Coming home

After several days away visiting family, we went to the boarding kennel today to pick up Hero and Impulse. It's the type of kennel where they're in a run with other dogs much of the day, so I'm sure they had fun. But once they spotted us, they went into ridiculous paroxysms of joy. Impulse was so excited he piddled everywhere (something he very rarely does), and Hero was overjoyed and whirled around like a crazy dog, leaping up at everyone and whimpering with ecstasy. Once I got them in the car, though, they both settled down and just leaned their heads against us lovingly: Thank God that ordeal is over! Let's go home!

I'm working on two new tricks with Hero. The first is "feet up, stay." He knows "feet up" already (he jumps up and puts his front feet where I point, whether on me or on a table or railing). He knows "stay," too. But he's a bit unclear as to what the two commands mean together. He jumps up well enough, but when I say "stay," his first instinct is to drop back into a sitting position and stay. He doesn't quite understand that "stay" means "hold whatever position you're in." But he's beginning to get it.

We're also working on "bang," which is just for fun. The eventual idea, of course, is for us to make a "gun" with our hand, shout "bang!", and have the dog play dead. But first I'm teaching him to roll onto his back. His previous lessons have taught him that "over" means roll onto his side from the "down" position, and "roll" means roll over entirely. I'm teaching him to roll over and expose his belly by saying "Bang!" and giving him the roll-over gesture, but stopping him with my hand midway. He seems to be getting it quite readily.