I remember the words, but I don’t understand.
I never liked that episode of Star Trek: TNG, and now I’m living it with Sparky. He’s a smart dog and, at 9 years old, had a lifetime of experience. He seems to be operating in good faith and wants us to be friends. Where ever he came from, they had routines. I don’t know what those routines were and have different expectations.
We started training with a few basic commands. If I look at him and talk, he comes over and sits down. He may not understand anything, but that is 2 out of 3 of the commands we covered, so there is a good chance that he’ll get a treat.
He is about 50/50 on getting “Lay down” right and when he does, it looks awkward and unnatural, like he forgot where his legs go.
“Crate” has been tough. At first, he acted like it meant “go 10 feet away, and turn right”. That worked the first couple of times we tried it, but not if we started somewhere else. Eventually, he figured it out, but recently, he seems to think it means “run around the house and get to the patio door as fast as possible.” I don’t now if he’s screwing with me or trying to tell me something.
When I lived in Spain, I spent time with people from all over Europe. Most didn’t speak English, while I spoke a little German and rudimentary Spanish. I found that conversation had to be concise and pretty basic. Witty word play or complexity was out. Sparky is smart and opinionated. Sometimes, I think he’s trying to mix it up for fun or thinks that I’m offering him suggestions. If we had 30 seconds of communication, we could clarify our signals and this would all go easier.
