Session Five

Linda with the dog on the abandoned right-of-way of the Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern (you can see it’s wide enough for double-track). (Lollypop’s Animal-Farm is at right.)

So concludes session five of dog obedience training with Scarlett at Lollypop Farm.
Probably the least productive and most frustrating yet.
The dogs, about eight, were all a-tizzy, making Scarlett a nervous wreck.
When we went in the training room, another dog barked and growled and lunged at her, putting our dog on the defensive.
We keep her away from other dogs, since she can be aggressive.
Especially toward Lotharios. No more of that puppy-jazz.
(Scarlett is spayed.)

Sign at the trail-head of the abandoned right-of-way of the Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern.

The whole idea of this session was the beginning of heel training.
Doing so involves bribery — heel and you get a treat.
Forget treats; Scarlett was focused on the other dogs.
One owner had brought along a squeaky-toy as a treat for his dog, but it sounded like a chipmunk.
“Get outta here with your hot-dogs; I want that!”
So did probably every other dog.
They all were distracted.
One dog was such a pill it had to be taken outside.
The trainer tried to show us heel-training, but “she’s not focused on the treat.”
“Yeah; what she wants is that squeaky-toy,” we said.
The class kept ratcheting back; first “stay” then “down” and finally just “sit.”
Scarlett knows the hand-signal for “down” better than anything else.
Forget words; just show me the signal — BAM!
Finally they gave up. “Too much bad energy in here.”
We were let out, and now was the good part: the hike along the nearby abandoned right-of-way of the Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern interurban. Plus the hike through “Animal-Farm.”

The Waddle-pool. (“I can get those geese. Lemme at ‘em!”)

I got it right, everyone. (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.....) —The sign-photo is #2.
Heel defined is dog walks calmly at your side, looking at you.
“Oh sure!” I said. “Scarlett tows me around” — BOINK!
Well, getting a dog to heel when needed is nice, but the essence of being a dog is to spaz all over hunting.
A dog is happiest doing that. —Killian loved it, and so does Scarlett.
I think our dog is also put off by Lollypop — all kennels and enemy dogs.
“Am I getting dumped here?”
“I hope not; I had a good time with those guys.”

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

“Scarlett” is our current dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. “Killian” was our previous dog, another rescue Irish-Setter.

Lollypop Farm is the Rochester area Humane Society and animal-shelter. (It offers courses in dog obedience training.) —They keep horses and sheep and pigs in an area I call their “Animal-Farm.”

The “Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern” is a long-abandoned interurban railroad east of Rochester that skirts Lollypop. —“Interurban” in that it was a special railroad designed to move passengers in outlying areas. It used self-propelled cars often powered electrically via overhead trolley-wire, but usually the cars were bigger than regular city trolley-cars. —The Rochester, Syracuse & Eastern was more than the ordinary interurban line, since it was double-track. Most interurbans were single-track. The RS&E could run much faster, but it never went beyond Syracuse. It’s abandoned right-of-way (grade), was made into a hiking trail.