We entered an obedience class that was highly recommended. The teacher was a women with years of experience. She had several dogs and a few cats. She began by explaining different ways of training (beating the dog into submission, feeding it treats, petting and vocal praises) and the end result of each method. She preferred the vocal praise and petting (you don’t always have a special treat for the dog but you can always praise them). It was interesting to see so many varied breeds of dogs in one place. There was a beautiful Shetland Sheepdog that nipped at her owner. There was a Doberman Pinscher that had me laughing because he didn’t walk - he bounced! I would swear that puppy had springs on his feet! I had never seen a dog jump straight up off the ground before. We learned, and in some cases saw, breed characteristics. The Wired Haired Terrier barked a lot, and had more energy than a family of 12 toddlers! As far as the Kuvasz was concerned - they tend to be stubborn. Calla would acknowledge me by looking at me when I gave her a command as if to say, “I’ll do it when I’m ready” and she would. A minute, 2, 3 minutes later, she’d do whatever I told her to do. The instructor would laugh and give me some hints to get Calla to move or behave properly. We were told that with a dog of her size she had to understand that she was at the bottom of the ladder and would always be there. She must never, ever think that she is above anyone else. The Kuvasz are good jumpers, however, if we didn’t want her to jump, don’t let her know that she can jump. Don’t play jumping games with her or she’ll end up jumping over the fence. Armed with good advice and many hours of practice we finally graduated from training - all of us, Calla, my husband and me. What an adventure that was. An adventure I would highly recommend to anyone with any breed or size of dog to take.

There were some things the instructor breezed over, some traits common to certain breeds. For instance, a herding dog will try to get you to go in a direction he wants you to go by pushing his head on your ankle or lower leg while you walk. Some dogs are barkers, they bark for food, attention, to go outside, to come inside, etc. Calla, being a Kuvasz is a guard dog. Living in Seattle, on a busy street and having our house broken into once, we decided to get a guard dog. This a thing about guard dogs - they do tend to be independent and stubborn. They will by pass what you tell them and make the move they think best if a situation calls for it. It is imperative that you have a solid relationship with the dog from puppyhood with you being the master and the dog - a dog. A member of the family, sure, but that the dog has to understand how to relate to strangers. Case in point: Calla was not a year old yet, about 7 - 8 months old. A friend of my husband’s came to the house and without ringing the bell or even knocking, he just walked in, barely. Calla was in front of me, legs spread, teeth bared and barked a bark I had never heard before. She stood about 10 feet from my husband’s friend who stood locked in place and white as a ghost. I put my hand on her back and in a calm voice told her it was okay. I then went to the man frozen at the door and welcomed him in. Calla then quit barking and sniffed the man. She began sniffing him at his toes, then continued sniffing him all the way up - she stood on her back legs and sniffed his shoulder. Mind you, she was not full grown and still very much a puppy. If we had not the training we had had, the outcome might have been different. It was very impressive to watch. Scared the bejeebers out of me too!

March, or April, 1988 we took home our first puppy. A beautiful white puppy. We had gotten her from a breeder in a small town north of Seattle, Washington. Her breed was Kuvasz - a breed from Tibet, also from Hungary. We had visited the puppy a couple weeks prior to taking her home. What a cute puppy - but aren’t all puppies cute? The puppy was 7 weeks old when we took her home. She sat on my lap in the car and she could see out the windshield. We had learned earlier, before settling on this puppy that the Kuvasz are guard dogs with high intelligence and determination. That, along with her size, I was to learn was going to be a challenge for years to come! Because she was white and my favorite flower was a Calla Lily, we named her Calla.

We would often take Calla for walks to and through the parks. Once, when she was about 4 months old and we were walking her through a park, a small girl announced to her parents that that (pointing to my puppy) was a sheep-dog. Oddly enough a day or two later walking her through the same park an adult man said, “It’s a sheep” as we walked by him. Yeah, she’s white, with floppy white ears, but, she’s got this tail, ya know? Not anything like a sheep! Her chest, even though she was still a puppy, was deeper than that of a sheep. My husband would take her to the park and let her off her leash, then hide. Calla always found him. Once though, she hid. My husband became worried when he couldn’t find her right away and called for her. She came bounding out of some bushes! She learned quickly the game of hide ‘n seek. My husband learned quickly that he didn’t like the fact that Calla learned the game and played it well!

She was such a curious thing. Always sniffing. She’d sniff at the puff balls from dandelions and jump at them when they’d float off. She would also try to chase them. It was fun, but tiring as well. This “puppy” was strong and it wasn’t altogether unusual to find myself on my butt while taking her for a walk. If she found something to chase (squirrels were plentiful), she’d run after it. It could get real boring when she’d sniff (I swear) every blade of grass. Yanking on her leash just didn’t do what I was hoping it would. It was time to take her to obedience training.