Once upon a time, when she was just a puppy and Evan and I had all the time in the world (before children) I took Butters to obedience training at a kennel club here in town. We started in the puppy class and worked our way up to the advanced level. Butters was a very good student as long as I had a treat in my hand or pocket. Classes were always slightly stressful as there were usually 8-10 other dogs there and since she was a goofy puppy she assumed that class time was playtime. Most of the time she would try to meet or play with the other dogs which really wasn't encouraged and most of the time she would then get mad that I wouldn't let her run around and be free. She was a challenge to this new dog owner in every way.
I recently ran into one of her teachers of the puppy class and reintroduced myself. I told her it had been six or seven years since we were in her class but that we had a yellow lab, well more white in color and....that was it. That's all I had to say because she said, "Butter??? I remember Butter! I always wondered what happened to Butter." I was sure it was due to her bad behavior with me that she remembered our crazy lab but I was wrong. I reminded her that she always used to pick Butters for her demonstrations of the new trick and I was sure that it was because they were hoping that she would be a goofy puppy so they could show the class how to correct their dog when they misbehaved. She immediately corrected me by saying, "We always picked Butters because she was the smartest one in the class! She always did what we said and made us look really good."
I was shocked. After all of these years I never knew. I really need to give her more credit for being such a smart, good dog.
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