I'm walking Orson down the sidewalk. I notice a pickup going by with a crate
in back. I see the top of yellow dog's head. I keep moving.

Suddenly I hear someone shout 'BLACK LAB?' and I realize it's the driver,
addressing me.

He double parks (on a busy street), gets the dog out of the crate in back
and brings him over to the sidewalk where I'm standing, kind of dumbfounded.

The guy asks me how I taught my dog to fetch. I tell him I've been working
with Orson for a few months on bringing his retrieved toys to me and
dropping them.

So I show him what I've been working on, which is for me to tell Orson to
'wait' after retrieving, and then I go to him and tell him to 'drop it.'

His reaction? 'Your dog's pretty fat.'

Thankyewww.

Then he transitions to 'Does your dog sit?' So I show him. 'Does he lay
down?' So I show him Orson's down.

He goes to his dog (sitting down the block a bit on very long line) and
pulls up on the collar a few times while saying 'sit, sit, sit.' The dog
backs up, trying to avoid the collar jerking; the owner follows him whenever
he moves backward. So owner and dog are moving all over the sidewalk.

I showed him how he could lure the dog (7 months old and b.i.g.) into a sit
by holding a treat over his head, and I explained why that works. The dog
sat in one second flat.

The guy says 'Yeah, well I don't really have time to spend on that stuff, so
I'm sending him away to a trainer. $200 for two weeks.' I asked him what the
trainer teaches the dog. 'Sit, stay, lay down. That kind of stuff.'

I asked him if the trainer trained him how to continue progress with the
dog. He said he hadn't really thought about that. He thinks there might be a
'pamphlet' sent home with the dog.

Cate