Blew Me Away!

Cooper has a long list of tricks he can do.  He loves to perform and make people clap.  He can sit, stay, lay down, shake with one paw then the other.  He can roll over, dance, turn a circle (one direction only), high five, play dead, speak, wave hello and good bye (same wave).  All those tricks are so fun to ask him to perform.  People love to watch him.  He loves the attention and the treats too if he gets them but they aren't a necessary bribe.  He's willing with or without the treats.  

You can probably guess that I'm holding out on telling you one of his tricks.  Well I am.  There is quite a story I can tell that takes this trick far beyond being only a trick. Oh it started out as a trick all right. Then it turned into something way more functional.  He is able to retrieve things we ask him to get for us.  I'm not talking about a bone or a toy.  I mean, he will get his leash if he wants to go out.  He'll get the phone if we ask him to.  He picks things up for me if I drop them, AND hands them back to me.  He gets the paper and brings it into the house.  He will bring anything to you as long as it's not metal or vibrating.  He doesn't like to touch metal with his teeth. And it stresses him out if the item vibrates on his teeth too.  Therefore, if you want your phone and its set on vibrate, he'll bring it to you, but you'll have to wait till it stops ringing first.  

The reason I say this goes beyond just being a trick is, once he started bringing things to us on command, he understood that it could be a language.  He understands that to bring his leash is to tell us he wants to go out.  To bring his 'Jug' (a toy we put food in and he has to work on the jug to get the food out) means he wants a snack.  He knows what items relate to what activities, so if he wants to do something, he will bring me the related item.  How many dogs do you know that can figure out how to use a trick as a form of communication?  I'm so happy that he gets it.  He gets his point across fairly well by using this method along with others.  

Watching Daddy come back from a ride

I have to tell this story about the day he showed me he had connected his trick to getting something he wants.  One day, Jesse and I were extremely busy.  It was a weekend day, either spring or summer.  We were both really busy.  We were in and out of the house with errands almost all day.  I would leave and come back, then Jesse would leave.    Each time one of us was about to leave, Cooper would get excited, expecting to go too, as he was accustomed.  On this day however, he didn't get to go at all.  

At the end of the day, I was sitting on the side of my bed.  It wasn't late, but we were done with our errands and I had taken off my sandals and was thinking about digging into my email.  Cooper stood at my feet looking up expectantly.  I asked him what he wanted.  He barked at me a few times.  I really didn't know what he wanted.  So he picked up my sandal and put it down.  Bark Bark.  Nudged it close to me... Bark Bark.  I laughed.  How funny is that!  I put the sandal on my foot.  He was excited!  Dancing around and barking.  When I didn't do anything else, he repeated the same ritual for the other sandal as he had for the first.  SO I put that one on too.  He was REALLY excited now!  I STILL didn't do anything.  I wanted to see what he would do.  The next thing he did absolutely FLOORED ME!!!!  He ran from the room.  I was trying to hear where he had gone and what he was doing.  Just a minute later he came back to me WITH MY KEYS in his mouth.  He dropped them on the floor.  Bark Bark.  How do you say 'No' to that?!  I couldn't believe it!  

Happy as long as he gets to go!

If you're wondering what I did next...  Well...  I took him for a ride!  I had him hand me the keys and we were off.  I've seen him do the same type of thing over and over again, but none are so fun to tell as that first time.  That little bit of a glimpse into that thinking little mind of his caused me to see Cooper in a whole new way.  His training took a little bit of a curve at that point, as you can well imagine.  Honestly!  What an amazing dog he had shaped up to be before he was even a year old!