Toby

I first met Toby and his owners when they came down to Dog Training and were in my Puppy Class. Now Toby was a special kind of pup, one that would look you in the eye,clear his throat then scream blue bloody murder when you told him to do something...especially the drop, that he would bite as well just to make sure you understood his opinion on the matter.

Now a dog with attitude will always get my attention, you know the ones? The FU! dogs that look you in the eye and go "YEAH???"

This was Toby and yep he would make his owner cry with frustration. But instead of giving in Claudia being as strong minded as that dog decided to become a dog trainer herself to better understand the little monster she had brought home. And what a brilliant trainer Toby made her!

Toby was one of those generic looking lab x kelpie dogs that seemed to get chosen for a lot of scripts and because his level of training and socialization were out of this world he was an easy dog to work. From such tearful beginnings hey?

If Claudia could not get the time off then she would pack a day bag for Toby and put him in a drop on the front mat, lead over the door handle. I would creep in at 5am and in he would hop and off to the job we would go.

The above job was a last minute phone call from the director that I had worked with on Kath n Kim and he had been called in to do an Add for Foxtel. No script was given just an address and that the dog had to hold a sit. Generic looking family dog required so Toby was the man for the job.

We turn up at the studio and it is the entire current Cricket team for OZ. Claudia was bleeding on me for that, being a mad keen cricket fan, Me, well i had no idea who was who or really any care factor not being remotely keen on cricket.

So here is Toby posing with his new best mates...and I think that Claudes still has not forgiven me.