Monday, October 02, 2006

Joe the Wonder Dog

LOL - this dog just totally cracks me up! One of his tricks is to "stay" and Keith will balance either a treat or one of his toys on his head. He doesn't love it though and keeps moving his eyes over at me like "please do something mom"!

Speaking of his tricks, when I got home from scrapbooking on Saturday Keith said he'd taught Joe a new trick that day! He is now able to "shake" hands. Seems funny to us that we never taught that one to him. But here is what he does know:

1. sit

2. stay

3. lay down

4. let go (when we play fetch and he thinks he'd rather keep the toy than give it back)

5. dead dog

6. twirl

7. spin

8. beg

9. speak

10. growl (This turned out to not be a good trick to teach him. It started out he'd lay on the bed with us and we'd play "growlies" with him where he'd growl for us to pet him, then when we'd stop he'd growl again, etc. We think it's adorable that he'll growl on demand and it looks silly to see him growl while wagging his tail. But what we didn't think of is that when he goes to the vet or boarding and he's sitting in a crate and growls to get attention it ends up with the exact opposite result of what he's wanting! People that don't know him are not going to run over and pet a 100 pound growling dog!)

11. dry off (This one cracks me up totally and probably was the longest time to teach him. He will now do that full body shake that dogs do to dry off when they get wet! The funniest part of it is that if he's not totally in the mood he'll just do a little shimmy of his hind end and it looks quite silly.)

12. get the ball (or whatever toy we say)

13. and now shake hands

Pretty impressive I think!

2 comments:

Loni said...

You forgot Heal. I am always impressed by that one. I tried the treat on the nose with Xena and she just doesn't get it, lol. I will keep working on it.

Prayerful Knitter - Shelly said...

Wow, you have a very talented canine family member! Give him a hug from his fans. : )