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. . .when you train your dog?

A friend in my past had a very obedient and well-trained Australian sheep dog. She did everything my friend told her to do, including turn away when he ate, leave the room, or drop something that was in her mouth.

Having smaller dogs, whose behavior, however errant, is at least "small," I decided my next dog would be as trained as if he were a guide dog for the blind.

Since he seemed inclined to carry anything and everything in his mouth, be it my cell phone, a credit card, money anyone’s pockets, or important papers (and some unmentionable things–I have a cat, also), I decided the first rule of obedience would be for him to drop whatever he decided to pick up, immediately, on my command.

Just saying the word "drop" seemed to have little or no effect, so I decided to reinforce the idea with a treat. "Drop" and a treat began to work and soon the word elicited the proper action–he let go of what was in his mouth and I would fetch him a doggie cookie.

I was proud of my work and began to feel like the "Dog Whisperer" but it was not long before the whole thing backfired and I became the trained one.

I don’t know when the dog figured this out but the usual scene is now he searches and seeks for something to carry around and bring to me in exchange for a treat. It can be anything his little legs and mouth can reach with nothing excepted. He stands up and reaches into purses, bags, trash cans, and spends most of his time listening and watching the panorama of floor from his 6 inch height.

Before something even hits the floor, he is on it, has it, and is ready to exchange it for his treat. In fact, if anyone drops something small, like a contact lens, or an earring post, I just tell them to give the dog a second and he will locate it for us and we can pick it up.

The point is he educated himself to teach me this trick. He taught me to exchange anything he finds for a treat.

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 5:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.