antici...

[boxofdelights]

sasha_feather asked for a picture of my dog for More Joy Day, but first I had to find the camera, and then I had to charge the camera...



This is Aiko, and that's Aiko's dinner. Aiko is looking for eye contact, because I don't say "break" unless we have eye contact, and he doesn't get to eat his dinner until I say "break". He learned this game very quickly. Aiko, who was raised in the home of a dog breeder, likes to do what the other dogs are doing. When I got him I had two other dogs; since they sat and waited for permission to go to their bowls, he sat and waited for permission to go to his bowl. It only took a few corrections for him to learn to get up, not when the other dog gets up, but when I say "Aiko, break."

He is an only dog now, so I don't need to do crowd control at mealtime, but this is still good practice.

Comments

[amaebi]

I love Aiko, and I love still more what you've done for him. :)

[jesse_the_k]

He has such a soulful face. I can imagine him scratching out canine love poetry with his nails when he finds dirt of the correct texture.

[boxofdelights]

His eyes do speak most eloquently of love. Especially at dinnertime.

[amaebi]

The way to a dog's heart-- is actually through being reliable, preferably reliably nurturing, I think. :)

Unless you're a heartworm, of course.

[boxofdelights]

In which case it is through his stomach. :P

[amaebi]

(cordially) Just so. :)

[malkingrey]

The collie dog my family had when I was a kid would only eat after my father gave him permission. The permission was always, "You may eat, sir."

It was very like my father to be clear on the can/may distinction, and to be punctiliously polite even to the dog. (My father was definitely of the "a gentleman is never unintentionally rude to someone" persuasion.)

[boxofdelights]

I bet your collie learned to be gentlemanly too.

[malkingrey]

He was a wonderful dog. (The dog you have when you're not yet in first grade is always a wonderful dog.)

[loligo]

OMG, that face -- with the nose! and the ears! He looks like a big sweetheart.

[sasha_feather]

How beautiful! And what a nice name. Thanks for posting this!

[laurajv]

Heh. Oh, dogs. I love using older dogs to train younger ones. My husband is resistant to getting a second dog, and I keep saying "look, I grew up with dogs. Training them is 100x easier if you have an older dog to do the heavy lifting!"

(Our own dog was trained by my mother's German Shepherd, a sweet soul named Loki, who in turn was trained by the dog-of-my-heart, the dog I still blink back tears from missing, 10 years after she died. That dog, my precious dog, was the last dog anyone in my family had to train from the ground up with no older dog to help.)