[Dailydrool] Useful Commands

[Elizabeth]

A lot of things in this house are “NOT for dogs!” But it has to be said with the exact same intonation our dear family friend Mrs. Dodson always used when she’d make that pronouncement to her cocker spaniel, Sunny. One way to keep a deceased loved one alive and part of your life is to say some of the things they used to say. Charlie Basset feels far too many things in this world are “NOT for dogs!” (c at ts, paperback books, Ken’s socks . . . ), but I’m sure he would have loved Mrs. Dodson if he’d been able to meet her, and she would have appreciated his sense of play and general merriment.

At the moment a command I feel I’m having to use far too often is “On the grass! On the grass!” For some reason, the Wee One, Molly Chihuahua (my mother’s little dog who lives with us for the time being) feels that cold, snowy, and/or wet conditions outside give her license to go only halfway down the back sidewalk before squatting and peeing on the cement. This isn’t an issue in the summertime. Go figure.

Thinking of going outside, I tell my dogs to “go take care of things.” With Molly I sometimes have to remind her when being outside is “just a business trip.” She would like almost every excursion to the backyard to be a “hunting trip” for the chipmunks who live under the deck and garage.

I discovered with our late Jane Basset that “Sit-Stay!” can be a life-saving command. She was still inside the large pantry after I stepped out of it and inexplicably dropped the glass canning jar full of preserves I’d been holding. Food mixed with broken glass all over the floor right outside the pantry. I immediately put Jane in a sit-stay, which kept her safely out of the mess. She watched with longing eyes while I cleaned it all up, but she held her sit-stay as she’d been trained. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to see such obedience. 

Elizabeth