Old Nick wrote:

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 13:56:33 -0400, "J. Clarke"
vaguely proposed a theory
......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email


We also had a big Chesapeake Retriever who would 'shake' _on_command_ --
no, not 'shake hands', though he did that too, but after a bath. We
would tell him 'stand still', tent a big towel over him, and say 'Okay,
_now_
shake', whereupon he would. Was also _real_ handy when bringing him in
from outside when it was raining or snowing.

Probably a big surprise for those who can't resist giving orders to
somebody else's dog too.

Hehe! Hate em. Had one the other day. As soon as he saw the dog he
commented that she was "Juuust not overweight" (she's not overweight),
and then told her to sit (which the bugger did much faster for him
than for me, but hey, it was probably surprise) for no reason at all.
Then he said "shake, and held his hand down to her paw. I said "She
doesn't shake" ......and he just held his hand there. It felt good to
see her just Sit, as ordered and look at him! G.

I reckon they are just one step form the guys who can't help hitting
on everyone's partner. It's a power thing.

I can understand why you get the average retriever to learn to shake
water on command! However, all my dogs have learned that one. As was
said it's very useful.

My favorite in that regard was the mutt (i.e. of no identifiable breed--the
closest one could narrow it down to was that it wasn't a cat) that learned
a command that sounded an awful lot like "sit". He didn't know or do "sit"
but sometimes if someone told him to "sit" he'd do the command that he did
know.

************************************************** ***
It's not the milk and honey we hate. It's having it
rammed down our throats.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)