RIGHT!

Sailor here.

Mom says the Old Man is Snoring.

I am snoring. I am bored snoring. We can’t go out and play in the mud. We can’t go out and splash in the puddles. We can’t go out. Mom says it’s because of the Old Man.

I am the Old Man! I should decide!

Jib says that HE is the Old Man and what’s an old man? But he wants to decide.

Mom decides. She is the only one around here who can open doors. (More than I want my testicles back, I want opposable thumbs. Mom says good luck with that one, too.)

Mom didn’t open any doors. Instead she decided to play indoor games with us. First she put me in a Sit-Stay and took Jibby into the other room. She came back and gave me a cookie when she saw my butt was still on the floor. Jib didn’t get any cookies.

Then she put me in my crate and took Jib into the other room. I whined. I could hear him trying to score cookies. I whined some more.

Mom kept saying, “RIGHT!” to Jib and I bet he got lots of cookies. She usually clicks her tongue or my clicker or says, “YES!” when we are right, but today it was “RIGHT!” for some reason. And I bet that Jib got lots of cookies.

“You’ll have your turn soon, Sailor,” Mom called. She closed the door so I couldn’t hear Jib being right all the time.

I settled down and listened to the Old Man. He wasn’t snoring but he was throwing water against the windows.

Mom came in and woke me up. She put Jib in his crate and took me into the other room. Jib yelled, “NO! NO! Me,me,me!” until he got tired of this and then went to sleep.

Mom let me smell the cookies in her pocket. She smiled. She put my Go-Out lid across the room. “Go out!“ she said excitedly. I went out toward the lid. “Sit!” she said, and I turned around. And sat. Right there. Near the disk. I got lots of cookies.

Then she set up a small agility jump. She stood behind me. She said, “GO!” I know GO, too. I went. And as soon as my front feet got ready to leave the ground, she threw a cookie (a BIG cookie) sideways and said, “RIGHT!”

Huh? What does that mean? I thought about this as I went over the jump. When I landed, I turned on a dime and got the cookie. Mom said “Good Dog” and gave me a pat when I came back to her.

Mom and I did this some more times, as many times as I have toes on my front feet. And suddenly the light bulb went off.

RIGHT! I get it. RIGHT! I am RIGHT!

Now I turn right when she calls, “RIGHT!”

Mom says this will come in handy in agility class when I go over the A-frame and have to turn away from her into a tunnel. Actually, I don’t go over the A-frame, it’s too scary, but I know what she means.

And Mom says that if the lawn ever dries out, she will set up a jumping box outside with my agility jumps and show me how to turn RIGHT in different ways. I can hardly wait. I love cookies. But for now we can practice indoors. Mom will say RIGHT and throw a cookie and I will jump and run and turn RIGHT and get the cookie.

I love indoor agility. Especially when I learn something new. I got many cookies today and learned how to be RIGHT.

And Jib didn’t get as many cookies as I thought.