Training Oz

Dogs make me laugh. Almost every day they make me laugh. Today, I was working with my 6-year-old Papillon, Oz. I’m supposed to being doing daily exercises with him to strengthen his body so the subluxation in his back doesn’t cause him too many problems. I’m not very good at anything “daily.” Anyway, I was busy teaching him how to do a 10 second bow which should stretch his back out nicely. Being an acting dog, teaching him this trick was relatively simple. The next trick was much more difficult.

I wanted Oz to lift one rear leg. Theoretically, it sounds simple enough. Just lift one rear leg and not move anything else. I tried a light tap on that rear foot to indicate a lift. This was how he learned to give me his “foot” -- one front paw. He knows how to wave his front paws and he was waving them to beat the band. He was whacking me with those front paws: one, two, one, two, but I could not convince him to lift that back leg. He got so frustrated with my confusion (you see, he is quite convinced in these moments that I am the slow one, not he) that he began to offer me his new behavior that I had only gotten by luring until now -- the bow. He offered me many, many bows in all kinds of directions. A bow to the left, a bow to the right, and a bow with the head down position. Pretty fancy stuff and I must admit that I rewarded him well for his efforts. But I also continued to bother him for that rear leg.

Frustrated that these gestures did not appear to satisfy me, he offered me a side position, he rolled over, begged, and by now, I could not breath I was laughing so hard. He was offering these behaviors so fast and furious I couldn’t get my little finger back to his rear foot if I tried. Each time I tried to tap my finger against that rear foot, I set off an explosion of new behaviors but not one of them resulted in a lifted rear paw. Oh, how I laughed at his adorable face and the look of total consternation! He finally resorted to his mean dog face where he attacks my hand growling and biting and we called it a day.

I love that a dog can give me so much of his heart -- he gave me 150% effort today. Who can ask for more than that?!