July 24, 2008

Every once in a while when I'm sitting by the front window, someone comes up and curls their hand into a fist, and they knock on the door. This causes one of the People--usually the Woman--to get off their lazy ass tushy and open it for them.

This got me to thinking. People are trained to respond to knocking. Well trained, it seems. Given this very nearly Pavlovian (Pavlov tricked dogs into drooling, you know; I'm not sure why he thought it was funny, but I think I would have liked to have seen him do it) response, it made me think.

So this morning, I jumped up on the bed, curled my paw into a tiny fist, and instead of punching the Woman in an eye, I knocked on her forehead.

Holy carp, it worked!

Her eyes fluttered open, she sucked in a deep breath, and said "Well, good morning." Then I sat down and said "I'm hungry," and she said, "Give me a minute, ok?"

So I was very polite, I gave her a minute and then accompanied her to the giant litter box room and helped her take her drugs, and then she actually went downstairs and fed us!

Granted, this is a little less fun than punching her in the eye (you learn less fun words, too) but it works! And it proves that People are a little closer to dogs than previously thought, given how trainable the apparently are.

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