Rocky
Rocky was my dog in the mid 80s. He was a springer spaniel.
A coworker came up to me one day saying "your a dog person right?" I was once again living by myself, this time in a home I owned. She said she had a dog that needed a good home. I had a home that needed a good dog. The next day she brought the dog to work. I took him home that night.
It was obvious that he had never been in a house. He entered very cautiously. He didn't know how to climb a staircase. He didn't understand his boundaries. But that first night he convinced me what an extraordinary dog I had. I left a steak on the cutting board and left the room. A few minutes later I heard a plop. It was my steak hitting the floor. A natural thing for a dog that had been living on his own and getting by. I yelled "NO" from the other room, sure that I was learning an expensive lesson and my new dog was having the meal of his life. When I returned to the kitchen Rocky was sitting just staring at the steak. He had listened to me and despite the massive self control he was resisting the steak. That was a 'good boy'. He didn't get the steak but he was lavished with "Dairy queens" my fun term for ice cubes.
I never give a dog people food. The exception being a small piece of cheese on very special occasions. To create that small piece of cheese I used one of those metal cheese cutters with the wire and roller. The device, when shook, made a tiny metallic rattling noise. Whenever I got that cheese cutter out the small noise had the dog come running. I lived in a rural area where " rocky was free to run. No matter how far he roamed, rattling that cheese cutter was his signal to come now. And he always did.
More on rocky at a later date. This blog is supposed t be about Breck.
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