Run Away Chair

Today when I transferred to my car, I laid back in my seat to buckle my seat belt and break down my chair and when I sat up, my chair was rolling away. Rolling, rolling out of reach and then twisted half way around my bumper and stopped. In my old life I would have sat there swearing at myself and I'd eventually intentionally fall out of the car, then do the butt scoot to my chair. I'd scoot and drag my chair, scoot and drag all the way to the ramp in the garage. Scoot up the ramp while guiding my chair along the garage floor alongside me so that I eventually ended up at the top of the ramp and my chair would be below me at butt level. Then I'd transfer down into it. It took me about ten years to figure out that I could get back in my chair from the ramp. Where I would have otherwise scoot or army crawl to the couch, toss the cushions on the floor, stacking, scooting onto a cushion, then stack and scoot until I eventually fell into the cushionless couch an hour later. Then I'd have to restack all the cushions and hope that I could transfer into my chair from the smooshy couch which didn't give much support. Often I just took a nap for another hour or wait for someone to come home. "Me?, Oh I'm just watching a little tv, that's all."

Cussing was always involved. Back to the garage: then I'd have to change my clothes and I'd be pissy because I had just put a half mile on my expensive pockets. I know, no one sees my pockets, but it makes me feel so much sharper than a pair of Gap jeans.

In my new world, I can call my dog! Yay! Dog, dog wonderful dog. Today I had two dogs in the car with me. again after ten years, I finally figure out a solution to my frustrations. Deacon, sweet pet dog, just wants to please you,but has the most incredibly irritating bark. Yip yip chalkboard yip is unbearable in the acoustic garage. So I yell at him to BE TWIET! Um duh, all he wants is to go with you. So now our morning routine is to load up Deacon when Tadaki loads up. I pull out of the garage and Deacon jumps from the back, to the back seat to the front. He jumps across me and I say, "Have a good day," as he runs into the garage and I close the door. Everybody is happy and no one yells.

A couple weeks ago I tried to have Tadaki jump from the back to the back seat to see if he would be able to drag me from a burning car or rescue me from an icy river. Not. He wouldn't make the jump from seat to seat. J.D. took the middle headrest out and now there is a big enough space for him to jump through. I got to try it today.

"Tadaki, STAND. Tadaki, JUMP, don't, JUMP, He did it! Yay! he was kind of tentative but he eventually made his way to me and out the car door. "Tadaki, GET the chair."

Huh?

"GET, the chair." Pointing, pointing.

Huh?

"GET, the chair." Then we played a little Hot and Cold game. He started walking toward the chair. "Good Boy, that's it. That's it, No, don't."

Huh?

Maybe it would be faster (of course I was late) if I just did the scoot thing. Start over.

"Tadaki, HERE. SIT. Good boy. Tadaki, GET, the chair."

Again the Hot and Cold game. "Good boy, that's it, that's it. Good Boy! Yay!" Since this was very unfair to expect him to do something so totally foreign to him. Really, what is a chair? But he found a little two-inch tug strap on my little pouch in the front of my chair and started pulling it to me. "This dog is freaking AMAZING!" And he is inching his way toward me from about 10-feet way.

Have you noticed the camber to my wheels? They slant inward so that I can make sharp pivots. It also makes the chair pull in a circle. Poor Tadaki dog is going in a circle. He's a little confused because knows he's not going to succeed so he drops the tug. But it's only four feet away by now. Here is my fatal flaw in making this a bad experience for him. It flashed through my mind that all I had to do was take his leash off him, lasso the chair and pull it to me. But no, I have to prove what a smart dog he is. So I have him try again and again, and again, and again. Stop! Call him back, SIT, Good boy. GET, the chair..... on and on.

He ends up on strike and looks at me like I'm the stupid human. Duh. Ok, so he's right. I call him back into the car. I open the garage door, start the engine and I back up the car four feet and grab my chair.

Lessons I've been taught and just now remembered.

• Make the command so he can succeed. Close is good enough in chair retrieval. Grab the chair if it is four feet away and call it a success. 
• Work with him to jump from the back to the back seat so he knows that he isn't in trouble by doing it.
• Put the brakes on the chair so it won't roll away, stupidhead.
• Stop all training sessions after about five minutes. The poor guy was exhausted. I can now understand that he was saying, "Are you freaking nuts? The chair is going in a CIRCLE! There is no straight line from chair to stupid human!" and "I just want ot make you happy."

He is an AWESOME dog!