Asa and I are doing so well training Mom and Dad with our sit and stays, that we decided to take our training on the road!  While out doing errands with them, I noticed the perfect park for us to stop and let Mom and Dad practice making us the center of attention.  Too bad I didn’t notice that guy doing a headstand before we started our training session.

Everything started well enough.  I proudly sat in the center of the park while watching Dad wander in circles farther and farther away from me.  He’s doing very well with his training, keeping his eyes on me at all times.  At one point a little girl came running up, so I immediately jumped up to greet her.  Ok, I forgot I was training Dad.  But he reminded me, and I sat down again.  I happily wagged my tail in the grass while Dad politely told the little girl I was training, and asked her not to pet me.

Well apparently she was one of my adoring fans, because she didn’t take no for an answer.  The little girl proceeded to hug me anyways!  We haven’t addressed Dad’s antisocial tendencies in his classes yet.  Therefore, when I jumped up to greet this little girl, I wasn’t surprised that Dad’s reaction was to take me to another area of the park.  The little girl followed, and started throwing dandelions at me.  I couldn’t resist showing off my athletic skills by catching them midair.  What can I say?  Fetch is life, no matter what I’m fetching!  Dad politely asked her to stop, and explained we were in school and I was learning something very important.  I guess it is embarrassing at Dad’s age to admit he’s in summer school.  Therefore, I don’t blame him for using that excuse.  Anyways, the little girl eventually wandered off to be with her Mom.

Next it was Asa’s turn.  It being so very hot out, Mom didn’t want to leave me in the car.  So she sat with me in the shade while Asa proudly headed off to continue Dad’s training.  That’s when things got weird.  Headstand man finally stood upright, and started shouting at Asa and Dad, “Are you K9? You’re K9!”  At first I was amused that this man could possibly confuse Asa for our crime fighting heroes.  Especially since this man seemed to have a lot of experience dealing with police and K9s.  Asa, forgetting his job of training Dad, ran over to greet the man.  Dad, who was a sizable distance away practicing his circles, quickly caught up.  He politely explained to the man that Asa was just a goofy Golden who needed training.  Again, I’ll cut Dad some slack for hiding the truth about who really needed the training.  Besides, he certainly got the goofy part right, based on the way Asa was bouncing around his new best friend.

The man got more adamant that he knew a police K9 when he saw one.  Oh sir, you flatter us!  But Dad said, “no,” and tried to walk away to a quieter corner of the park.  But the man followed.  This time he was telling Dad to let Asa off-leash to just be a dog.  Nope, not part of our lesson plan.  I’ll spare you how the rest of that conversation went.  He wasn’t rather nice to Dad.  Next thing I knew, headstand man focused his attention on Mom and me.  Needless to say, we were getting really uncomfortable with the situation.  I ended up cutting Mom and Dad’s training session short, and left.  So let this be a lesson: If you see a man doing a headstand in the park, don’t stop and keep driving!