hastwothumbs

Great puppy class today.
We were teaching the dogs sit, see. The teacher tells us not to use any verbal commands, to let our body language (hand signals and the like) to let the dogs know what we want. However, she says it's okay to use non-word sounds when we don't want the dogs to do something. So since she says her favorite non-word is "eh," that's the one everybody in the class uses.
Now, in this class are: one boyfriend/girlfriend team, four soccer moms, of the four soccer moms three brought their kids so there's a total of six kids, one solo guy, one of the pet store employees (trying to discipline one of the adoptable pets at the store), my mom, and me.
So, not counting the instructor, that's a total of sixteen people.

Sixteen people all going "eh! eh! eh!"

It's quite a commotion and draws a pretty sizable crowd.
But I quickly got annoyed with the sound of "eh." And, judging by the fact that none of the dogs responded to it (seriously, NONE of them), I decided to use another sound. So, being the jokester that I am, I took a page from Monty Python and started going (in the most annoying voice possible) "Ni! NI! I am the puppy-master that says... NI!"

And I swear to God, ALL of the dogs stopped what they were doing and looked at me.

The owners were surprised and looked at me, too. The class fell dead silent.
Then the little kids started going, "NI NI NI NI!!!" The owners followed suit, since it was a sound that obviously worked.

Then the dogs in the class started barking.
Then the adoptable dogs at the end of the store joined in.

The instructor tried to get us to settle down, but it was so loud (what with all the nis and barks) that no one could hear her.

And this went on for a good five minutes.

After class, I got in trouble.



Chaos, thy name be Tomorrow.