From C.E.O. to Pack Leader (?)

My dog, Skippy has a barking problem. Actually he doesn’t have a problem, I do
with his barking. I tried various collars. One that emitted sounds that only a dog could hear and dislike. One that emitted an odor that dogs hated. I tried yelling at Skippy or putting a muzzle on him. Nothing worked. It is not as if we had complaints from our neighbors. We live in the historical part of Carson City where the office-buildings look like Victorian homes and they are not occupied during the weekend. His barking only upset me.

I decided that I needed some professional help. I made contact with Bark Busters, the largest home dog training company in the world. They sent a trainer to my home who carefully explained that dogs are descended from wolves and they traveled in packs. Only one dog could be the pack leader and in my home I had to be the pack leader.

Well now. My household includes a wife, a cat, and Skippy. My wife has demonstrated over the years that I would never be her pack leader. Have you ever made a cat sit and stay? So that only left Skippy for me to lead.

To stop Skippy from barking I was to growl at him like a dog pack leader would. If he continued barking my next step would be to throw a beanbag at his feet. She asked me to do this a few times and after about the fourth or fifth time it actually worked. She also explained that when Skippy came to me for affection or to play, I was to growl at him since I, as pack leader, should decide when he could play or have affection. She left after about an hour and I had not decided whether or not I was going to sign a contract for her to train me to train Skippy.

For the rest of the day Skippy would not come near me and looked like he was afraid of me. Maybe wolves and dogs are afraid of their pack leaders but I don’t want Skippy to be afraid of me and when he wants some affection I want to pet him on his terms. Needless to say, I did not hire Bark Busters. As far as I am concerned Skippy can bark all he wants so long as he loves me and is not afraid of me.

The Gym

When I retired in Carson City, Nevada, I decided to join a local gym. For many years I had neglected my body, working twelve and fourteen-hour days, climbing the corporate ladder until I became President of my company.

I went to the gym diligently for a couple of years and then I was sick for a while and my wife also had some medical problems so I slacked off to the point where I was hardly going at all. Well, we both got better and it was time to return to the gym, but this time I wanted to do it right. So I hired a professional trainer. He is a young man, probably 50 years younger than I am. He is over six feet tall and very muscular where as I am about five foot eight and shrinking.

I have a one-hour lesson with him once a week and go twice more each week to practice what I have learned from him. He is relentless in making me do 15 reps. of each exercise and makes me do each exercise three times. When I am finished with the exercises, he has me go to a stationary bike and peddle until my heart rate is up to 105 beats per minute and than I can go home.

The last time I was at the gym with my personal trainer, at the end of the session, when I could hardly move, he suggested that next week, we would work out by doing a little boxing in the ring that sat at the far end of the room. Well, I was pretty proficient at boxing, having won the intra collegiate championship in my weight class at Cornell some sixty years ago. So I said to my trainer, that I did not think that was going to happen. He asked why and I said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”