Herding practice

So the morning  after our sheepherding fiasco, my human took Frodo and I for our morning walk.  And what did we see?  A BIRD on the road.  We both immediately lunged at the bird who of course, flew off. My human just shook her head and asked why we didn’t do that with the sheep.  She is still in a bit of denial that I didn’t do anything. 

But not to worry.  Just as I suspected, my human couldn’t let one failure get her down.  No – she found ANOTHER Herding Instinct Test in a few weeks.  Oh I KNEW she would.  But this time –only I am going.  She is STILL placing all her hope in me.  In the meantime, she is rounding up frogs for me to practice with.  JUST kidding.  I think.

My human made a big loaf of gluten-free cornbread the other day – she is having some people for dinner on Thursday and someone can’t eat gluten so she decided to see if the recipe would work.  She wasn’t worried if it didn’t – all the ingredients are dog-edible – so no matter what happened, the experiment would not go to waste.  I was secretly hoping it would be a flop. I stood and monitored every step of the baking process. It actually turned out quite good – so she is going to make another loaf for the dinner.  And we DID get a sample.

Last night when my human got home after work and after doing her least favorite task in the WORLD – grocery shopping -she let us out while she brought the groceries in.  She wanted us to have a pee.  A minute or two later, she opened the door to let us in and she did the count.  One dog.  Just ONE dog.  The good one.  Frodo.  She shouted for me and Paxton and she heard crashing in the bushes.  Out of the woods emerged Bucket Head.  Two dogs.  And then she heard a sound in the distance.  Barking.  Yup.  It was me.  I was woodland herding.  I just don’t get it – do you want me to chase things or not?! My human called and called.  To my “deaf” ears.  My human figured I would be back – she was just worried I would have a face of porcupine quills again.   She went about feeding Frodo and Paxton – and I arrived JUST as she was putting their food dishes down.  I watched through the screen door.  My human could see I was quill-free – but she made me wait a minute before she let me in.  I was pretty wet – it had rained earlier in the day, and the woods were wet.  She looked at me and said “now you have to wait to eat.”  She figured it would be my “lesson” for taking off.  But she ALWAYS gives in to my adorable sad-looking face – and within two minutes I was enjoying my dinner after a great game of chase-the- rabbit.

Life is good.  I have my human so well trained.  But don’t let her know.  She thinks SHE’S in charge!

 © Linda Wozniak