# Things your animals have trained you to do...



## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Sophy usually settles on her favourite blanket made into a bed beside my chair - it was meant to be my blanket for cold weather, but I had it for about three days before more and more of it was pulled onto the floor until it was entirely Sophy's. But just the blanket is not enough - it is set between two small foam dog beds, and has to be flumped until it is just right. Every hour or two when she leaves it Poppy or one of the cats will take her place, and I have to persuade them off and then flump it again to her satisfaction. Entirely my own fault, but she trained me in tiny incremental steps and it was established before I realised what was happening! Poppy now knows the meaning of "Poppy, could you be a very _kind_ dog..." and heaves herself up to find a comfy spot elsewhere; cats try not to see Sophy staring at them but eventually capitulate, pretending it was their idea all along. And I flump it this way, and then that way, until she agrees that it is just right, and for a while there is peace.

Sometimes at night I am aware of a quiet whimpering - I have rolled over in such a way that there is no duvet left for her, or it is too flat and also needs flumping. And, of course, I rearrange the bed till she settles down with a sweet sigh of contentment. 

I wish I was as good at dog training as Sophy is at human training...


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## Charmed (Aug 4, 2014)

When my old girl was about fourteen, all six of us humans in this household learned not to move any of the patio furniture. She was mostly blind and would bump into things if they were not in their proper place. I knew we were all well trained when I heard my youngest daughter explaining to her friends why they MUST return the furniture to the exact same spot. I don't know why, but the old girl had no trouble navigating inside the house. Oh, of course, we all knew that the last bite of anything belonged to the princess. When she turned fifteen, we decided to let her have any food she wanted... so, her last year was filled with all the forbidden fruits. I know she was happy, until it was her time to go.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I think we all have things like this that happen. Hopefully they are all harmless and funny, although I can't quite think of any right now outside of sport training where I work very hard not to succumb to their tricks. Just yesterday at my novice class I had one of my regulars asking about how to not have her dog break his attention after she rewards him for attention. He looks at her nicely for a decent amount of time and then she gives him a treat. He turns his head away while he eats the treat and then continues to look away. She then lures back the attention and gives him another treat. Get the picture. She has become somewhat of a pez dispenser on this issue. She now has to extinguish the look away which I told her to do by not feeding for attention and to get food out of her hand for. She can say good, but not use food. I taught Javelin to eat his treats (rarely given just for looking at me) with his head up rather than looking away to eat. My bug has always been giving orders twice when the dog is wrong the first time. Then you get a dog who thinks the first order doesn't matter. Lily always used to sit crooked. I would tell her to make it right and she would. Make it right became the sit order. When Javelin sits crooked I break him out, circle to the left and reset him. He only gets rewarded (and only verbally) for straight sits. He is smart so we don't do that very often these days.


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