Sue to take photos if she had a chance. I’m glad I did. For the first time, Zeal FINALLY gave me some eye contact! I think maybe she’s finally deciding that teamwork might be fun. I would have liked to do another obedience class, but Sue is just offering rally and Canine Good Citizen classes next, so I signed us up for both.
Photo 1: She caught Zeal giving me eye contact, actually asking me what I would like her to do!
Sue introduced some CGC exercises: Sit quietly at heel while a person approaches and talks to us, the sit quietly at heel while a person approaches and asks to pet the dog and visit quietly when released. She actually aced both of those!
Photos 2-9: Then we practiced a third CGC exercise: walk-byes. Three cones form a pattern, which two dog teams walk. First time you walk from the first to the third cones. Then you turn around and stop at the second cone and the dog must stay calm by your side. On the third leg, you stop at the middle cone and handlers must talk to each other while the dog is supposed to stay in a sit. The aussie is fearful of other dogs and often growls, the boxer is only 7 months and quite bouncy, the lab just started last week and is a little wile, while the border collie and handler are in 4H and already doing nice heeling and stays. I was VERY pleased with Zeal, though she had her nose on the ground during the first three dogs and only finally began giving me some eye contact when we did the walk-bye with the last dog.
Photos 10-13: Finally, we practiced heeling past distractions. First, we heeled around the square where Sue had placed various dog toys, telling them “leave it!” if they wanted to investigate a toy. Then we heeled through the middle. Amazingly, Zeal did fantastic! I have to say that the last photo shows Zeal in her usual response to praise.
