Leave me and my dog alone

I love it when people help me; it is so great. EXCEPT when they ask if I need help, I decline, and they help anyway. It is even worse when they help my dog when I have asked them not to.

At the entrance to work, the badge reader that unlocks the main door is on the right of the door. The button to activate the automatic door is on the left. I have enough time to swipe my badge, then hustle over to the other side and hit the button, but there is an easier solution:

I ask Claren to push the button. Because I am not holding her leash, I often need to encourage her a lot to keep her focused. But she does it.

When I get to work, there is usually no one else outside. This is good. See, Claren loves an audience.

I do not mean that someone else makes her perform better. When a stranger is around, there are new sights to be seen, smells to be smelled, minds to control.

I saw a woman smoking when I got to the door the other day, but she was a ways off. So I went to the door, unlocked it and asked Claren to open it.

She dawdled. It's not terribly unusual, so I kept up a stream of encouraging words like "you can do it" and "that's it." (No, I am not very original, but Claren likes the classics.)

Then I heard a voice behind me: Want me to push it?

The smoker! Drat!

I said, "No, she'll get it." And I redoubled my encouragement because I knew that the part of Claren that's an evil genius was working her mojo on the smoker: wagging her tail, looking at the smoker with sad eyes.

Sure enough, Claren won, the smoker totally ignored me and opened the door.

I get that you want to help me. Thank you. But have you ever wondered how I feel that you ignored my wish? Or that your help makes it that much harder to train my dog?