Our furry kids, otherwise known as our dogs, are an enigma at times. Bailey is the kind of guy that always wants to please. He’s smart, sometimes scary smart, and has some issues. We are sure he is ADHD and suffers from some sort of obsessive, compulsive disorder. Bailey understands everything you say. If you are even discussing what time to get to bed Bailey stands up and heads to his crate. When he was a pup we got him this little blue ball. He got so obsessed with this thing that he would forget to eat, drink, or go out. Just the mention of the ball made him a dog on a mission. That little guy heard you say blue ball and he would search the house for an hour or more looking for the darn thing, which we of course had hidden so he would remember to go out and pee. After a while we would spell it B-L-U-E B-A-L-L and damn, after a few times, he knew what we were spelling. I could expound upon that little beasts genius for hours.
My husband has always contended that Duff is a really smart dog. He says he doesn’t do what he is told because he is smart, stubborn and willful. Lately I’m not so sure Hubby isn’t correct. More tomorrow in this weeks tales from the dog side!
kateskornerofbucks 
I’ve been following your blog religiously since you started. I don’t know if this is a “real-guy” thing to do especially since there is a lot of “girly girl” stuff in it, but I must admit the guilty pleasure of reading every word. I probably don’t qualify as a “real-guy” anyway so who cares. In any case, thanks for doing this and for plugging the live entertainment and corresponding venues in the area. Good work!
I read about your dogs today and it brought very fond memories of my little white toy poodle, Chico, may he rest in peace, so I felt compelled to throw in my proverbial 2 centavos. I immediately went back to memories of training Chico to, among many other things, urinate on command. The command was Chico! Pee PEE! With the emphasis on the second PEE as it is commonly said in Mexico. Anyway, the little dog learned quickly and after one “Chico! Pee PEE!” he would raise his tiny hind right leg and squirt (urine) like a mad man or mad dog. This was a blessing in winter because there was no time wasted on sniffing or circling around or whatever dogs do to take a leak, this guy would go out and as soon as he walked on a reasonably far away spot we just simply yelled out “Chico! Pee PEE!” from the slightly opened door still in the warmth of the house, and voila the leg would raise and the stream would flow. Over time you didn’t even have to say Chico!, just Pee PEE! would do it. Unfortunately I didn’t think this through very well because this is exactly the term we commonly used in our home when we were going to pee, especially the kids. So everytime the kids would say “Voy a hacer pipí” (pronounced voy ah ahser Pee PEE), the dog would raise his leg and start going. Very smart! Therefore we also had to resort to spelling which, just as Bailey, Chico soon knew what we were spelling and he would raise his leg inside the house. Chico would also try to fool us by raising his leg but not actually peeing. This was his special maneuver when someone else had just taken him out (we were all trained to take him out as soon as we got home) or in winter when it was snowing or raining or simply when he was busy playing. It was pretty funny because he wasn’t fooling anybody; he would go out and raise his leg for literally one second and come back. He would repeat this over and over after each command but not pee unless he really, really needed to go. Did I end up just training him to raise his leg?
As an afterthought I guess with dogs there is a fine line that divides trainer and trainee. In many or most cases the dogs end up being the trainers.
Thanks for the memories,
Rafael
Reblogged this on kateskornerofbucks and commented:
I was going through my old blogs this morning. This was the first of “Tails from the Dog Side”. I plan to reblog some and add to.