Kimberly, the author's daughter, and Kayla enjoy some quality time.

The next day, it took Kayla all of 10 minutes to capture my wife's heart. The pup went to her immediately, demanding to be hugged. "Hi, cutie," my wife said to the squirming pup at her feet. I was stunned. We had a German shorthaired pointer for 12 years. Nick was called many things during his tenure, but "cutie" was never one of them.

Training Kayla
Training began that evening. Chessies, so said all of the books, do much better when kept inside, with their owners. So potty training was job one. Kayla apparently enjoyed my picking her up, cradling her under one arm and rushing her to the backyard whenever she looked like she had to go. "Out," I'd say. And off we'd run. Again, and again, and again.

Vigilance is the key here. This is a lesson in repetition. There were a few accidents. But within 10 days, Kayla was 95 percent housebroken.

After two weeks of adjusting to her new home and bonding with family members, the most basic of training began, going slow and easy. Kayla recognized her name and she quickly learned what "eat" meant. She was instructed to "sit" before being given her food. If she did not sit, the bowl was put up until she did. This command was reinforced during the evenings when she was with us in the living room. Sitting on command resulted in a treat.

From sit, we went to "come," which was reinforced with a collar and leash. That was followed by "sit/stay, down, heel and no." She enjoyed learning. And pleasing us. Did she have a mind of her own as a pup? Oh, yeah. And that's still present. From time to time, she is not shy about letting us know when she wants to go out, or move from my office into the living room, for that matter. A tug on my shirtsleeve is her way of getting across her message. We're still working on that.

While basic obedience can be taught at home, I am convinced that attending a structured training class paid huge dividends. At five months of age, we enrolled Kayla in two consecutive eight-week programs, with classes being held for one hour once a week. A record book was provided by the class instructors for the purpose of logging what exercises we accomplished during our at-home training sessions and how Kayla performed each one.

Perhaps this became an accountability issue: I never wanted to go to class with an empty page. We practiced the basic drills every day, rain or shine, either inside or out. After some initial apprehension, Kayla enjoyed the obedience class interaction with other dogs involved, most of whom, at this point, were larger than she was.