Russell is only 8.5 months yet but he is very, very food motivated and keeps getting bored and *wanting* to do stuff, so he is fairly well trained for his age.
It paid off today big-time. "Good dog" brag alert:
I was trying to wrestle stuffing into the turkey about an hour ago -- I'm originally American, so we celebrate both Thanksgivings in this household
-- and I don't know if all Beltsville Small Whites are like this but this one has really weird conformation, the breastbone goes waaaaaay back so there is hardly any opening for you to stuff the bird through.
Predictably, gravity took over and I ended up with turkey and stuffing crashing to the floor all over the place.
Naturally Russell came racing into the kitchen. It's a small kitchen and by the time I could say "sit" he was pretty much *amongst* the turkey/stuffing mess, mouth open
Not having any hands free -- one was still in the turkey holding half of it propped off the floor, and considering what my kitchen floor is like I did not want to let that turkey have any more floor contact than avoidable! -- all I could think of was to shout "Russell! Leave it! Get out!" (he knows that for "go further away from me").
And what do you know, bless his furry little yellow heart, he DID. He shut his mouth and trotted all the way to the far side of the kitchen and looked back for further instructions. I added "Sit! Stay!", and he did that too!
I have to say I was not really expecting that, LOL
Not only that, he stayed obediently there until I had it all cleaned up, several minutes at least.
When I let him go, I called him into the other room and gave him a little piece of the sausage from the stuffing. It seemed only fair... I definitely owed him one for that!
Good dog.
Pat, still new to cooking with a dog around and probably going to put him briefly in his crate next time I have to stuff a turkey, so as not to push my luck
It paid off today big-time. "Good dog" brag alert:
I was trying to wrestle stuffing into the turkey about an hour ago -- I'm originally American, so we celebrate both Thanksgivings in this household
Predictably, gravity took over and I ended up with turkey and stuffing crashing to the floor all over the place.
Naturally Russell came racing into the kitchen. It's a small kitchen and by the time I could say "sit" he was pretty much *amongst* the turkey/stuffing mess, mouth open
Not having any hands free -- one was still in the turkey holding half of it propped off the floor, and considering what my kitchen floor is like I did not want to let that turkey have any more floor contact than avoidable! -- all I could think of was to shout "Russell! Leave it! Get out!" (he knows that for "go further away from me").
And what do you know, bless his furry little yellow heart, he DID. He shut his mouth and trotted all the way to the far side of the kitchen and looked back for further instructions. I added "Sit! Stay!", and he did that too!
I have to say I was not really expecting that, LOL
Not only that, he stayed obediently there until I had it all cleaned up, several minutes at least.
When I let him go, I called him into the other room and gave him a little piece of the sausage from the stuffing. It seemed only fair... I definitely owed him one for that!
Good dog.
Pat, still new to cooking with a dog around and probably going to put him briefly in his crate next time I have to stuff a turkey, so as not to push my luck
