The place I take my dog for obedience classes has the great deal where if you volunteer for a class session, then you get your classes free. Gotta love it. Anyway, I’ve been helping out on Saturday mornings with the Beginner I class and it’s been great. I get to do the fun stuff - work with the dogs, help the owners, give demos, etc. - but I don’t have to do any of the not so fun stuff, like tell people they’ve been training their dog wrong, or do paper work or any of that stuff.

I actually look forward to Saturday mornings. In my experience, when I’ve had to volunteer for stuff that I didn’t have much experience in I spent most the time trying to look like I know what I am talking about. Not with this. It comes pretty naturally to me. People ask me a question, or are having trouble getting their dog to do something, and by the end of the class period, I’ve usually worked their dog through the problem. Or they will come back the next week and tell me they tried my suggestions and that it worked. Now if I could only get my dog to stay for longer than 30 seconds everything would be all good.