Saturday's surprise classes, kids' activities, and oblivious people

So yesterday was much crazier than I anticipated. I thought the trainer whose classes I'd covered Tuesday and Thursday would be back but when I got into work the other trainer began telling me what time K's classes were. Very confused, I asked her if K was coming in. To make a long story a bit shorter, the manager was under the impression that I knew I was covering her classes on Saturday when in fact, I was not... so I had scheduled a makeup session for one of K's students for 10:00 and K also had a class that I was supposed to cover at 10:00. And one of the students in the class had missed the two previous weeks so they were behind the rest of the class... So thank goodness S was there to cover the class while I handled the makeup - I had the student from the class who'd missed the two weeks come to the makeup with me and I taught both pet parents the curriculum they'd missed. And though makeups are only supposed to be about 15 minutes long, because there were two of them and because one of them had missed two weeks, it ended up being almost an hour. Then I just spent the rest of the day trying to sell classes, rescheduling classes and waiting to see if anyone would show up for the new dog orientation. But the manager was incredibly grateful that I stepped up to the plate and covered the other trainer's classes even though it was spur of the moment. I was fine with doing it. I love teaching classes- I can't wait for my own to start! Though I have to admit, I wish I was getting part of the commission for it... :P

Well to steal my area trainer's idea, I plan to print out some coloring pages for kids to do if they get antsy when they're in class. So I looked up dog-related coloring pages and found a couple okay ones, and then I found activity pages from the AKC about dog agility, safety, training, etc. Like crossword puzzles, find the hidden picture pages, fill in the blanks, etc. I bought two boxes of crayons (24 each) to take to work with me when I go in on Tuesday.

http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/agility_matching.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/bailey_goes_home.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/CanineCrossword.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/canine_words.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/grooming_crossword.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/hidden_picture.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/safety_scramble.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/tail_tales.pdf
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_education/where_breed_come_from.pdf


I just remembered something that happened when I was training with the area trainer. I was with her and the other trainer (which was strange that the three of us would be at the same place at a time) talking to a man looking at dog food, I believe. I'm not sure how he got onto the topic, but somehow he strayed from talking about dog nutrition or whatever to bashing us and our coworkers. To make a long story short (again), he rambled on and on and on basically about how we were not going to make anything of ourselves or become successful working there and we should quit and go to school to get a degree because he is getting his MBA and is very wealthy and successful, blah blah blah... He mostly was talking to the area trainer the entire time - well, she was the only one interjecting and answering him - but oh how I wanted to interrupt to tell him that I do have a degree, and in Psychology no less, and I plan to get another degree (or two!) somewhere in the near future. I kind of have to have money first though. Well he was just completely oblivious to our reactions and terrible at reading body language- the area trainer tried to tell him she needed to go about a thousand times (gross overstatement of course, but you get the idea) and he kept saying "but one more thing!" and I'm pretty sure the three of us were showing how offended we were in not so subtle ways.  Not in rude ways... but generally I think it is very hard for a person to completely hide when they are hurt, or offended, upset, or angry and so though we did not intend it, I'm sure we showed it.

I just finished watching Julie & Julia which is what inspired me to write a blog in the first place. So it's taken me about two hours to write this post because I basically have only written during the commercials. Haha.

Oh just remembered that today I went to Borders- they're having the 50-70% off closing sale. So sad that they're going out of business, but it's great on my wallet. I bought two more books for my dog-related library. I got From Baghdad With Love and AKC's Citizen Canine. As well as a bunch of other books that I'll read in a year... when I have free time. Lol. Certainly don't have very much now.

Well... unless I think of something else to add to this post in the next minute, this concludes this post. :)
Until tomorrow - Harley starts class tomorrow night!