Hey, I haven't seen you in a couple of kilos now. Actually , I'm in my 14th week, 15 kilos heavy and 47 cm tall when standing straight.- You might be wondering what the title of this page is about or you're humming the song "What a difference a day makes" and aren't thinking at all.

Then you're more my kind of person. See, I prefer the "Why think - just do - people", I'm one of them.

As always, I'm digressing. I wanted to explain the title:
Last weekend was my first "educational weekend"!

On Saturday, Monika, Gene and I drove down into the Eifel to a little village where they were having a puppy school. It's sort of an open university, I mean you find all kinds of characters there. (I don't really want to mention the word RACES, you know how this computerized spiders work; I might be using the word RACE in an absolutely innocent way, but that spider puts me on the index anyhow!) So let's stick to characters, o.k?

As I was saying, there were nine or ten different characters. Apart from myself, there were two Golden Retrievers, one Rottweiler and a bunch of those who couldn't name a father. When we first arrived, everything seemed quite nice. There I was, first on the grounds. Then the little Retriever turned up, same age, half my size I'd say. He immediately jumped onto me, dominated me. Well, fine I thought, no sweat. But after a couple of minutes it did turn into sweat. So I remembered my weight and threw it onto that little buggar and reversed the roles. That did it, now I could say when to run and when to stop.
But then that Rottweiler turned up. Boy, what a bully! He attacked each and every dog on the grounds. He wasn't really serious about it, but a pest anyhow.

So I retreated between Gene's legs and when he started to jump around I tried to find cover with Monika as best I could. (But she wouldn't allow it either. I think I have to re-think my relationship with them, Seriously!) Anyway, with me spending most of the time lieing in the background, the others gave chase and fought a lot. Only once or twice did I get up and gave them a good bark, but once they looked up from their jousting, I fell back into my place and watched the whole caboodle. Then lessons started and Gene and Monika were told that I was much too young to react to a word like sit and that they should teach me to react to my name and then they were shown how to give me some food holding it over my head so that I had to fall into my hindlegs and sit without even being told. Well, to cut it short, the three of us smiled at the trainer. When Gene said SIT, I sat down. Just for the fun of showing off! When he called my name into the crowd, I heard it, I ran to him and to Monika. But when they tried that stupid food trick, I quickly jumped at their hands and tried to get the food on my own terms.- So now we're working on a new trick: I sit on my hindlegs, lift the front legs into the air and stretch like a kangaroo to get the food. Might look dumm, though, I don't know, I can't see it. However, I don't really like the puppy school!

On Sunday, we went to the lake nearby. There they've got a real good training ground for adult Hovawarts. I was by far the youngest. That's much more to my liking. See, those big dogs don't jump about that much and roll you over and bite you everywhere. It's more relaxed. And when anyone finds anything to criticize, it's the big blokes who get the blame, not me.
So on Sunday I did my first group work. Walk alongside Gene and sit next to him when he's tired. Run up and down the field and past the other dogs as closely as possible. Nothing very exciting, really. But I know I'm the star there. Everyone fed me, I tell you, everyone. Everyone fell in love with me and said to his dog: See, you were that sweet, too, when you were young. I really liked that.