You can teach an old dog new tricks.

 

     Dear Hubby and I thought it would be fun to teach the pups to raise their paws in the air when we say, “stick ‘em up.”  Patty caught on in no time.  Gavin is still working on it.  He hasn’t the balance that Patty has.  Maybe it’s his bottom, could it be that his is more round than hers is?  Gavin tries but we usually end up accepting a paw shake from him instead.  He can’t seem to get both paws up at the same time for more than a fraction of a second.  However, he’s the best darn paw giver out there.  He’ll give a paw to anyone who has a cookie.

     In contrast, Patty has decided that ‘stick ‘em up’ is more fun than giving a paw.  She’ll throw her paws into the air with great enthusiasm sometimes stretching them up so far that she nearly tips over backwards.  I say not bad for a five-year-old.  When Patty first arrived as a rescue four years ago, we thought she might be a little slow on the uptake.  We were wrong.  Once she’d settled in here, she proved to be the smarter of the two dogs.

     Mind you, Gavin is no half wit.  He’s quite bright but he’s also ten times as stubborn as she is.  He was the most dominate puppy I’ve ever dealt with in the twenty eight years I’ve had Bull Terriers.  It took a full year for him to accept that Mom was top dog.  Both dogs think of DH as another sibling.