He's a Young One, Ain't He?

This morning was a super service dog day.  What I mean is, Isaac did fantastic.

I went to the car wash to vacuum out my van before our big road trip and I needed Isaac to get out of the van so I could vacuum it, of course.  I had him sit on the pavement near the van and put the quarters in the machine and started to vacuum.  The vacuum was really loud and I saw Isaac start to stand up.  Since the vacuum was making so much noise, I signaled him with my hand to sit and then to stay.  And he did.  And he stayed right there while I vacuumed my very hairy van.

Then we went to Family Dollar.  While we were standing at the counter, this man walked in carrying a little fluffy dog.  Isaac glanced at the dog, looked mildly interested, but otherwise did not react.  He just did great.

And then...

We went to the park.  Where Isaac forgot that the whistle means come.  Even worse, twice, he ran away from me when I got close to him.  He was acting like he had never learned a thing in his life.

He ran over to this young couple at a picnic table and the guy grabbed his collar and held him for me.  He looked at my sympathetically while I attached the leash to Isaac's collar and said, "He's still a young one, ain't he?"

I said, "Um, he's four."

At which point the guy said, "Hmmph," which I took to mean, "And you ain't trained him at all yet?"

On the way home, I informed Isaac he will not be playing off leash for a while.