Overreacting

Yesterday, we took Denzel to his first training lesson at PetSmart.
It was a horrible experience. First, it's important to mention that we are still grieving over the loss of our beautiful puppy, Robbie. Without getting into specifics, to say that we are overprotective of Denzel because of Robbie's death, is an understatement. And I think it is because when you experience a traumatic event, like death, one of the worst parts is the aftereffect on your daily life -knowing that at any moment, your absolute worst fear can become a reality. And when it does become a reality, it is gut wrenching, way worse than you ever could have imagined. And so for a while, you are constantly on edge, looking for every possible way to prevent it from happening again. God willing, G and I will get better. But we acknowledge that this is still a sensitive time for us. So - when we arrived at PetSmart, our instructor introduced herself, explained her method of training, and asked us about our expectations from the class. There was only one other puppy in our class so it was nice to have the time to talk in depth about Denzel's behavioral issues and to hear about the other couple's concerns for their puppy, who was also 7 months old. After that, the instructor wanted to begin an exercise on walking properly on the leash. She decided to start with Denzel. Denzel wears a harness, not a collar. She told us that she preferred to train dogs on collars and thought it would be best if we bought him a collar for the next class. We agreed. But for the first class, she would use our leash as a collar. She took his harness off and used the end of the leash, a loop handle, as a make shift collar for Denzel. She put his head through the loop and took the long end of the leash and threaded it through the loop to create slack. Denzel immediately started twisting and wiggling around. She said, "Do you see how much he hates it? He is not used to a collar so we have to break him into it." We watched as he continued to squirm and she continued to pull the leash tighter. I asked if he was okay, and she said, "He is fine. He's just mad about the collar." So we watched Denzel squirm while she continued talking. At that point, I was fine. I realized he wasn't used to the feeling around his neck and he was squirming because he wanted to get out. But then, I saw Denzel's eyes turning red. The corners of his eyes were turning bright red and he was really fighting to get out of the leash, which in turn, made her pull even tighter to try to control him. This is when I started feeling very uncomfortable. I looked at G and I saw concern in his face as well. So I interrupted her and asked if he was okay. I told her to look at his eyes. She did and said, "He is just mad. Pugs have big eyes and when they get mad, their eyes turn red and bulge out." G asked her, "Are you sure?" As she answered G, I looked at Denzel and his eye lids were starting to close. He was actually swaying a little. He was beginning to pass out. I got up, ran over and took the leash from his neck, which had no slack at all. I rubbed his neck and his sides to revive him. He did not pass out but I am positive he would have, if I would not have intervened. The other couple sat in shock. I took Denzel back to our seats and G checked him out. The instructor then said, "Maybe we should try this exercise with the other dog." She was not concerned about Denzel at all. We took a moment by ourselves to talk and try to calm down. We asked ourselves if we were overreacting? But why were his eyes turning red? That has never happened before. Why wasn't she concerned about him almost losing consciousness? Did the other couple see what we saw? G said to calm down and just finish the class. Looking back, that was wrong. We should have walked out. But at the time, again, we didn't want to overreact. We second guessed ourselves because we thought since she was a trained professional, she must have known what she was doing. We stayed for the final 30 minutes. But to be honest, those 30 minutes were a blur for me because I was so upset about what happened that I couldn't pay attention to anything else she said. And I didn't even want her to touch Denzel again. And she didn't. After the class, the instructor came over to reassure us. She told us that we were worrying too much and that she was not hurting him, he was just mad and protesting. When we got home, G said that we should both think about it, sleep on it, and make a decision about the next step. This morning, we made a decision. I called and spoke to the manager. We pulled Denzel out of the class. How can we trust the instructor to train Denzel if we think she was hurting him?

What do you think - did we overreact?