{"id":7999,"date":"2015-01-26T03:04:41","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T03:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7999"},"modified":"2015-01-26T03:04:41","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T03:04:41","slug":"puppy-tales-part-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7999","title":{"rendered":"Puppy tales, Part 10"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Some time\u00a0ago I promised I&#8217;d scale back the messages about our new dog, Toby.<\/p>\n<p>A new development has occurred. It&#8217;s all good, and it&#8217;s worth sharing. Perhaps other dog owners out there can relate.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve mentioned in a previous blog &#8212; or perhaps two &#8212;\u00a0that Toby is a pretty smart little guy.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out he\u00a0understands English quite nicely. So, with that, my wife and I have been forced now to spell certain words out rather than just say them. You know, kind of like the way new parents do with their <em>children &#8212; <\/em>and just as we did with ours.<\/p>\n<p>Toby know the words &#8220;walk,&#8221; &#8220;treat,&#8221; and &#8220;ride.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If we blurt out &#8220;walk&#8221; within Toby&#8217;s earshot, he jumps up and starts running around the entry-way doorknob where we keep his leash. We get a similar response to the word &#8220;treat.&#8221; His ears perk up and he runs into the kitchen where we keep his bag of snacks. And, of course, the same thing goes for &#8220;ride.&#8221; Since he loves riding in either of our vehicles, he heads for the leash.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, we have to spell these words out now if we say them in a context not relating to Toby&#8217;s activities.<\/p>\n<p>My wife and I only <em>thought<\/em> our nest was empty when the younger of our two sons went off to college those many years ago.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not going to bet against our dog learning more words that will keep us on our toes. For all we know, he might even learn to <em>speak<\/em> them.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some time\u00a0ago I promised I&#8217;d scale back the messages about our new dog, Toby. A new development has occurred. It&#8217;s all good, and it&#8217;s worth sharing. Perhaps other dog owners out there can relate. I&#8217;ve mentioned in a previous blog &#8212; or perhaps two &#8212;\u00a0that Toby is a pretty smart little guy. It turns out &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7999\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Puppy tales, Part 10<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1411,1412,3565],"class_list":["post-7999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dogs","tag-dogs-and-cats","tag-pet-ownership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}