Smart Snapper

I keep telling you this dog is smart but I honestly don't know if I'm doing him justice. He's smarter than I can easily express.

There have been three obedience classes so far. Eddie has been to two of them. By the last one, his second I'll reiterate, he had worked out that when the nice lady with the special treats was standing in the middle of the room without a dog then everyone in the room would be paying attention to her and not to the dogs. Even if the dogs were misbehaving they would only get cursory attention because the lady was most important. Therefore, it was a perfect time for a smallish dog to do anything he wanted. Like chew on his leash or bite me or bark or distract the well-behaved puppy or try to take on his gigantic boxer-pit soul mate.

He'd also learned that whenever I stood up there would be fun and treats. He loved that part, understandably. His brain is a baby, though, so it translated into throwing his body at me at my waist and chest level with occasional biting of whichever pieces of my body dangled close enough. The upside of that is that the trainer got to tell me what to do. Logically enough that is to sit down again until he calms then try again and don't do the fun part until he doesn't fling or gnaw.

We finished every single exercise last.

No, wait, probably not the downs. He got to be demo dog for downs and he was great at it. He fucking loved being great at something. I'm surprised he didn't bust a rib he hit the deck so hard.

Then yesterday the only thing I had to do outside of the house canceled due to weather. This dog spent essentially the entire day on my lap napping. We didn't do appreciably more exercise he just likes company. He likes to be in a puppy pile. I think if the cats could see their way clear to curl up with him they'd all be a lot nicer to live with.

I don't spend a lot of time comparing Eddie to Emily. Physically and, really, emotionally they're a lot different so there's not a lot to compare. But if there's one thing they share definitively it's that connection to their people. For both of them I seriously wish I could work from home or worked somewhere that pets were allowed. Both of my little den dogs would really enjoyed sleeping on my feet under a desk.