Dear Readers, both K9 and two-leggers, I thought it was time that I wrote another essay about my life as a standard apricot Poodle puppy. In my last essay I was just a little shaver and had just started my schooling. But now I have grown up to be 28 and ½ inches tall at the shoulder and I weigh 90 pounds, and I have fill out in the chest and body. Yet begin  full-grown, I still will be a puppy in my heart, which means that I will still love to play, and to my Alphas distress, I still will be filled with tomfoolery, which according to my Alpha is the reason why his hair is turning grayer then it is already

As my readers already know I have been in school since I was a young Puppy. Well I have kept up with my schooling, and now have been through Puppy kindergarten training, Basic education, intermediate education,  Advanced education and a class called Click-A-Trick, and I have passed the test to get Good Citizenship Award. I have learned a lot in these classes, but in order to get good at all the things I have learned, my Alpha and I work on some of them each day. 

Speaking about schools, all the schools I have gone to are called clicker schools. Clicker training is both a technology for training animals and a training philosophy. As a training technology, it relies on positive reinforcement rather than schools that relay on coercion or punishment to teach. With clicker training the teacher uses positive methods, the trainer reinforces a desired behavior with something the dog likes or wants; in my case it is treats. Using positive reinforcements, I am more likely to learn to repeat the behavior taught, till I can do it with out treats, and it becomes part of my everyday life.

First of all the true practitioner of clicker training emphasizes scientific principals, which underlie the method of clicker training. Clicker training is based on the principles of operant and classical conditioning. Clicker trainers who learn the underlying principles have at their disposal a powerful set of tools that permit them to analyze behaviors, modify existing behaviors for individual animals, and create a behavior new where none previously existed.

Second, as the trainer you use a marker signal, the clicker, to tell me, the K9, when I have done what he wants of me. This technology is, at its core, very simple: 1. Get the behavior. 2. Mark the behavior. 3. Reinforce the behavior.

I am writing about my schooling, in hopes it will motivate both the K9’s out there and especially their two-legged Alphas to either start school, or continue in your schooling. I know how hard it is for you two-leggers Alphas to take your K9 friend to school after working hard all day. I also know some of you two-legged Alphas out their think, you can take your K9 to a puppy class and expect that your four legged friend will learn the course material and remember it for ever, [wrong] from the few times you are in class. Remember that the course is designed to teach you two-legged Alphas how to teach your K9 friend the course material. My Alpha and I hold school every day, I have learned so much, but the material is too much to cover it all in one teaching session, so we do some things on one day and something else on another day. By the end of seven days we will have covered all material that my Alpha and I have learned in courses that we have gone to. You must also use what your K9 has learned in you daily lives, for instance when you go for walks have your K9 come and sit in front of you so you can put on you K9's friends leash. Once again I know how hard it is to take time or practiced what you have already learned, after working all day, but by doing it, you will end up having a K9 friend you can be very proud of. I also know how hard it can be to learn new things from a K9’s point of view, yet you can do it. I look back on all the things I have learned and I am just amazed that from the first time my Alpha started teaching me to sit, which I was not going to learn. To now when I can walk off leash in a heel position in the middle of a group of other dog.

You see I was a bullheaded and stubborn Poodle, on the first day in puppy school, I decided I did not like it, I already know everything I needed to know to be a knowledgeable, out standing, standard apricot poodle puppy, thank you very much. The classes started off very basic, I started by learning to sit, from there I learned to lie down, as I learned different things I was building on what I already know. And because my Alpha made the learning different things fun, I shortly found my self-having fun learning.

Remember that if you go to the all work of training you K9 friend to be the kind of K9 you want him to be, you will be the envy of your friends, as well as having strangers come up to you in public, when you and your K9 friend are out in public and tell you what a great K9 you have. If you want a K9 that is included in family parties and generally part of the family, work on training. If you don’t work on training regularly, your K9 will slip out of the pattern of behaving as they were taught to do, I include myself.

Below you will see my diplomas for completing the Puppy kindergarten training, Basic education, intermediate training,  Advanced education and a class called Click-A-Trick, along with Good Citizenship Training Class. I have posted some of my graduation pictures, one which includes a picture of one of my class mates, by the name of Jackson.

Puppy Training Class	Basic Education Training Program
Intermediate Training Class
Good Citizenship Training Class Good Citizen Certificate October, 2005	I passed this class and I now have my Good Citizenship Certificate.
	My classmates for Advanced Training. Moose, Titan, Yippie and Barkley

A huge dog, tied by a chain, was painted on the wall and over it was written in capital letters "Beware of the dog".
Petronius Arbiter (? –66), Roman satirist.

Satyricon (1st century).

So, that’s all from Barkley for now, so to my K9 readers Bowwow and to my Alpha Readers So long for now.

Love,
Barkley