Tim Dowling: dog training takes a strange turn on a midweek walk

Tim Dowling writes that on a loose midweek afternoon he joined his wife for a dog walk in a park, and their dog’s training has taken a weird turn.

The couple take turns delivering monologues of complaint to fill the walk; when it is his wife’s turn she uses a hiding exercise as part of the dog’s training. The dog panics after chasing a stranger, then spots the wife behind an oak and leaps and twists in the air in relief.

After the final evening of dog school, his wife and the dog came home with a certificate bearing only the word “Completed.” Dowling says his wife has signed the dog up for an Intermediate class, and he does not know what happens at Intermediate or how far she intends to pursue the dog’s education — he even wonders, speculatively, whether they might branch into forensics.

Dowling says the dog still courts trouble when out with him: he describes a fight with another dog called Violet (Violet’s owner agreed Violet started it), a ball-swapping standoff with a different dog, and an episode in which the dog spent several minutes excavating a hole while he hid nearby. After seven minutes hiding behind a tree, the dog ambled past, then turned and looked bewildered when she saw him.

What is known is that the dog is signed up for Intermediate class and that hiding is part of its training; what remains uncertain, Dowling says, is how far his wife will pursue the dog’s education or what further lessons they will try next.

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