THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING YOUR HUMAN

Wiley's first photo.

I was recently reminded by Olivia, that it has been exactly one year since she and Mike adopted that bundle of silver mischief named Wiley.  As with all of the best things in life, it is hard to imagine our lives without him in it...and not just because of the disposable income that was lost because of him.  (It is a pretty impressive amount though, if one calculates how much money it cost to feed a pup who originally, weighed in at 13 lbs. and who now, tips the scales at 80.)  It isn't even because of all the extra-time we would have had, had we not been carrying ladders through 3 feet of snow in the middle of winter, in order to climb over the neighbor's wrought iron fence to free him after he catapulted over a mountain of snow, and got trapped beside her in-ground pool.  No, it is because of all the joy and laughter that he has brought into our lives, as well as his ability to give unconditional love and comfort; the gift that God so cleverly endowed all dogs with, in order to make up for all the trouble that they get into. 

I can still remember, quite vividly, the first time that I met Wiley, when Olivia and I made the trek to St. John, Michigan, in order to bring him home.  Mike and Olivia had planned on picking him up together, but since Mike had to work unexpectedly, I happily agreed to go in his stead.  Although they had already chosen Wiley beforehand, Wiley was unaware of this, and did his best to enlighten us as to the wisdom of selecting him.  To facilitate this, when I sat down on a step to pet him, he grabbed my purse and made off with it in the direction of our car.  He seemed pleased with himself, that he had chosen humans he could so easily educate, and sat patiently, with tail all a’ waggle, as we opened the back of van to place him in the kennel we had brought along for the ride home.  There was a moment of quiet as Olivia and I made our way to the front of the van and got in, but that abruptly came to an end as I began backing out of the driveway.  What we heard next was a veritable cacophony of sounds, previously unknown to all of mankind, that Wiley emitted in protest at having to sit in a kennel in the back, rather than on Olivia's lap as he had anticipated.  I had only made it to the end of the driveway when I was ready to pull over and bring him up front, but Mike had stressed to Olivia, the importance of never allowing a puppy's misbehavior to dictate whether he stayed in a kennel or not.  For this reason, I drove at least five or six feet down the road before I insisted that Olivia call Mike to tell him that Wiley was an unusually savvy dictator who would now be riding up front with us. 

Mike responded with a rousing tutorial on the virtues of consistency in training, designed to bolster our flagging resolve to keep Wiley in his kennel.  I am sure it would have been successful too, had it not been all of  the wailing, crying, howling, whimpering and  barking, that was emanating from the back of the van, which prevented us from actually hearing any of it.  

Wiley's most recent photo.

It took approximately five minutes before Wiley was able to train us to let him sit in the front of the car on Olivia's lap, which, I think, demonstrated a remarkable amount of discipline and resolve on both Wiley's part and ours.  Obviously, we were meant to be together.  ~Blessings, Amycita~