I know I am repeating myself, but I’ll do so anyway: Toby the Puppy is the smartest canine God ever created.

He demonstrate this morning what I mean.

We had a visitor early today. Our younger son stopped by at the start of his day to have a cup of coffee and a pastry with his mother and me.

I told Toby about 20 minutes before our son’s arrival to be sure “not to bark. It’s going to be your “brother,” and when he knocks on the door, you don’t need to bark. Have you got that?” That pretty much repeats what I told him.

I mentioned it to Toby because the drill usually goes something like this: When my wife and I are inside our residence, Toby barks at the knock on the door; when either of us is coming into our place, Toby knows instinctively its either his “mother” or me. He doesn’t bark.

Today, when our son knocked on the door … Toby was quiet. He didn’t bark. He wagged his tail and when his “brother” walked in, Toby delivered the requisite licks — and then brought one of his fetch toys for our son to throw for Toby to retrieve.

What staggers me at this moment as I recall this bit of brilliance from our puppy is that I spoke to him in complete sentences, kind of like the way Lassie’s family talked to her, or the way Flipper the fish, er, dolphin would receive instructions on how to save a boater from disaster.

I’m tellin’ ya, this puppy continues to amaze me every single day.