How to Walk Dogs Backwards

Stella asked how we manage to walk three dogs, backwards, while filming, as seen in the video on the previous post.

It's easy. I am a marvellous dog trainer. I wish I could share my secrets with you, but really it is an inborn talent. A gift. Like charisma, this can't be taught or learned, it just is.

the end-
Patience

Who's training whom????

[Sam I Am here. I've distracted the Dear Servant momentarily. (No great challenge there, bless her heart. As the humans say in these parts. It translates into: the woman hasn't got a single bone to chew on.) We let her think that she has some magical gift of whatever she was talking about. It makes her feel good about herself, and honestly she has so little to feel good about that every little bit helps.

Here is the real scoop. The Elders tell me that in the Olden Times they all walked together in fields and woods full of every sort of delectable vermin. They speak of fox, groundhogs, bunnies, evil squirrellies, and something magical called deer. Of course the Elders knew that the Servant was crippled, blind, and senseless, so they would allow her to tether herself to them so she wouldn't get lost. As clumsy as she was, even back in her relative youth, more often than not she would land with an 'ooph' on her bouncy belly whenever the vermin were sighted.

A large, gelatinous, human anchor. Screaming obscenities with her face in the mud. (Makes me giggle just a little bit to think of it. Silly human.)

Here and now we walk in this city. No fields, unless she drives us to the Kennel Club. No fox, no groundhogs, no magical deer. (I sure would like to chase one of those one day; they sound great!) Plenty of Evil City Squirrellies who show no respect, Evil C.A.T.s who are V.I.L.E., loose dogs who are danger-danger-dangerous, and lots of cars and trucks.

She doesn't walk us all at once any more. She makes us take Turns. I get two turns because I have taken my Great Uncle Giacomino's place and she can't stand to be away from me for a minute and a half. When it's not our Turn we wait in our Dog Room and get a biscuit and howl our heads off to let her know how stinky not-our- Turns are.

It's taken us eight years, but we finally trained her. She used to (close your ears, Dogs, this is for the humans only) jerk on our necks and froth at the mouth and yell something which made no sense like nonobaddogs or some such unintelligible nonsense. Of course we payed absolutely NO attention to this demonstration of human stupidity; we barked louder and pulled harder. REALLY! I mean. She's not a bad human, but, sigh, she is a human.

One day she had a treat in her pocket. We were dutifully alerting her to the danger of a horrid, rabid, stinkypoopbutt C.A.T. at the top of our lungs and she was getting ready to behave badly. I said, "Hey Idiot Servant! You have treats in your pocket. They might be more interesting than that ol' stinkypoopbutt C.A.T."

She didn't get it (no surprise) so I bumped her pocket with my wonderful long skinny nose.

HELLO!!! LIGHTBULB!!! The human thinks she has a GREAT IDEA!!! Don't you just love them? So now our walks are a treat a minute. We don't pull her? We get a treat. We don't bark our heads off? We get more treats. Treats treats treats!!!

Yah, life is good. We can still bark our heads off at anything we want when we're in our Yard. Unless she's near the Flying Object Of Doom (she calls it the plastic watering can). Then we just run to her instead, and... GET TREATS!!! They are so easy to train if you are consistent and get on their level.


goose your humans-

Sam I Am]