Oh, Petey… I genuinely don’t have enough words to express how much I enjoy watching this dog learn and progress.
The very first thing I said to his owner was that he reminds me of baby Orca—and I meant it. The constant smile, the silly expressions, the ever-wagging tail, the feet that never stop moving… his whole body radiates pure, unfiltered enthusiasm. It’s like somebody added too much dogness into a body that cannot contain it all, and this dogness keeps spilling out. That’s also exactly why his progress has been so impressive.
As much as I personally love that kind of energy, dogs like Petey aren’t easy to live with or train. They learn quickly—but they also come up with a hundred creative alternatives to what you actually asked for. Not because anything is wrong, and not because of behavioral issues, but because their minds are always on, always moving, always looking for the next thing.
That kind of busyness can be challenging, and it can also be contagious—it’s very easy to want to match that energy. But to succeed, a dog like Petey needs the opposite: calmness and clarity.
And Petey’s owner has been exceptional at both.
Class after class, task after task, Petey has learned to control his impulses and make better choices. It’s not perfect yet—he still does a happy little bounce when he sees his favourite trainer (ahem)—but the progress has been remarkable. Watching him consciously choose to obey and execute a “down” command while expressing, with his whole body, that running over and saying hello would be a better idea, is true joy—and a testament to the fact that he understands the job and does it regardless.
Petey may be a “pet” dog, but he has every single quality of a true working dog. Maybe his owner wasn’t planning to get one, but they got one nevertheless. More importantly, they never gave up and learned how to handle that level of intensity—and that is something I genuinely admire and respect.