How to Be Cooler Than a Squirrel

Roger was our beautiful Golden Retriever that loved life and everyone that he encountered. He would greet you with his big brown eyes, wagging tail, and a stuffed toy in his mouth. Roger loved the beach, swimming, squirrels, and spending time with his family. He passed away way too early, and he is dearly missed. Marks's Happy Pets (www.markshappypets.com) blogs are dedicated to Roger, and they are written in his voice. Please enjoy.

When I was just a little pup I once chased a seagull way down the beach. I just kept running because I was so excited. When the bird disappeared I turned and saw my humans. They must have chased me all the way down the beach because they looked very tired. I love my humans and didn’t mean to upset them- but that bird was the coolest thing ever!

When I moved from Australia to the United States I found a new kind of creature that was even more exciting than the seagull- SQUIRRELS! We didn’t have such things in Australia. And I couldn’t resist chasing them.

I blame my ancestors, the wolves, for me wanting to chase all these creatures. After all, isn’t that where I got my predatory instincts to search, stalk, chase and catch creatures like squirrels. And I just know that they are teasing me with their twitching tail and darting all around like they do. I don’t even know what I would do if I actually caught a squirrel- like that would ever happen. But chasing them is so much fun. Except not for my humans who don’t seem to appreciate me racing after a squirrel while I am walking on the leash.

Well, I guess my humans decided that getting yanked around by me in squirrel country wasn’t much fun because they started me on a training program. I heard them talk about using positive reinforcement to make our walks more fun. I was happy to give it a try even though I already thought our walks were lots of fun.

 My humans started training me to do things like look at them or touch their hand with my nose. And I learned to love doing these things because I would always get something good like a treat or a toy. We practiced inside and outside every day. At first it was really easy because there weren’t any distractions around- just a quiet room inside. But when I started doing really good my humans made it harder on me by practicing near things I loved like food, other people, and other doggies. But I still did really, really good! I would look at my humans when they said “look”, and bump my nose on their hand when they said “touch”. And every time I did these things I got something I liked a lot. So I wouldn’t even bother to look at the other things- well I might take a peak but I was more interested in my humans. And you wouldn’t believe the most awesome stuff I got when I payed attention to my humans instead of running after a squirrel that I saw! Ooooh that squirrel was tempting, but my humans had become even more interesting to me.

My brother Charlie got to do the training too. When Charlie moved to the city he would pull on the leash a lot. He wanted to get to yummy things on the ground that crazy humans would leave like chicken wings and pizza. And there were lots of other doggies around which made Charlie very nervous so Charlie would jump at them to try and scare them away. But you should see how good Charlie did with his training. Our humans got Charlie to look at them when walking right past a whole piece of pizza or other doggies. And squirrels too!

The training really helped Charlie and me think about our humans when we are out walking with them. Before we were always just looking and sniffing for things to lunge at. We didn’t think much about who was at the end of the leash. But our humans are much more interesting now. Even when they don’t say anything, me and Charlie will regularly look at them because that sometimes gets us a reward. We have learned that our humans are cooler than even squirrels are!