I’m very proud of my little friend. He has completed his puppy course and been given a place on the Bronze course starting tonight. When they had their ‘passing out ceremony’ from puppy class, last night, they had the opportunity to show the tricks they have been learning as well as the boring stuff. Ari was very proud to show he can now put his left paw against my Mistress’s right hand and his right paw against her left hand whenever he is asked. He was doing better at both twirl and twist until he grew a bit more and finds his long body quite awkward to circle quite how he’s supposed to. Now he moves on to the more serious business of learning. Our Mistress has promised he can carry on learning tricks at home. He is also learning things without any help. He’s a scarily clever puppy. He has watched how the back door is opened and now runs up to it and jumps for the handle. He’s not actually managed to get hold of it yet, but it’s not for want of trying. It would be much easier of the doors opened by touch pads that we held our paws too. He would then be able to let us in and out without any assistance. There is one thing he has learnt that really does mark him out from the rest of us. We all have a chair that is our favourite. It is a particularly comfortable chair for a dog and we have appropriated it to be our own. Anyway, we often take chews and treats to the chair to eat them in comfort. Unfortunately the one problem with the arrangement is that we often lose our treasured treats down the side of the cushion. I have lived with this chair for over six years. I’ve lost a lot of treats. Aristotle sat and looked at the problem and said nothing. What he had worked out is that if he waits until the chair is free and then goes and removes the cushion he can get the treats that we have all left behind. He even puts the cushion back so that he can sit and eat the treat in comfort. No one has shown him and none of us had worked it out. That is one bright puppy!
Alfie Dog with a little help from Rosemary J Kind alfie@alfiedog.me.uk
Alfie’s Diary – the Book is available at Amazon UK –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00583ZGSA