God bless the municipality of Manatee Puerto
Rico . I had a blast.
Before the speeches began, as people assembled I
meandered through the crowd saying hello to everybody. Siberian Huskies, a
Great Dane, a Basenji, a Bulldog with a ton of personality were good to meet
along with friendly people, who laughed goodheartedly at my Spanish. (It’s
appropriate.) It seemed to me that there were quite a few young puppies. It’s
not a good idea to teach adults and puppies in the same class for many reasons,
so I suggested the division to Alma, who agreed. When I made that suggestion, I
had counted twelve for the puppy class I would teach. No sweat, I thought even
though I haven’t taught a class in five years.
A crowd of more than sixty dogs and their people
listened to opening speeches and introductions. We stood on the steps of a
coliseum; the rules of the event were clearly stated by the ranking police
officer. The organizing dog trainer, Alma Febus, announced where the puppies
should gather. The training planned for outside had to suddenly, be moved
inside do to rain that began no sooner than she announced the separation of
classes, so Carlos Cardona, the officer in charge told us where the puppies
would be meeting, a long narrow area where people wait to get inside the
coliseum, but we were under a roof.
Have you ever looked at a situation and felt
confident? Twelve puppies, a piece of chocolate! I entered the vestibule where
the puppies awaited. Wall to wall people and pups greeted me. Holy! Holy!!
“Just puppies, here,” I yelled in Spanish, “Solomente peritos, por favor!”
Nobody moved; this massive tangle just looked. Oh, my,
what the!! I quickly grabbed a couple of cones, “People with puppies line up
between the cones. People without dogs, please stand along the opposite
wall.”
As everybody shuffled into place, I counted puppy
dogs. I stopped counting at forty puppies. The place was crowded so I took a couple of
cones further down and divided the class.
Yes, forty in a class is overwhelming; who knew the
pent up demand for dog training was so great?
Teniente Carlos Cardona and his staff should be
congratulated for offering to the citizens of Manatee a program that they so
obviously want.
Thanks to the efforts of my volunteer assistants:
Joselito Moye, Officer Tanya Roman, Genesis Rodriguez, and a beautiful lady
whose name I never got, but impressed me with her capability and calm demeanor.
These people rock!!
Joselito is the bomb; he gave the class to a darn big group. Occasionally I’d run over to
observe, and I have to tell you; the man did a fine job! He saved the day
because I could not have done justice to forty in one group.
One of my goals in life is to improve our relationship
with dogs. When I’m doing that, I’m having fun. After all these years, I’m
still a dog lover.
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