Pet Day

Part of the 2nd grade curriculum at Blessed Sacrament is to write a mammal report. Each child gets to select their top 3 and the teacher decides which one. Quinn chose a platypus and really enjoyed the research, preparation and completion of his report. In fact, writing that report greatly increased his handwriting - pretty much the only thing we've struggled with this school year. But I digress, as a followup to the Mammal Reports they have a Pet Day where parents can bring their kids' pets to school for a blessing and a "show and tell". This day was supposed to be in April but due to this lovely Spring weather it was postponed a couple of times. So it ended up happening on Wednesday. I had told Quinn I would bring Callie. This sounded like a good idea in principle. It was all going fine, despite her usual pulling on the leash and wanting to be pet by all in attendance. I had tried to get her harness on but she didn't seem to want that -- turns out she just didn't want to jump in the car for some reason and I should have just left the harness on her because I had to bribe her with ham cold cuts. So anyways, Msgr. does the blessing on all the pets and then each child gets to introduce their pet to the class and talk a bit about it. Quinn does an excellent job describing Callie -- how old she is, what kind of dog, how she likes to play fetch and football. So all is going well until all the kids have introduced their animals (there were dogs, cats, kittens, turtles, frogs!) and then the teacher says the kids can mingle with parents and animals. And this is where it all goes south for me and Callie. One of the girls grandfather had brought their 95 lb Boxer and decides to let the girl hold the dog's leash. The dog and Callie start to tousle and the Boxer becomes a bit aggressive. Callie struggles to get away and does...which is good until I realize that her collar and leash are now in the grandfather's hand. And Callie is running in the opposite direction. So now I've got a dog who's scared and running around with no collar and I have no way to catch her. And all these cars are in the parking lot and pulling in. And all the kids start chasing her to try to catch her but that only makes her more scared. Not good. I see no point in running around after her and try to tell the kids to stop running too. Time seems to stall, it was probably only a few minutes before we finally caught her. She saw some boys, friends of Quinn's who have been at our house, and she laid down so they could pet her. And then I was able to catch her and get the collar and leash back on. I promptly put her back in the car so we could both catch our breath and calm down. So Pet Day was not much of a success. I think I should have brought Quinn's frog instead! And once again, I was reminded that Callie needs obedience lessons -- not really for the uncollared incident because that was the Boxer's owners fault (and he didn't even apologize) but for the time before when she is so hard for me to control on a leash. This time, I intend to follow through with the thought!