Please Welcome …

… the newest, official AKC Canine Good Citizen.

Despite my concerns and frets, Cooper passed his test.

I’d say it was with flying colors, but not entirely. We had to redo one step of the test as the evaluators debated whether his actions met the qualifications.

The funny part? It wasn’t one of the requirements I was most concerned about. It wasn’t even the dreaded dog greeting, which he actually sailed right through — twice.

What caused us the problem was his loose leash walking. I taught him to turn left and right with me on command. I had forgotten, however, to teach him a command when it came to doing a complete about-face. So, while he matched my movements, the leash was tighter than it had been on the rest of the walk. Because of this, we had to do the last part of the walk again.

And here I thought the biggest hurdle to this requirement was that we had to do it in the middle of the dog food aisles and Cooper kept trying to snag whiffs of each bag as we passed.

In the end, he passed this test, too. The evaluators agreed that he was, in fact, in tune with my movements and responding to my lead.

My how far we’ve come. When he was just 8 weeks old, he would growl at me when I would try to get him to do things he didn’t want to. Today, he obediently followed my lead.

It makes me feel like I’ve actually succeeded in seeing Cooper into the world as a truly good dog.